About smoke : an encyclopaedia of smoking.

  • Alfred Dunhill Ltd.
Date:
[approximately 1930]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: About smoke : an encyclopaedia of smoking. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    12/158 (page 8)
    LONDON - PARIS - NEW YORK conforming in its size and shape to the range and trend of the grain, as the carver’s chisel brings it to light. The outer portions, too, yield in the worker’s hands the handsome marking which is a characteristic of the Bruyere bowl, and distinguishes it from those cut from immature Briar. Much of the Briar that was used for pipe making thirty or forty years ago was actually Bruyere but, as the demand for root increased, the supply in accessible places was soon exhausted and the ordinary Briar of commerce is now often procured from plantations of but a few years’ growth. True dead-root Bruyere can now be found only in comparatively remote districts. It is becoming scarcer every year, and such is the difficulty and expense involved in obtaining the finest grade that Alfred Dunhill possesses a virtual monopoly The weight of every load is carefully checked A Room in the Dunhill Pipe Factory The colour of a Bruyere pipe is distinctive ; nothing but oil need be used in the polishing and finishing process. Immature Briar is nearly white, almost like pinewood. It contains sap, and if this sap is dried out by any seasoning process it leaves the wood porous. It is this difference that accounts for the fact, so readily recognised, that the cheap Briar pipe quickly becomes foul, whilst the dead-root Bruyere pipe can be smoked for years without losing its original sweetness. A common Briar pipe has to be seasoned by the Smoker at the cost of much discomfort. The dead-root Bruyere is seasoned by Nature, and the very first smoke is a revelation