Herriot Pipes Partially Sandblasted Poker w/ Boxwood Handmade Briar Pipe, New

Description

In 2003, one of France’s preeminent pipe luminaries, Erwin Van Hove, jubilantly proclaimed, “Hallelujah! One of the very best American artisans has recently settled on French soil.” Two decades later, Antoine Grenard, director of Chapuis-Comoy and president of the Confrérie des Maîtres-Pipiers de Saint-Claude, oversaw the induction of another artisan originally from the Anglophone world into its hallowed brotherhood. Van Hove was, of course, welcoming Trever Talbert. The Confrérie, on the other hand, was welcoming Chris Herriot. Parallels between the two are difficult to ignore; both were outsiders who laid down roots in France and, crucially, thrived by it. Both forged connections with the Francophone pipe community, developing friendships and associations that would help them lay the foundations of their respective brands. And both would build something on these foundations that garnered them significant national and international acclaim. In Herriot’s case, this meant apprenticing under Bruno Nuttens (himself a former student of Pierre Morel and Tom Eltang), spending several days each week laboring in Nuttens’ Charpey workshop, and the rest of his time in his own.

While one might think that Chris Herriot’s recent stays in Copenhagen, studying under the one and only Tom Eltang, might have influenced his design choices for this pipe, those who have been following Herriot’s career over the years will know that he’s no stranger to classic, Anglo-French shapes. In fact, they have been his bread and butter for a long time—an investment which, as can be seen here, has paid dividends when it comes to the quality of his output. While it is undoubtedly a good looking pipe, with a crisp, bird’s-eye blast and boxwood trim, a poker such as this one is perhaps most impressive in its engineering. Herriot’s rendition is a rather tall, stacked design, a genuine featherweight at just 28 grams, while also being perfectly balanced, ensuring it sits just as one would expect it to. There are plenty of things Eltang will have been able to school Herriot on during their time together; the makings of a good poker, on the other hand, is a class Herriot graduated from long before then.

Details:

Length: 5.2″ / 132.0mm

Bowl Width: 0.72 / 18.28mm

Bowl Depth: 1.69″ / 42.92mm

Weight: 0.9oz / 28g