ManufacturerBrigham Enterprises Inc.
Brigham Enterprises Inc.
THE BRIGHAM STORY
First, a brief look at what the world was like when Brigham began...
• Sir Wilfred Laurier was midway through his tenure as Prime Minister.
• Alberta and Saskatchewan celebrated their first anniversary.
• Roald Amundsen discovered the magnetic North Pole.
• Finland became the first country to give women the right to vote.
• The Montreal Wanderers won the Stanley Cup.
• The world's first feature film, "The Story of the Kelly Gang," was released
During that same year, 1906, Roy Brigham started his own pipe repair shop after completing an apprenticeship with an Austrian pipemaker. His popularity steadily increased so that by 1918, the business had grown to include five other craftsmen who developed a reputation across Canada for high quality workmanship and value. After repairing many different brands of pipes over the years, Roy noted certain recurring complaints by pipe smokers, the most common referred to as "tongue bite" - a burning sensation on the smoker's tongue, then thought to be due to the heat of the smoke (i.e. a "hot smoking pipe").
Roy soon began manufacturing his own pipes, which were lightweight yet featured a more rugged construction, strengthening the weak points observed in other pipes. The problem of tongue bite continually intrigued him, so he resolved to make overcoming it a future goal. The business barely survived the Great Depression because pipes were considered to be a luxury, not a necessity, and selling pipes was difficult indeed.
In the mid-1930s, Roy's son Herb joined him to assist in the business. A few years later, the father-and-son team decided to find a solution to the nagging "tongue bite" issue. After continual experimentation and research, Roy and Herb discovered that tongue bite was in fact a form of mild chemical burn to the tongue, caused by tars and acids in the smoke. They postulated that by properly filtering the smoke, it should possible to remove these impurities and thereby stop the tongue bite. The question became how to do so without affecting the taste of the tobacco.
Just as Thomas Edison had searched far and wide for the perfect material from which to make the first electric light bulb filaments, the Brighams began experimenting with many materials, both common and exotic, in the quest for the perfect pipe filter. Results varied wildly. Most of the materials didn't work at all and most actually imparted their own flavour into the smoke. They eventually found only two materials that were satisfactory: bamboo and rock maple. As bamboo was obviously not as readily available, rock maple then became the logical choice.
Inspired by this discovery, they were able to manufacture a replaceable hollow wooden tube made from rock maple dowelling, which, when inserted into a specially made pipe, had an added benefit - it caused absolutely no restriction to the draw of the pipe. Through natural wicking action, it was found that this design extracted many of the impurities which had caused tongue bite with the additional benefit of reducing overall moisture. The result was dramatic. As icing on the cake, the filter manufacturing technique was perfected so that they were produced without the use of adhesives or chemicals - a truly natural, passive, reusable system. A better pipe was born!
As a result of the immediate use of the system in Brigham pipes, their sales skyrocketed as Canadians embraced the benefits of the system. By the mid-1960's, a full-time production staff of forty created 50,000 pipes per annum.
Taking advantage of an excellent reputation and a wide national retailer network, Brigham began to expand its product offerings to include unique Custom Blended tobaccos, pipe accessories, and cigar brands. Herb's son Mike joined Brigham in 1978, beginning a new era of product development and market expansion. Developing strong relationships with retail partners and offering, through them, high quality products at fair prices to consumers has kept the company strong and vital.
Over 50,000,000 filters later, Brigham remains the most trusted pipe and accessory name in Canada. Brigham pipes are beginning to win over consumers in the United States and beyond.
In the last several decades, Brigham's reputation has won over those from across the industry who have trusted us to distribute their products to retailers in Canada. These brands include a wide variety of cigars such as Backwoods, Phillies, Henry Clay, La Flor Dominicana, Puros Indios, Flor de Copan, Santa Rosa, Santa Damiana, Dona Flor, Vega Fina and Nat Sherman. We have also become the exclusive distributor of pipes by Lorenzetti and Chacom as well as Canada's distributor of Dunhill pipes and smoking accessories in Canada.
Heading into their second century, Brigham is committed to the same principles that started it all - looking for ways to bring better quality and value to consumers in Canada and around the world.
Address:
25 Ripley Avenue,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M6S 3P2
Phone: 1-800-668-0628 / 416-762-7278
Fax: 1-877-766-7270 / 416-762-7270
Email: sales@brighampipes.com
Official site: http://www.brighampipes.com/
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