Read time: 6 min.

I haven’t counted recently, but my collection of pipes has grown far beyond what I can realistically smoke in a weekly rotation. My latest acquisition was supposed to be a Peterson Irish Harp to replace my old Peterson Irish Whiskey. Unfortunately, I was overwhelmed with an irresistible urge for another right after I hit the buy button. The craving was back, so I added a Savinelli Miele to my collection! I finally found time to smoke it.

I’m not new to Savinelli pipes. When I was getting started in the hobby, my dad gave me a couple of great ones including a freehand Autograph I dropped in the parking lot of my apartment complex and ruined. I bought Dad his own Savinelli for his birthday the following year. It was much smaller than what he preferred, but he was grateful anyway.

When I decided to get back into pipe smoking a few years ago, I knew I wanted something brand new from the marquee. The first pipe I bought was an Oscar Tiger billiard. Eventually, I bought an Alligator poker and a rusticated 320KS from Savinelli’s Saint Nicholas series.

My love of history is what drew me to Savinelli. The company dates back to 1876! That’s the year that Achille Savinelli opened one of the world’s first dedicated smoke shops, a predecessor to all the Low Bob’s, Tobacco Barns, and vape shops that sprout up like weeds today. Nowadays, the business manufactures around 100,000 machine-made pipes per year alongside its handmade Autograph series. Believe it or not, the original Savinelli pipe shop in Milan is still in operation!

My Miele is my fourth new Savinelli pipe. “Miele” means “honey” in Italian, and Savinelli’s line calls the golden stuff to mind with a mahogany rustication and a stunning acrylic stem that, for the life of me, looks like the cross-section of a honeycomb. As a bonus, Savinelli coats the bowl with some kind of nectar extract said to help the break-in period. Each pipe in the series also comes with a wooden tamper in the shape of a honey dipper. Everything comes in a fun little box- you catch more flies with honey, as they say.

I’m not sure I’d chose a Savinelli Aceto (the Italian word for vinegar), but I might be persuaded if it came in the classic Billiard shape. It’s one of my favorite pipe bowls, so I chose my Miele in the corresponding 111 KS on Savinelli’s pipe chart. It’s a towering example akin to some of my favorite Petersons, but what sets it apart from those Irish pipes is its slim shank and flared mouthpiece.

The 111 KS is similar to Savinelli’s 104 offering, but mine is a little longer and more masculine. All in all, it’s quite a handsome pipe. My Miele measures 6.2 inches long and weighs 1.9 ounces. The bowl is two inches tall, and the chamber reaches 1.7 inches down into it. I found that I could stuff about nine-tenths of a cubic inch of tobacco down its throat, about a third more than fits in my Irish Harp. 

I haven’t smoked a pipe much lately, but I had some time to kill on a Sunday morning not long ago. I opened it up, discarded the filter, and packed the bowl with some Corn Cob Pipe. Tobacco named after snowman ingredients may seem out of place towards the end of June, but Cornell & DIehl’s aromatic blend is one of my favorite pipe tobaccos. It’s like puffing on marshmallow vapor, and I hoped the overall smoking experience would be something akin to eating an Italian fluffernutter. 

The charring light extinguished without any trouble, and I was off to the races. I could taste some honey notes even before I packed the pipe with tobacco, but it smoked like a dream. It felt amazing, too: there’s something to be said for the beautiful briar of a smooth-finished pipe, but I love the way a pipe with some rustication or a sandblasted surface feels in my hand. Visually, I’m drawn to how the rustication of the Miele melts into the abstract intricacy of its stem.

The increased surface area of a rough finish also helps with heat dispersion. The pipe felt warm in my hand, but never hot or uncomfortable.  To be honest, I clenched the pipe in my mouth as I smoked it since I was out on the deck writing this post! I’m not much for smoking a straight pipe that way, but the weight of the bowl, especially near the start of my smoke, made clenching it pretty comfortable.

It felt like the mouthpiece of the Miele was made especially for my jaw. I puffed for about forty-five minutes until I realized that the smoke made me want a peanut butter and honey sandwich. It’s been years since I made one! Fortunately, my timing couldn’t have been any better since I’d come to the end of the smoke. I tapped the ash out, set the pipe aside to cool, and went inside to to rustle up the ingredients.

Eating al fresco with the pipe in sight helped formulate my thoughts about my Miele. As a bronze member of SmokingPipes, I paid about $126 for it. That may be a little more than the pipe was worth from a functional standpoint, since the 111 KS shape can also be found in Savinelli’s cheaper Arcobaleno, Bianca, Marco Polo, Oscar, Roma, Tre, and Trevi lines. 

Traditionalists might favor those lines for their understated designs, but I’m anything but. I was happy to pay extra for something so eye-catching with such an incredible stem! 111 KS shapes in Savinelli’s Foresta, Oliva, and Noce are similarly striking for other reasons, but they all cost a hair more than I was willing to pay for a machine-made pipe. Of course, all were far less than what I’d have paid the kind of handmade Neerup, Boswell, or Nørding I’ve grown to fancy.

Overall, I’m happy with my Savinelli Miele. It hits the sweet spot as a robust, eye-catching pipe that allows for an exceptional smoke, and it’s done up in a classic shape by a renowned marquee. I’m smoking less than I once was after some surgery I had last year, but I can see this arresting pipe becoming part of my regular rotation. Unfortunately, Savinelli’s $160 Miele lighter with the same acrylic finish as the stem isn’t enough for me to further my experience.