Herriot Pipes Smooth Contrast Billiard Handmade Briar Pipe, New

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. Given Chris Herriot’s proximity to the Anglo-French heartlands, as well as having Bruno Nuttens as one of his mentors, it’s unsurprising that he has a deep affinity for classic shapes. Since his earliest output as a pipe maker, 20th century briar staples have been his bread and butter, and indeed it is his renditions of billiard, Dublins, and similar that first brought him into the mainstream. Sometimes these pipes are finished in a very traditional manner, whereas other times they wear a far more modern dress. This one keeps things fairly traditional, though is not without a certain modern touch. A stout billiard in the early 20th century English vein, the pipe wears a deep, golden sugar contrast finish, highlighting a web of bird’s-eye patterns around the bowl from its cross-cut turning. Where it strays slightly from convention, however, is in its mouthpiece; while it might first strike as black vulcanite, it is instead a dark, brindled blue ebonite, which pairs beautifully with layered tones of the bowl it’s fitted to.   Details: Length: 5.5″ / 139.7mm Bowl Width: 0.80 / 20.32mm Bowl Depth: 1.65″ / 41.91mm Weight: 1.3oz / 38g