Mr. Bill's Pipe & Tobacco Company

THE SMOKER'S DICTIONARY - N to Z

THE SMOKER?S DICTIONARY Part Two NARGILEH:  The Persian name for a water pipe is derived from the word "nargelh," , meaning a coconut, from which early water pipes may have been made.   NICOTIANA:  The generic botanical name for tobacco.   It comes from Jean Nicot, French ambassador to the court of Portugal in 1560, where he encountered tobacco, and became its enthusiastic proponent as a medicine.   NICOTINE: The active ingredient in tobacco, also takes its name from Jean Nicot.   OOM PAUL:  A thickset, steeply curved briar pipe shape, taking its name from Oom Paul Kruger, famous leader of the South African Boers.   ORDER:  To bring tobacco to the proper moisture content, "Good order" means soft texture that can be handled without crumbling.  For uniformity, moisture is added in large, rotating drums.   PACK:  To fill a pipe with tobacco.  Do it firmly, but leave plen­ty of spring in the tobacco so that it will draw freely.   PEAR:  A Popular briar pipe shape, somewhat stubby, with a rounded, slightly pear shaped bowl at an obtuse angle from the stem.   PERIQUE:  A rare, costly tobacco grown and cured only in the St. James Parish of Louisiana.  Prized for its rich and unique aroma.   POKER:  Still another classic briar pipe shape.   It is of medium length, with a straight sided bowl set at a right angle to shank and stem.   POT: Somewhat stubby briar pipe with short shank and mouthpiece, bowl at right angle.   POUCH:  A sack or envelope for carrying tobacco in the pocket.  These come in a tremendous variety of materials, shapes and prices.  You'll find them made with zippers, draw strings, and wrap around closing, with built-in pipe compartments, and every conceivable kind of decoration.   PRINCE:  An unusual briar pipe shape with low, wide bowl and slightly curved shank and stem.   PUFF:   Means to draw on a pipe.  Puff gently, slowly to keep from overheating your pipe, and most of all to get the leisurely joy of pipe smoking.   RACK:  Pipe racks are almost as varied as tobacco pouches.  Their purpose is to hold your pipes in a vertical position to cool and dry properly between smokes.   READY-RUBBED:  This term describes that the blend is ready to be filled into the pipe, and originates from the time when pipe smokers used to rub their sliced tobaccos between their palms to the desired texture for packing their pipes.   REAM:  To remove excess cake from the inside of a pipe bowl.  This can be done with a knife blade, but a special reaming tool is far better and safer, and costs little.  The tool presses evenly against the sides of the bowl as you turn it, assuring a uniform cake, and with no danger of splitting the bowl or cutting your fingers.   RED VIRGINIA:  This distinctively red colored leaf is a rare variety of traditional Virginia tobacco.  Full bodied and favorable, it adds contrast and beauty to many tobacco blends.   RIBBON CUT:   Tobacco singly cut into long "ribbons" of any desired width.  This improves the burning qualities of lighter type tobacco.   SAND BLAST:  A method of finishing briar pipe bowls.  It gives them an interesting texture, makes them lighter and keeps them cooler.   SHAG:  A special, rough cut tobacco - shaggy as its name sug­gests.  Liked by many smokers for the way it packs and burns.   SHANK: The straight or curved part of the pipe which forms one piece with the bowl.  Sometimes called the stem, though the latter is also used to describe the separate bit or mouthpiece.   SLICED:  Tobacco that is blended, cased and flavored, then formed into cakes under tremendous pressure and finally sliced with an extremely sharp knife.  You can crumble the slices readi­ly into the exact coarseness you like for your pipe.     SPILL:  A twist of paper formerly used to light pipes in the days when matches were still expensive.   STEM:   May be used as  a synonym for shank, but more often used for separate bit or mouthpiece.   STRIPS:  Tobacco that has been stripped from leaf stems.   TAMPER:   An instrument for pressing down tobacco in a pipe bowl, especially when a pipe is being relighted, and the tobacco is too hot for comfortable finger tamping.  Formerly called a stopple.  Early stopples were usually clay.  Modern tampers are usually metal.   TOOMBAK:  A heavily aromatic mixture used in oriental water pipes.  Apt to include aloe, even opium or hashish along with tobacco.   TRAP:   A metal tube, trough or arrangement of baffles inserted between the shank and the stem of a pipe to condense moisture in smoke. Liked by many smokers, disliked by others.   TURKISH:   A highly aromatic tobacco used to season some pipe blends, though more common in cigarettes.   It has a relatively small, greenish yellow leaf, and is low in nicotine.   TWIST:  Tobacco leaf twisted into a sort of rope, once a very popular way to sell tobacco, but now rare.   Cut or bitten off in chunks for chewing, shaved off with a knife for pipe smoking.   VIRGINIA:   General term for the many special varieties of tobacco which have developed from John Rolfe's first ex­periments with Spanish tobacco seed in the soil of old James Towne, some three and a half centuries ago.   Now grown in North and South Carolina as well as in Virginia.   You'll find a number of Virginia tobaccos lending special character to Mr. Bill?s blends.   WATER PIPE:  Probably invented in India, now very popular in North America.  Smoke bubbles through water on its way from the bowl to the mouth.   WOODSTOCK:  A straight form of briar pipe with bowl set at right angle to medium length shank and stem.  Joint between lat­ter is reinforced and decorated with metal band.

This article was published on Tuesday 17 October, 2006.