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Glossary of Pipes and Tobaccos

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Aging: The process of mellowing tobacco that has been cured by storing. Air-Curing: The process of curing tobacco in barns by controlled ventilation rather than by use of artificial heat. Most of the tobaccos front Virginia, Kentucky and Maryland are air-cured. Air-Drying: The process of drying tobacco by the use of natural air. Bent: A pipe with a round bowl into which the shank is fitted at a 45 angle and joined to a stein that is quite noticeably curved. Bit: The part of the pipe stem that fits in the mouth. Boer: A pipe with a thick shank. Bowl: That part of the white heather tree called burl and used for the manufacture of briar pipes. The Mediterranean yields highly prized briar. Briar: King of pipes. From the wood of the white heath. Bulldog: A square -shanked pipe, Squat and solid-looking, the pipe employs a saddle-type bit and a square stem the length of the bowl and shank. Burley: Usually refers to white Burley, though Red, Twist Bud, and other varieties were once popular. Burley is an air-cured tobacco suited to pipe blends, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee are leading Burley producers. Calabash: A bowl of meerschaum--or occasionally clay--set into the bulbous part of a specially prepared gourd, which has been fitted with a mouthpiece. Calumet: The Indian peace pipe. Cavendish: Tobacco that has been treated with a sweetening agent, Cavendish is most often Virginia leaf. Churchwarden: An English clay pipe with a stem of unusual length. Clay: A clay pipe. Clays have been manufactured since the North American Indians discovered that clay—lends itself readily to pipe making. Club: A short-stemmed pipe with a round bowl and a long, oval, shank. Cure: The means by which the natural sap in tobaccos is removed. Flues, fires, and the heat from the sun may be used. Curve: A pipe with a completely curved stem. Dark shag: A tobacco, processed in bars, that is heated before being cut. Dottle: The unburned tobacco that cakes in a bowl. Ferrule: The metal ring or band around the pipe's shank. Filter: An alluminium device, cloth pad, cotton wool tube, or similar device inserted in the pipe to trap nicotine and tars. Fine cut: Tobacco that has been finely shredded; Usually smokes quickly and hot. Fire curing: One of the oldest methods of curing tobacco, it is a means of using smoke to dry tobacco. Flake: Tobacco cut into fine, though irregular pieces that smoke fast. Gourd: The vegetable used in the manufacture of calabash pipes. Heel: The bottom, or base, of the inside of a pipe bowl. Hookah: A water-cooled pipe. Hookah means round box or casket. Hookah may also refer to the tobacco. Latakia: An open-fired-cured tobacco from Syria that is one of the most popular flavoring agents used in pipe blends. It is dark in color and distinctive in taste. Leaf: Tobacco as it appears before entering advanced manufacturing process. Also, upper leaves of the plant. Meerschaum: A mineral substance that is carved into pipes. Meerschaum pipes: Pipes made from meerschaum, they are prized for their light weight and coloring qualities, Missouri Meerschaum: Slang for a pipe made from a corncob. Mouthpiece: Another word for bit, often used by the British. Narghile (or Nargileh): A word now used to refer to almost any of the water pipes popular in Persia, East Africa or the East Indies. The word means coconut, which is the material of the vessel used to contain the water through which the smoke is filtered. Navy Plug: A grade of slightly sweetened Burley. Also called calumet. Perique: A Louisiana tobacco with the strongest flavor of any currently grown. It is cured in its own juices and widely used in flavoring aromatic pipe tobaccos. Prince of Wales: A pipe with a short, fat bowl and a gently curved stem and shank that gives the pipe a graceful look. Shag: A finely shredded, coarse tobacco found in man commercial pipe blends. Shank: The element of the pipe that connects bowl and stem. Smyrna: A popular Turkish tobacco used for flavoring pipe tobacco blends. Stem: That part of the pipe that connects shank with bit. It is sometimes mistakenly called the mouthpiece. Tenon: That part of the pipe stem that projects to fit into the shank, forming an airtight joint. Turkish: The air-cured tobaccos from Turkey used in the blending of pipe and other tobaccos.

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