I and several of my long standing friends decided to take a holiday vacation in Breckenridge, CO. We rented out a three bedroom house at the base of a mountain, approximately 12,000 feet above sea level. A few of us had made this same trip the previous weekend, and were returning for some more snow boarding. While sitting on the couch we realized that, unlike the last trip, we had forgotten to pack a hookah! HOW?! How was it we packed everything but the hookah?! Yes… we were morons. We had beautiful scenery snow bunnies (if you know what I mean), and no hookah. In a state of sadness, ideas tend to swirl around in your head; for example: “that metal pipe seems interesting,” or “hmmm…I could make a base out of that bottle.” After realizing that, for reasons unknown, one of us morons at least brought shisha, we took to what we were brought into this world to accomplish: We smoked a bowl (but not before making a hookah from scratch)! And so it began: Churning minds putting together what must have been one of the most ingenious designs ever to be concocted from scratch materials!

We didn’t know how we were gonna do it, but we figured, “if there’s shisha we’ve gotta have a hookah.” We started to dig around and came up with the following items:

1 Metal Pipes

1 Water Bottle

1 Plastic Pipe

1 Roll of Duct Tape (A man’s favorite tool)

1 Roll of Aluminum Foil

1 Tin Foil Cookie Sheet

1 Metal Parmesan Cheese Shaker Top

1 Roll of Boxing Tape

1 Spindle of Metal Wire

One of the key components to hookahs is an air tight seal: It’s important that air flow is restricted to entering through the bowl and flowing out of the hose. In addition, be careful not to place the stem too high or too low. You have to allow enough space to add water, without flooding the hose. With that in mind:

Step 1 (THE BOWL): As for the bowl, we happened to select a metal top from a Parmesan Cheese Shaker: This was the most convenient of items because it already had the necessary holes (for airflow) and was made of stainless steel. We turned it upside down and then wrapped the top with the tin foil cookie sheet. The trick to using the shaker top is to seal off the unused holes. In this case, we lined the bowl with aluminum foil and only punched the holes that we wanted to use.

Step 2 (THE HOSE): For our hookah we used a plain plastic pipe that was lying around. This would be equivalent to something like an empty pen casing or other clean tube such as a straw.

Step 3 (THE CONSTRUCTION): Cut a small hole in the side of the plastic bottle and insert the “hose”. We made a small hole in the side of the bottle and pressed the hose pipe into it, to make sure that it was nice and snug. We then sealed the hose tube to the bottle with duct tape to ensure we did not have any leaks.

Then Insert your downstem (the metal pipe we found lying around) from the top and securely attach the down stem in the proper height by using the duct tape. We managed to find a pipe that was just a few millimeters smaller than the bottle opening. This allowed us to secure the pipe to the bottle with minimal tape.

Attaching the top to the stem was another matter all together. We used the metal wire to anchor the bowl to the stem by cutting it into 5 inch long pieces and bending it exactly in half. We then took the wire and put each end in different holes of the bowl (top) and pulled it down along side of the downstem. This allowed us to have a place to secure the bowl to the downstem far enough from the heat of the charcoal.

If your pipe is significantly thinner than the mouth of the bottle. I suggest wrapping some tape to create a ring around the part of the pipe that should end up near the mouth of the bottle. This might allow you to center the pipe easier and still create the airtight seal. Finally, the hookah should then be taped up paying close attention to possible weak spots or leaks.

We packed the bowl with Starbuzz – Social Smoke Custom Blend (and packed very lightly at that - the aluminum cookie sheet will get hotter then a regular clay bowl). The cookie sheet can be used as the aluminum covering over the tobacco, but be sure to pre-poke the holes before packing the bowl.

Now all we needed was a heating agent: CHARCOAL. I know what your thinking: What could you possibly use for charcoal?! Of course never, and I mean NEVER use BBQ charcoal to smoke with. I speak from experience (rookie mistake). However, natural wood on the other hand is ok! If you look at the bottom of your fireplace, you will find ready to go charcoal. Select a couple of small pieces, place them on the top, get in the Jacuzzi, and enjoy a well crafted smoke.