High Quality Highs

As time passes, an inevitable assessment of the choices made in one’s younger years comes to pass. This review allows you to reflect and respond on the roads taken, both good and bad, with an eye toward doing a better job. For many, this involves partners, career choices, and things said or done while under the influence of alcohol.

For me, the manner in which I have consumed cannabis over the decades is the primary source of my ruminations. I physically cringe when recounting the times I was reduced to MacGyvering smoking through soda cans, toilet paper tubes with aluminum bowls, plumbing pipes and fittings, hot butter knife hits off an electric stove, rolling papers improvised from tampon wrappers, and the brass bat-style one-hitters.

Graduating to bongs was a game changer, although you were sternly reminded to refer to them as “water pipes” at your local smoke shop. The simple act of filtering smoke through the cleaning and cooling effects of water allowed for smoother, better tasting, and far larger hits than anything offered by joints, blunts or pipe hits.

But “water pipes” came with their own drawbacks – the dreaded spilled bong water, leaky cheap glass that could break if you coughed on it, or absurdly large acrylic pieces geared to produce elephant hits while being impossible to fully clean.

When vaporizers began hitting the market, I shifted to those for a more precise control of terpenes and cannabinoids. While I don’t wistfully long for a Pepsi can hit, I still enjoy joints, pipes, and bongs. Especially bongs. For years, my preferred method for smoking flower was a homemade bong utilizing a one gallon glass pickle jar, a 2 foot section of thick diameter glass tube, and a food grade plastic hose frankensteined into the monstrosity. It was effective AF while being too heavy, fragile, unwieldy, non transportable and overall absurd.

So I am well versed in all manner of bongs, and over the years reviewed a couple that I still use. But I recently received a new piece that is a beautiful testament to what fine glassware can be. It’s a moderate investment worth the price.

VITAE produces high-end glass smoking gear for flowers and concentrates, and doing a hell of a job. I opted to try the review model they sent while backstage budtending for a local concert venue’s annual Christmas party. Outside of the food service industry, you won’t find a higher percentage of people who like to get high than the music industry. My guests were pro-level smokers and I wanted to gather their feedback.

The bong is composed of a series of modular components that you select from a menu. I selected a base with three levels of honeycomb layers, which like all their components, is 5mm thick borosilicate glass, providing strength and heft, and pairs well with design features like angled, flame finished slits in the percolator. I added two interlocking components – a UFO percolator, and a mouthpiece that was next level with a three ring hand hold that also serves as a splashguard for water and ice.

Each piece screws into a beautiful hardwood-wrapped connector ring. Swapping out pieces for replacement or cleaning is fast and easy. The cost of everything was $240.

It’s a sizable but manageable 21” once assembled, making someone inherently bear pawed when high like myself grateful for a solid and wide base. So this isn’t a travel bong, but the hits. Lord, the hits.

My bowl of flower passed through so many levels of filtration and cooling that provided a larger and more flavorful hit than I’ve had from most bongs. No coughing or hacking, with a near vaporizer like clarity of flavor notes. Oh, and I was high. Really, really gloriously high.

I got the same feedback from the party guests, with universal compliments on the form and function of the piece, and the pleasure of cleaner hits and less respiratory irritation. Also, numerous variations on “Dude, I am so high right now. Wow.” Which is what the holidays are all about.

If you’re looking to make an investment into new gear, check out VITAE. You deserve to get high with nice things.

This article appears in the Source December 25, 2025.