Just spent the past two days in Austin, TX and more importantly at Pipe World. Excellent pipe shop! Great selection of pipes and tobaccos. Cael, the manager, is a wealth of knowledge and a super nice guy. I picked up a couple of rare tins and a vintage (1960s) Dunhill lighter. Thanks @pylorns letting me know about this place.
When traveling I love to stop at local tobacco B&M's. It is fun to find tins of older or hard to find blends. I often struggle with identification of bulk tobacco. I find many shops sell relabeled bulk stock with their own name for the product. How do others evaluate bulk tobacco?
@Danfriedman@PappyJoe also has a great site: pappyjoesblog.com. It is well written and very informative. There is also a category titled: Pappy's Tobacco Reviews that you might find interesting as well...
@jfreedy I appreciate your response. Staff are what makes or breaks a shop. I am still learning how to translate a vague description and the smell of the jar into an educated guess on how it will smoke.
@riobrusa - I've heard about a place called Pipe & Pouch in Orlando. Do you have any information on it? I understand they have cigars but also do a lot of vaping type stuff.
Tomorrow I'm heading to a suburb of Chicago, Tinley Park. I've been to Iwan Ries and will hopefully get to go back there this week, but are there other pipe shops in the area that I should visit while in Chicagoland? Looks like it's mostly glass pipe/ vape shops.
Sorry @jfreedy I don't know much about the "state" of Chicago. I found the same problem when we visited our son in Vegas. Mostly head shops and vapors... Makes me appreciate places like P&C more and more...
@PappyJoe My friend, never hear about this store. There are many Smoking shops here but they sell only OC tobacco and cheap pipes. For cigars, is different, because there are a big and good one named Corona Cigars and also they don't sell pipes and the pipe tobacco selection is very small.
@mapletop - I'm in Tinley Park now & you're right... not much here. I'd even settle for a nice cigar bar just to be able to sit down and smoke a bowl. It's too cold to do much outside. Iwan Ries is a pretty special place. When I was in Chicago this summer it was less than a mile from my hotel. Oh how I wish that were he case this time!
@mapletop - Well, I found a cigar lounge, Habano Cigars Lounge, in Tinley Park that let me smoke my pipe. They normally charge pipe smokers $10 to smoke, but since I was traveling they let me smoke there for free. BONUS!!
@riobrusa - It must have come and gone in a couple of years.
@motie2 - By definition, a local tobacco pipe shop is a pipe shop within reasonable driving distance from your residence. For others is may be a pipe shop specializing in plumbing fixtures for household and commercial usages. None of these are the type of local "pipe" shops that could help with your problem.
Toronto! @jfreedy .What in the world did you lose in Toronto? You need to have a talk with your scheduler. This is the wrong time of the year to be going there... 😬
@KA9FFJ — couldn’t agree more! Seems like my cold weather clients always want me to visit them during the winter. Since November I’ve been to Rhode Island, Chicago & Denver... and now Canada! My South Texas clients will probably want me back in August! 😬
Comments
How do others evaluate bulk tobacco?
There is also a category titled: Pappy's Tobacco Reviews that you might find interesting as well...
My friend, never hear about this store. There are many Smoking shops here but they sell only OC tobacco and cheap pipes. For cigars, is different, because there are a big and good one named Corona Cigars and also they don't sell pipes and the pipe tobacco selection is very small.
Also: What's a "local pipe shop?"
@motie2 - By definition, a local tobacco pipe shop is a pipe shop within reasonable driving distance from your residence. For others is may be a pipe shop specializing in plumbing fixtures for household and commercial usages. None of these are the type of local "pipe" shops that could help with your problem.
I am heading to Madrid next week. Anything pipe related I need to know about Spain?