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Frustrating Folloder

US collector Jeff Folloder is known for outspoken and fastidious attitudes - and for generosity. A truly fanatic pipe lover, he has been one of the main contributors to the PIF project run by the Internet newsgroup ASP to supply needy pipesters with briar and baccy.

For this reason alone, the regime envisioned in the Pfeifenbox version of Desert Island Discs is unlikely to tolerate his freedom for very long. Few comforts accompany Jeff to the South Sea…

An anti-smoking government is banishing you to a desert island for your incorrigible baccy habit. You are allowed to take one pipe with you. It can be any piece in the world. Which would you choose?

JF: The one pipe, as in just? Good gosh the antis are a pain in the backside! I suppose many folks would choose their best grained pipe, or a cherished, sentimental selection. I would think that if it is going to come down to just one pipe for the rest of my life, then it would have to be the Talbert Halloween pipe called 'Mountain of Madness', from 2003. If I recall correctly, Trever 'killed' around a dozen blocks before he came upon this one. Trever's construction techniques have done nothing but get better (and I have been buying his pipes since he started in 1998), and this one provides a fantastic smoking experience. One of my favorite shapes is the bent billiard, and Trever started with a bent billiard and degenerated quickly [laughs]. I know that it is a great smoke and there is enough visual and tactile interest to keep me occupied for many years to come.

You are, of course, also granted an unlimited supply of a single blend. Which would it be?

JF: You know, I've been steadily putting away Escudo for many years. I'm up to something like 300 tins of the stuff. It's pretty good when new, but such a treat when aged. But it's like filet mignon. You just can't smoke it all of the time or you'll easily get spoiled and burned out. Something that I can smoke all of the time and not grow weary? I'll go with G.L. Pease's Abingdon. It's a rich English in the full Balkan style that is just plain comfortable to me. If I am to only have one, Mr. Pease gets the nod.

Arriving on the island, you realise the full depth of the authorities' sadism. They've given you the pipe you wanted, but the baccy they have supplied is the one blend with the potential to make you quit smoking immediately. Which is it?

JF: Oh great. I have encountered several blends in my time that have caused an almost violent, immediate revulsion. Sure there are the obvious ones that are derided by many like Erinmore (if so many people hate this stuff, why does everybody sell it?), but there are others that made me shudder such as Stone Pine Diogenes, Rum & Maple, and the Danish Mango & Vanilla. Tell you what... want to make sure that you've got a blend that will make me give it all up? Mix the four that I have mentioned together and put it in a cereal box. That'll do it.

(January 10, 2004)

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