Having acquired a figurine company that supplied the likes of Disney and Hallmark back in 1990, the folks at Empire Glass have been in the boro business longer than a lot of blowers have been alive. But it wasn’t until 2013 that they turned their attention to pipes and founded Empire Glassworks, a name that is now synonymous with quality and nearly ubiquitous in the industry.
Since then, they’ve been hard at work, employing the streamlined production method they’ve used for beads and figurines for three decades to raise the bar on quality while maintaining competitive prices that keep their pieces selling.
One of Empire’s latest and more popular offerings is the Honeypot Hand Pipe, a vibrantly colorful work of three-dimensional art that boasts nearly as much as sweetness as the sticky herb you might be tempted to put in it. The mouthpiece, made from green tubing, features raised leaves and connects seamlessly with a deep orange/yellow bowl modeled after a honeycomb and adorned with a generous helping of intricately sculpted glass bees for that final touch. Even better is Empire’s signature price/value ratio, reflected perfectly here with all of that intricacy available for only $80 MSRP (keystoned). Score.
