What is a Calabash Pipe?

Many pipe makers, name some of their pipes "calabash", because they resemble, more or less, the shape of a real gourd calabash pipe. The proper description for these pipes is "calabash design" or "calabash shaped", because the original calabash is a completely different kind of pipe.

Above you can see some pictures of old-fashioned English style, real gourd calabash pipes. The main part of a calabash pipe, is the hollow, bent top of an african gourd called "calabash". Into the wide end of the horn-shaped piece of gourd, there is a detachable bowl, in the shape of an upside-down round hat. A cork gasket keeps the bowl in place, firmly and airtightly. The bowl is usually made of meerschaum stone, but sometimes it is made of porcelain, wood or even burnproof plastic.

Some old-fashioned calabash have a silver cover around the hole of the bowl. On the narrow end of the gourd, there is a wooden or plastic cylinder, sometimes covered with a silver band. It's called a ferrule, and it's the actual shank of the pipe, because the gourd is more fragile, and it could easily crack by inserting or removing the tenon of the stem.

The stem is usually an ordinary bent stem, made of vulcanite or lucite. A calabash pipe smokes more cool, dry and mellow than an ordinary briar pipe, because the smoke, passing from the empty chamber inside the gourd, loses most of the heat, moisture and strength.

Calabash Pipe's Materials and construction

Calabash gourds have long made prized pipes, but they are labour-intensive and nowadays quite expensive. Because of this expense, pipes with bodies made of wood instead of gourd, but the same classic shape are sold as calabashes.

Both wood and gourd pipes are functionally the same. They both have an air chamber beneath the bowl which serves to cool, dry, and mellow the smoke. There are also briar pipes being sold as calabashes. These typically do not have an air chamber and are named only because of their external shape.

The construction of a calabash pipe generally consists of a downward curve that ends with an upcurve where the bowl sits. This low center of gravity allows for the user to easily hold the pipe by the mouth alone, leaving his hands free.

This advantage was often used by actors who wanted to depict their character smoking while permitting them to do other business simultaneously. That is why the character Sherlock Holmes, who never used this kind of pipe in the stories, is stereotypically depicted as favoring it because early dramatic productions, especially those starring William Gillette and Basil Rathbone, made this artistic decision.

In fact, Holmes, who preferred very harsh tobacco, would probably have disliked the calabash because of the above-mentioned mellowing effect.