Peterson Sherlock Holmes Lestrade Ebony Tobacco Pipe PLIP

When I first examined the new ebony ‘Lestrade’ I was a bit concerned about the draught hole particularly how high above the chamber bottom it was drilled. This being the fullest bent pipe I have bought to date, I had know idea what to think other than it must be a flawed pipe! Passing a cleaner thru my two Deluxe 999’s isn’t nearly as smooth as my straight Deluxe 105 or ‘Squire’ so I wasn’t expecting the tenon end of the draught hole to be anywhere close to center. And it wasn’t and it can’t physically be. Not when drilling a straight line thru a deeply curved shank. I spent a fair amount of time looking up conversations and observations of this scenario. In a nut shell, high end makers can spend more time finessing the task of drilling the draught hole on a full bend. I pulled out a couple of my bent Ser Jacopo’s and they had perfect placements. The chamber holes exited just a hair above the floor and on the tenon end although off center a ramp is worked into the briar so that a cleaner will be smoothly directed into the draught. Now with factory pipes, and this applies to every make, the time needed for these fine tuning steps are left out. Many people believe a high draught hole in the chamber will lead to a lesser smoke and space in the tenon section will cause gurgling, which it does. Many of these critics will advise you to return and or forget about a factory full bent. It’s going to gurgle and you’ll always have un burned soggy tobacco at the bottom of the bowl. I nearly returned my ebony Lestrade, after all $200 could be well used on many a fine pipe. But nevertheless, I wanted this shape and I was somewhat curious about how it would smoke. After all it has all the traits of a ‘poorly made’ factory pipe. So I filled it up completely to the top with Loch Ness and lit it up. After 5 minutes or so of a satisfying chooch I noticed the first signs of gurgle. I puffed a little more vigorously and there it was. My normal technique for dealing with gurgle is to place a tissue over the nib and give it a couple good swift pulls. The evidence and culprit is caught in the tissue not my mouth. I only had to do this once. The rest of the bowl smoked beautifully and what was really pleasing was at the end of the run all the tobacco was ash with no moisture. Granted the tobacco has more to do with this but nevertheless all of the warnings and criticisms proved to be absolutely false. The exception was the gurgle, but it only happened once and early on. I’ll try a Virginia forward or flake next just to see what happens, but if all I ever chooch in this pipe is a dry Baltic/English style then I’m more than happy. In fact before I clicked the buy button I already figured it would most likely be an English blend pipe. So I’m here to say with first hand experience that given the telltale signs of imperfections that plague full bent shapes coming out of a factory, the one I got smokes great. Im glad I went for it and didn’t return it.