Restorations

  HAPPY IPSD 2023! To celebrate IPSD, I’m delighted to offer you an in-depth conversation with with K&P’s Austin Quinlan, a craftsman of enormous talent and energy as well as some video links to Peterson documentaries. Austin and I met via the blog last year and since then we’ve back-and-forthed on favorite Petes, tobaccos, pipe design and his work as an artisan pipe maker. So light your pipe, grab your cuppa and enjoy! (Oh, and there's important news on the Pete Geek lighters at the end of the post.) How did you get into pipes? I’m a Dubliner, born and bred. I began smoking a pipe 13 years ago, in 2010. I had taken to reading Conan Doyle (big surprise there) and wondered what was so all-consuming about this pipe-smoking malarky that has the protagonist puffing away endlessly, and unable to solve any case without his trusty briar! Which was something I only ever thought about when, on the odd occasion, I would see a gentleman on the street pass me by and wonder what that intoxicatingly delicious aroma was coming from his pipe (which, now, upon reflection, could only have been Condor). So, I popped into JJ Fox across from Trinity College, and bought my first pipe. A Peterson (would you believe!?) Aran-stained straight billiard, and a tin of Sherlock Holmes burley tobacco, and that was it. Sold. Sign me up. Austin's Patent apple What followed was a love affair.  I think pipe smoking serves as an antithesis to modern life. It’s not fast, it’s not quick, pipes aren’t made with machines churning them out every second. They’re crafted things, made by people, with the intention of lasting many years, and many decades (as I write this, I’m smoking a Peterson Patent straight apple that’s 120 years old). And you need to stop for a second and take the time to smoke pipes, to pamper them to stay lit, and simply switch off from the fast-paced go-go-go modern world. It creates time to think, time to contemplate. And, moreover, it keeps craft alive. Craft is such a wonderful thing to behold, and when someone truly loves what they make, even more so. And we need to do everything we can to keep it alive. Also, there’s a hell of a lot of tasty tobacco out there to be smoked! What’s it like to be a pipe smoker in Ireland? There aren’t many pipe smokers here anymore. I imagine it was great when pipe smoking was so ubiquitous. Pipes and tobacco everywhere you looked. And of course, I wish they were as readily available as the once were, but how it is these days has also created an amazing network of close-knit pipe smokers who many count on as friends. Groups like the Pipe Smokers of Ireland, or the Peterson Pipe Notes community, where we all share our love of pipe smoking and Peterson pipes—where we get to experience the excitement of a new limited edition group pipe, or someone…