Prohibition Pipes

Prohibition Pipes (formally Prohibition Co.) is a small-scale pipe workshop run by American wood craftsman Jonathan Lavezzo in the state of Virginia, USA. Work leaving the bench is announced in batches, and the maker reports that a significant share of it remains one-off. The brand is not a continuation of Moonshine Pipe Company, which the same maker had earlier founded and built up, but a separate chapter opened after that business changed hands.

A Background in Wood and the Moonshine Years

Lavezzo came to pipe making after more than twenty years of work in wood and burl. As a student he ran a small business in his home town of Fairfax, Virginia, building fences and cages; he later founded a renovation company focused on restoring old houses and hardwood flooring. Records indicate he turned to pipe making in the early 2010s, after meeting a briar pipe maker.

This interest soon grew into the business known as Moonshine Pipe Company. Accounts describe the brand as founded in Charlottesville, in a hut roughly two and a half by three meters. When demand outgrew the workshop's capacity, Lavezzo moved part of production to BriarWorks in Tennessee, and eventually handed the brand over to that firm entirely. The Moonshine name still continues today as a product line in the BriarWorks catalog. In writing on Virginia pipe making, Lavezzo is counted among the names who influenced the state's newer generation of makers.