New-ish releases

I couldn’t find something to fill a whole post with, so i’m gonna shoot a bunch of mini updates. Here’s recent stuff you might have missed:

Shishabucks announce the mini storm

In a move that will make me eat my words about becoming more budget-friendly, Shishabucks announced their new medium-sized hookah, and boy, am I disappointed.

/u/shishabucks

While you can rest assured that the final product will have a downstem, I’m very iffy about it: it’s gonna cost about $250 including the glass base (which still beats any of the other recent releases that want more than that just for stem+tray) . Also, you’re kinda bound to said base. There is an aluminum ring glued to it and you still get all that sexy spin-ery action, but Jesus Christ why the fuck would you not let me just choose whatever Egermann or artisanal base that fits both modern and tradi setups to put my stem on it. I salute the reduced profile of the stem since now it actually can build a hookah that looks coherent and actually quite sexy, but why stray from a system that both allows more customization _and_ expose us to the risk of the ring getting unstuck from the base? We’re talking about a brand where recently people have had metal parts inside the micro rusting like crazy, so the threat of the glue not lasting a lifetime (or well, until you eventually break the base) is very very real. At least it doesn’t need fucking grommets.

Alpaca announces a triangular bowl and a contest to go with it

After being done with the bowls with chicken pox, Alpaca got down to creating another thing that not many people really need but a bunch of us will want. Behold their triangle bowl:

/u/AlpacaBowlCompany

In a community where people are nowadays boasting about using foil and no HMD, which is like saying “yeah, bruh, chainsaws are okay, but some of us still proudly chop their trees with an axe made of stone” instead of citing it as a preference and nothing more, this bowl will hopefully have provost support, since not even the El Badia Arc will fit this. At least this way it’s easy to know where to place three coals and get an even cook, which is what I assume they’re doing. Let’s not forget Alpaca also has a Square bowl, but they’re still way behind Brazilians:

You don’t have enough edges to beat me.

The good news is that it looks like a Predator bowl with a twist. The bad news is that at least in the left bottom picture, the edges don’t seem straight. Like, lopsided. I hope that’s not the case. Anyways, you can head over to their instagram post and try your hand at naming it and win either the 18K gold plated one, or a simple one. They also ship it internationally, which is cool.

UPDATE: They called it the “Illuminati”. While “Delta” would have been the coolest name I could have seen for it, they went with fucking “Illuminati” bowl.

B2 F-22s have started delivery

Pictures of F-22s have been spotted in the wild, and what’s funny is that the one picture from reddit I saw today was a rose gold F-22 which was not in the initial list of colours. Oh, well, it’s kinda pretty. They also posted square trays up for sale:

https://b2hookah.com/

While the design is of the tray makes me wish it had narrower corner openings (somebody sneezing from across the room and your ash just going out of the opposite corner is a scenario that comes to mind), what’s cool is that it fits B2 v2s as well. It doesn’t fucking come in blue, black, green, gold, bronze or any other colour of the v2s except for red, but it still fits them. The pictured one is however a very welcome addition, I used to love the splash colorways on yoyos and the fact that B2 tried this is actually awesome. It’s cheaper than a v2 tray, at like $45 for the splashed one, but note it doesn’t have the same aluminum as the F-22 itself. I guess they went for 5052 because it’s easier to bend, which is fine, but the fact that 5052 compared to 6061 is marked as “not heat treatable” (Note: I have no idea what it means in this particular context, your coals may very well have 0 influence on it) and also that it’s not marked with the same corrosion resistance are things I think are notable. In the grand scheme of things, it probably won’t really matter.
The F-22 still doesn’t come with grommets.

UPDATE: Moe from the Hookah Discord was nice to explain a bit about the 5052 aluminum thing. In his words:

Non heat treatable means that the metal can’t be heat treated to strengthen it by the heat treating process they use for 6061 to make it strong enough to machine and support the weight and shit of being handled, pressed and all the other stupid shit people could do. Since the tray just has to survive a drop really it doesn’t have to be as strong and I bet it’s easier to anodize/not fade with the 5052.

Moe

So basically, 5052 is good for the tray.

Shishabucks and the micro-er micro.

This is gonna be pretty long, again. I feel like before I start to rant about one or two small updates I gotta start with a sort of overview. Next time Shishabucks has an update, it’s gonna be a small post. Pinkie promise.

Shishabucks is a good brand. Honestly. They have pretty good products, they have a very active social media presence, they understand people copy their designs (I’ll always be impressed with how casually they included the picture of the MS Micro in their album of the 2017 hookah fair), and their customer service has always gotten praises. Well, except when the light stands kept breaking. But that’s in the past.

The biggest problem with them is their fanbase. Whom never miss the chance to tell other people they have a Shishabucks and it’s oh so amazing and you should definitely buy a Shishabucks even if you’re trying to fit a whole setup in under 100$. The Shishabucks fanboy crowd are the fucking vegans of the hookah world.

The only thing that makes them worse is if they also have some sort of Mason product.

Shishabucks have made a bunch of pretty damn good moves in terms of what they put out recently. They pretty recently put out the Storm which is a rotator hookah. I got a bit of a bone to pick with the community about the storm because we’ve had a long tradition of saying that rotator hookahs are pretty shit, but as soon as Shishabucks released one people got all happy about a rotator. To be fair and not a bastard, the rotators that were available till then were pretty shit indeed. In terms of design, they managed to successfully create the first stem that looks great but you’ll never find a base that will create a cohesive, harmonious looking setup.

Something about the stem being so tall and becoming so wide at the neck. Picture stolen shamelessly from the Shishabucks Instagram page.

They also released the auto-sealable Cloud V2 hose which is a hefty $80 until you realize it’s for _two_ hoses and then it’s not as bad.

You probably expected a picture of the cloud hoses, but here’s a picture that I’ll caption with “Your dick when the water’s cold.”

The best recent move they made, though, is the “regular” Stratus, which is basically a stratus that’s a bit uglier. What’s damn brilliant about it is the pricing, which at $35 puts it on the same level with the provost and gets only undercut by the Ignis, while also leaving the premium version to battle the likes of the Lotus/Phoenix/Razor/NAR. Out of all the producers, it seems like Shishabucks understands business best.

The actual reason I started this post.

Welp, they just announced a new “portable” hookah. I was disappointed since they hinted about a new release in the medium area in some social media post, but that’s for later in the year anyways. So let’s look a bit at this submarine-y motherfucker. I know it’s a prototype, but besides “hurr durr I wanted another Shishabucks”, why the hell would you ever choose this over the micro?

• It’s not a lot more “travel-friendly”. You basically have a smaller box in which you fit the hose and stem. To quote Shishabucks themselves: “And you still can fit all parts of hookah (except bowl and heat manager) inside the acrylic cube during transportation.”. That’s cool, yet you’ll still need the space for a bowl and maybe an hmd. So in the end, you’re kind of at the same used volume. Maybe a bit less weight, too, but not nearly enough.
• However, the smaller profile means it will hold less water. I’d say at least 50% less water than the Micro. I used all the smaller Odumans and until the N7 all of them had the issue that there wasn’t enough water to keep the smoke reasonably cold. If you managed to smoke out of a n2 travel, this_might_ still work for you. But as it stands, the N2 travel holds about 250 ml of water, the N7 holds about 750ml and the micro holds like a liter.
• Not sure how exactly it opens to hold all the pieces inside but I doubt this little fucker is going to be as easy to clean as the Micro, where you can just stick your hand in the base and go to town with a sponge.
• The Micro can handle putting ice and fruit in it. You know, so you can upgrade those instagram photos with pocket flashlights and airpods.
• “Other issues that took a while to solve was avoiding water in the hose and avoiding water in the bowl during purging”. These weren’t issues with the Micro in the first place, and by the looks of it, I know at least three motherfuckers that are still gonna suck up half the water with a drag.

The hookah is supposed to be a under-$100 retail, which makes it a direct competitor to the Oduman travel lineup (unless you also count the Oduman Micro, but that’s a fucking jar, bro. Not even a large one.).

I think that given the recent Regular Stratus, this little bastard and also Shishabucks claiming to be working on a “budget friendly bowl”, this is part of a shift into also covering this lower-budget segment of the hookah community. I salute it, and can’t wait to see this new generation of Reddit circlerjerking proudly displaying their budget Shishabucks. Fuck it, I’ll join if the medium one is going to be cool enough.