Liam's Pipe Factory Tours - Chacom to Erik Nording

I’ve just arrived back from a sunny and informative trip where I was luckily enough to visit the Chacom and Erik Nording pipe factories. We flew into Geneva, then onto Denmark where, after a long journey, we finally arrived in Copenhagen - a beautiful city.

The tours started at the Erik Nording pipe factory where I got the chance to meet the legend himself; Mr Erik Nording. We were lucky enough to get the opportunity to watch the master at work as he carefully crafted one of his world-famous pipes right in front of us. It’s incredible to see everything that goes into making a pipe go from a simple block of briar to something quite magnificent. It really helps you understand why some of the pipes carry those larger price tags; some require extreme amounts of care and attention, and by buying one of these pipes you are guaranteed something which is truly incredible quality due to the time and skill which has gone into it. The tour of the factory started at 10am, and like any good tour, we were greeted with Danish beer… not the ideal breakfast but I didn’t want to be rude. Thousands of pipes filled the factory with a wave of colours and designs made with the best craftmanship; a pipe smokers dream. It was fasinating to experience the entire journey and really get to grips with the different crafts that some of the more unique pipes require.

The next day we were shown around Denmark by Erik Nording's son; Kanoud. He took us along the stunning streets of Denmark to the Danish pipe shop, one of the most famous pipe shops in the world. With more than 5,000 pipes stocked here this really was impressive. Any pipe you could name, they had it, I had to resist not buying a couple for myself. It was good to see some tobaccos that are no longer available in England like Orlik Golden sliced, an old favourite for some of our Norfolk customers. The shop was complete with a cosy lounge and good-sized humidor, this place is a great experience and well worth a visit if you're in the city.

Being able to explore Copenhagen was great, seeing some impressive buildings and beautiful scenery. One of our stops was on a boat which sold an amazing range of kraft beers, so we may have spent a fair amount of time on there…

The next part of our trip took us to St Claude in France, if you have not visited here I would highly recommend it as a quick trip away, beautiful scenery and amazing artwork on the buildings. We started at the pipe and diamond museum where we got to see a video of the history of pipe and diamond making as well as taking a look around the museum at some weird and wonderful pipes.  Antoine from Chacom took us around the town and showed us the old Chacom factory. It was a bit strange and eary to see a scattering of disused machinery, unfinished pipes, broken pipes and the decay of what used to be a thriving pipe factory. I grabbed a pretty looking Chacom Meerschaum lined bowl off the floor which had a fairly big crack down it, if it doesn't smoke too well, at least it'll make a nice ornament... Then on to the actual functioning Chacom pipe factory.

I really appreciated having the chance to have a good look around this factory, seeing how each pipe is made and the beautiful designs that you see from Chacom being crafted in front of me. We were taken through each step of creating the pipe and then got the privalage of trying out sandblasting a bowl for ourselves - a trickier skill than I first thought. Many of the skills it takes to craft a pipe are more technical than they look, we even heard of accidents involving missing fingers! The trip ended with a meal at Antoine's Mothers house where we got to enjoy the pipes we sandblasted, my thanks to Antoine and his family for the wonderful, warming hospitality.

Overall it was great trip which gave me real insights into the art of pipe making, thank you to everyone who was involved in this experience.