Butz-Choquin Pipes

Jean-Baptiste Choquin of Metz started out as a tobacconist. Among his employees certain Gustave Butz, who was its first workman and who became his son-in-law by marrying Choquin's daughter. In 1858 Jean-Baptiste Choquin created, in collaboration with Gustave Butz, the Choquin pipe. This bent pipe with a flat-bottomed bowl was finished with an albatross-bone mouthpiece, fixed with silver rings. Still in Metz, Gustave Butz built an establishment for the manufacturing of the Choquin pipe which took the name of the Berrod-Regad group who bought the trademark. Leaving Metz, the workshop relocated to Saint-Claude, then also called the world capital of the briar pipe. 135 years after it was founded, the pipe is still well-known not only in France but throughout the world. In 2002, the Berrod family, wishing to preserve manufacturing of pipes in Saint-Claude, handed over the company to Fabien Guichon, a native of the area, who continues to develop the brand.