The Pump 'n' Seal

Here's a really lousy camera phone photo of the beginnings of my new tobacco cellar. Eleven jars of various bulk blends and 6 thus far unopened tins. That thing in the foregr0und is the Pump 'n' Seal.

I have been keeping bulk tobacco preserved by vacuum-sealing for a long time, but I've been using an electric Tilia Food Saver. This is a perfectly fine machine and indispensable for long-term bulk storage, but I wanted a way to keep smaller portions preserved while still having easy access to them. I did some searching around on the internet and finally came across this device called the Pump 'n' Seal.

It can used used with any "canning" jars, like Kerr, Ball or Mason jars. I think that it may even work directly on some tins, but I haven't tried that yet (any lid that has a rubber seal should work). A tool that is basically an all-metal thumb tack is used to puncture a hole in the center of the lid. Then a little yellow piece of rubberized tape called a "Tab-Chek" is placed over the hole. The pump is then placed directly over the hole and you pump the air out. As the air comes out, the vacuum sucks the rubberized tape down, forming a secure vacuum seal. When you want to take something out of the jar, you simply peel the tape up slightly until the air wooshes back in, then unscrew the lid. The tape can be used over and over again, so it isn't necessary to replace the tape every time you open the jar. The whole kit came with enough "tab-cheks" to provide for a very large cellar.

Some other pipe bloggers have mentioned using certain 2-ounce Mason-type jars for this. I couldn't find any locally, so I got these 4-ounce wide-mouth jars. The size of the jar doesn't matter to the Pump 'n' Seal.

The pump comes with a tiny hose that you can use, with a little extra care, to vacuum-seal typical heavy-duty baggies such as Ziplock freezer storage bags. It should be very useful for removing air to prevent freezer burn when storing food.

Here's a close-up of a sealed jar. You can see the tiny dimple in the middle where the hole is and the tape has been sucked down. I folded one end of the tape (they're designed like miniature band-aids) over so that it wouldn't adhere to the surface and would give me a little handle to use when peeling up the tape to re-open the jar.

This is going to give me a whole new way to store my pipe tobacco, and will allow me to provide myself with a greater daily variety than previously, when I usually just opened a vacuum bag and smoked it all until it was gone before opening another.

That reminds me. I still have a 4-ounce bag of Bayou Morning around here somewhere that I seem to have misplaced.

The basic kit which comes with the hose and 100 tab-cheks is about $33 with shipping included, pretty much inexpensive enough for anyone to try out without endangering themselves financially. Extra tab-cheks cost about $10 per 75.

And of course, I am receiving no remuneration for this post. I just think it's a useful device that you might be interested in.

Pipes in Literature: The Smokers' Rebellion

The Smokers' Rebellion by George H. Boughton (1833-1905)

Wilhelmus Kieft...had been greatly annoyed by the factious meetings of the good people of New Amsterdam, but, observing that on these occasions the pipe was ever in their mouth, he began to think that the pipe was at the bottom of the affair, and that there was some mysterious affinity between politics and tobacco-smoke. Determined to strike at the root of the evil, he began forthwith to rail at tobacco, as a noxious, nauseous weed, filthy in all its uses; and as to smoking, he denounced it as a heavy tax on the public pocket,--a vast consumer of time, a great encourager of idleness, and a deadly bane to the prosperity and morals of the people. Finally he issed an edict, prohibiting the smoking of tobacco throughout the New Netherlands. Ill-fated Kieft! Had he lived in the present age and attempted to check the unbounded license of the press, he could not have struck more sorely upon the sensibilities of the million. The pipe, in fact, was the great organ of reflection and deliberation of the New Netherlander. It was his constant companion and solace: was he gay, he smoked; was he sad, he smoked; his pipe was never out of his mouth; it was part of his physiognomy; without it his best friends would not know him. Take away his pipe? You might as well take away his nose!

The immediate effect of the edict of William the Testy was a popular commotion. A vast multitude, armed with pipes and tobacco boxes, and an immense supply of ammunition, sat themselves down before the governor's house, and fell to smoking with tremendous violence. The testy William issued forth like a wrathful spider, demanding the reason of this lawless fumigation. The sturdy rioters replied by lolling back in their seats, and puffing away with redoubled fury, raising such a murky cloud that the governor was fain to take refuge in the interior of his castle.

A long negotiation ensued through the medium of Antony the Trumpeter. The governor was at first wrathful and unyielding, but was gradually smoked into terms. He concluded by permitting the smoking of tobacco, but he abolished the fair long pipes used in the day of Wouter Van Twiller, denoting ease, tranquility, and sobriety of deportment; these he condemned as incompatible with the despatch of business, in place whereof he substituted little captious short pipes, two inches in length, which, he observed, could be stuck in one corner of the mouth, or twisted in the hatband, and would never be in the way. Thus ended this alarming insurrection, which was long known as The Pipe-Plot, and which, it has been somewhat quaintly observed, did end, like most plots and seditions, in mere smoke.

--Washington Irving (1783-1859)
excerpt from A Knickerbocker's History of New York

Stokkebye's Luxury Bullseye Flake

At this moment I'm trying it for the first time. There's an underlying melange of spiciness, like cinnamon mixed with myrrh.

I will give it my seal of approval: 'Scuse me while I kiss the sky!

Vintage Ad (1921): Kodak

No, this is not a vintage pipe ad. It is actually an ad for the Kodak Portrait Attachment, which I'm sure was cutting-edge technology in 1921. I came across this somewhere out there on the internet once when looking for pipe advertisements. I was struck by the image of "the judge, with a week's growth of beard and a pipe in his mouth," looking tired and full of sad wisdom, or so it seems to me.

And we must ask ourselves the question: Would Kodak so prominently feature a user of tobacco to sell one of its products today, 87 years later?

Featured Pipe Smoker: Charles T. Stoneham

Charles T. Stoneham

I can't find anything about Stoneham on Wikipedia or Google. So this is all I know about him. Stoneham was British, and a professional big game hunter and phototgrapher. He authored the book Hunting Wild Beasts with Rifle and Camera (1933). One of his adventures, during the 1920's in Kenya, was unsuccessfully hunting for a mysterious and undocumented (i.e., probably mythical, certainly crypto-) creature that was called the Nandi Bear. This animal had allegedly been savagely attacking villages at night, and ate only the brains of its victims.

When I had previously posted this on another blog, I thought someone had left a comment adding more information about him. But I can't find the comment, and if it was an email, I can't find that, either. It had something to do with another book or books he had authored. So if you have any additional information, please leave a comment.

Vintage Ad (1911): The Defi Pipe

I don't know how they coined the name "Defi," but here is another gimmick pipe from ages gone by. Apparently it has a metal loop in the bowl with a twistable ring on top. Twist the ring, the built-in loop scrapes away cake. Not a good idea, in my opinion, but then I suppose their "improved scientific secret process" does away the need for a decent cake. Note the P-lip bit. Click for the larger version that may be readable (depending on your vision).

How am I ever going to fit this in my pipe rack?

Receiving a package today from my good friend Brer of Power Of Babel. The "bleeding heart" tomahawk pipe from atlantacutlery.com. At 22 inches long, this is definitely a two-fisted pipe. It only has a false edge, but I suppose I could sharpen it in case I ever need to split any white-eye's skulls.

Why a heart? Why, because it's full of mercy, of course.

DGT: Delayed Gratification Technique

I noticed the recent poll at My Pipes Community is about DGTing. As is common with online polls, the multiple-choice answers are not complete enough. Especially egregious and misleading is the final choice: "Never. I know how to keep my pipe lit."

Knowing how to keep your pipe lit is entirely irrelevant when it comes to the DGT. The entire purpose of DGTing is not to give up on a pipe that is difficult to keep lit, but to intentionally delay re-lighting to create a new flavor experience.

If you are unfamiliar with the term Delayed Gratification Technique, or DGT, it is simply this: light your pipe and smoke part of it, but leave at least half a bowl unsmoked (in my opinion). Then put it down, allow it to go out, and re-light it again some time later.

I always like to quote Kinky Friedman on the topic. Although he was writing about cigars, the principle stills applies.

I was on my second cup of coffee and slightly past the midway point of the cigar I'd lit after I talked to Bill Dick. I didn't usually like to smoke a cigar past the midway point. I liked to store them for a while in the wastebasket and fire up the remaining portion at a later date. In the manner of a fine wine, you had to let a half-smoked cigar age a bit. Had to let it breathe. A lot of people didn't understand this, but I didn't understand a lot of people.

I smoke as many as ten cigars a day and I expect to live forever. Of course I don't inhale. I just blow the smoke at small children, green plants, vegetarians, and anybody who happens to be jogging by at the same time that I'm exhaling.

You have to work at it if you want to be a good smoker. Especially today with all the nonsmoking world constantly harassing you. It's enough to make you drink. I poured a shot of Jameson Irish Whiskey into a third cup of coffee and I sat down at my desk.

I thought of what Charles Lamb, the renowned British essayist, had said when someone asked him how he could smoke so many cigars and pipes. He said: "I toil after it, sir, as some men toil after virtue." Not bad, Chuck.

(excerpt from A Case of Lone Star)

There are two good reasons to DGT a pipe, and neither of them have anything to do with having trouble keeping the leaf burning: one; you are interrupted by unavoidable business during the smoke and have no option but to put it down and re-start it again later, and two; you do it because you enjoy it.

I can honestly say that I fall into both categories.

So one may ask: how long should one allow the pipe to sit cool and fallow before re-lighting it? The answer is entirely subjective and at the whim of the individual pipe smoker. If I am going to DGT a pipe, I personally prefer to let it sit and stew in its own juices for several hours, often overnight.

I have no doubt that the DGT is not for everyone. It has a way of dramatically increasing the robustness of even the most robust of blends. I would especially warn all smokers that if you are not a terribly huge fan of Perique, you absolutely do not want to DGT any blend with an appreciable amount of Perique. I, on the other hand, often add extra Perique to various blends and have DGT'd them all in my quest for the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster of pipe tobaccos.

Give it a try if you haven't. You may be pleasantly surprised at the fresh (and I use that term figuratively) dimensions of flavor that are introduced. Or, you may be thoroughly disgusted. But do not make the mistake of thinking that it has anything to do with difficulty in keeping a pipe lit. It is simply another technique available to the pipe smoker to allow further exploration of the flavors and smells inherent in any given blend of tobacco.

Vintage Ad (1925): Prince Albert pipe tobacco

A Prince Albert tobacco ad from 1925 featuring what I have come to think of as "The Archetypal Codger."

Featured Pipe Smoker: Earl "Fatha" Hines

Earl Kenneth "Fatha" Hines (1903-1983)

Jazz pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines, born in Duquesne, Pennsylvania, originally intended to play cornet like his father, but quickly discovered that doing so would prevent him from smoking a pipe while he played. But seriously, he supposedly dropped the cornet because the blowing made his head hurt. His mother was a church organist, and after giving up the cornet he studied piano, being classically trained to some extent. Hines had an ear for music, and was able to play popular show tunes and movie music after hearing it only once or twice.

He met Louis Armstrong in 1925, and by 1927 was directing Armstrong's band. In 1928 he began leading his own big band. In 1951 het re-met Armstrong and teamed up with him again for a few years. During the early 1960s he more or less retired from jazz and opened a tobacconist's shop in Oakland, California.

In 1964 he was "rediscovered" and became immensely popular and in-demand, recording regularly until his death in 1983.

Earl Hines was, and remains, an enormous influence on jazz music.

One that Kaywoodie never thought of: the noseblaster

I'm sure most readers of this blog are already familiar with the term "nosewarmer." For those who aren't, "nosewarmer" is a term used for a very short pipe with a bent stem that hangs directly, or almost directly, under the nose. So what do you call a pipe that is aimed directly at the nose? I propose the term, "noseblaster."

This pipe turned up in a recent eBay auction. The seller claims this is a Kaywoodie Chesterfield. From the only photo included (shown below), we can safely assume that the bowl is indeed from a Chesterfield. I have mentioned this pipe before. It was Kaywoodie's knock-off of the Peterson System pipe, with a moisture-catching reservoir below the air passage in the shank. The Chesterfield was also equipped with a bent stem and a P-lip bit.

I do find this stem interesting, because it bears the same anonymous white logo as an unknown lovat in my collection.

The things people will try to sell. Good grief.

UPDATE: Four different bidders went for it. It sold for $21.50. The things people will buy.

Inaugural pipe

Bayou Night in a Kaywoodie author, now that I have some time to smoke a pipe in my new Sanctum Sanctorum. This is the first day I've had time to sit down and relax with a pipe and a computer after work since we moved in last Saturday.

I have the doors to my room both closed, since this will be my pipe-smoking room and I will try to keep the smoke out of the rest of the house. However, I still want to put an air purifier in here to minimize smell from leaking out. If anyone has recommendations for a good air purifier, please leave a comment.

I'm back

I just got the phone hooked up. I'm back on the Internet. Feel free to smoke a pipe in celebration. I know I will.

Upcoming hiatus

We are moving out by Friday. We expect to be out by Thursday night, actually. So the blog is on hiatus until we get moved into the new house. I expect to be gone for at least one month, perhaps longer.

Have fun, everyone.

Featured Pipe Smoker: José Bové

José Bové (b. 1953)

José Bové is a French farmer and political activist who ran for President of France in 2007.

He was born in France but grew up in many places, including spending some time in the United States as a child. He attended a Jesuit school in France but was expelled because of his opinions regarding drugs. He fled France to avoid serving in the French army (and what can I possibly add to that?).

He is an opponent of globalization except when he's not. That is, he is not opposed to the existence of the World Trade Organization, he just doesn't like their current rules. (Yes, I'm editorializing here). He is also a prominent opponent of genetically engineered crops. In 2003 he spent seven months in prison for his part in destroying some transgenic crops.

After the European Union restricted the importation of hormone-treated beef from the United States, the U.S. retaliated by imposing tariffs on imported Roquefort cheese (that'll learn 'em). Bové subsequently, and successfully, smuggled 30 kilos of Roquefort into the U.S. in his luggage.

Bové is the kind of guy some people love to love, and a lot of other people love to hate. For example, he publicly stated that he believed a series of attacks on French synagogues was being arranged by the Israeli secret service to create sympathy for Jews. He also took part in "dismantling" (that is, tearing down) a McDonald's in France, for which he also served prison time. He is also a syndicalist, or a socialist who denies being a socialist (more editorializing).

In 2006, he attempted to enter the United States and was turned back because of his spotty legal record elsewhere in the world.


Do an image search for Bové and you will see that his pipe has become an integral part of his image and personality, as in the images above and below.


A note for all my European readers: Bové is not even a blip on the radar of American mainstream media, so everything I know about him I learned from the internet. Feel free to clarify any of the above statements in comments.

Vintage Ad (1943): Dr. Grabow

"Serving Everywhere On America's Fighting Fronts..."

Tobacco update

The Perique is starting to assert itself.

Having had a good 24 hours for the various leafs to meld and get to know each other a little, yesterday's batch of blended-on-the-fly tobacco has smoothed out a lot. The sweetness of the Virginia has become more rounded by the Perique, and overall the blend has become a little more robust and balanced than yesterday. I've also noticed a couple of brief whiffs of latakia, which I know is in there because I watched him mix it, but which seemed completely absent yesterday.



In comments, Zach said, "I've never figured out what that scoop thing is to be used for." I suppose it's meant to be used for working with cake, although I prefer a more blade-like tool with a more rounded end for cake working, myself.

Picture above shamelessly stolen from Pipe Lore. Corneel has written a two-part series on this remarkable tool: The Leatherman of the Pipe World part 1 and part 2. Although written somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I must say that the very first thing I did with this tool was use the pick to open my container of lighter fluid. In fact, I've always used some part of a pipe tool for that.

Tobacco adventures

I'm running low on smokeable leaf and I don't want to make another big order until we get settled into the new house--and that could be a while, at least a month, probably more. So today I thought I'd take a chance of The Humidor, which is San Antonio's only real tobacconist. If someone knows of another one, please let me know.

Anyway, I got lucky and the guy working today was a pipe smoker, so he actually asked some intelligent questions. On several previous forays into that store I was accosted by cigar floggers who don't know anything about pipe tobacco. I already knew that all of their official house blends are aromatics. I told him the kind of thing I was looking for and he whipped me up a blend on the fly, said he'd write it down so he could make it again.

It's mostly Virginia, with some burley, a hint of latakia, and 15% Perique. It's not bad at all. I expect it to get better as the different tobaccos have a chance to meld, but right now it is quite sweet from all the VA. We'll see how this one goes, but I think next time I'll tell him less Virginia and more Perique.

I had him mix me up 4 ounces. He only charged me for 2 since "this is just an experiment." So that was a pretty good deal. I was impressed with him and I'll try to go back there more often in the future.

I also picked up one of those Czech pipe tools with the spoon-shaped scoop on it. Never had one of these tools before, and I like it. I'll have to get a few more so I can strew them about in strategic places.

I think tomorrow I might light up a bowl in the morning and then let it DGT for several hours. I think that will add some robustness.

Featured Pipe Smoker: Glenn Ford

Glenn Ford (1916-2006)

Glenn Ford, whose real name was Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford, was born in Quebec. When he was still a small child, his family moved to Santa Monica, California, where he grew up. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1939.

His first movie role was in 1937 in the movie Night in Manhattan. He had parts in several more movies between then and 1942, when he interrupted his career to volunteer for duty in the U.S. Marines during World War II.

After his military service, he went back to acting, starring along with Rita Hayworth in Gilda in 1946. This launched him into "leading man" status, and he went on the play many memorable characters, often portraying cowboys and "the ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances." He had parts in, and often starred in, more than 100 movies and TV shows.

The photo above comes with this information:

Handsome Glenn Ford pipes up--with his fabulous assortment of pipes. The actor had more than 50 in his collection, the first of which he bought when he was in the Army [according to Wikipedia and Glenn Ford - Performer and Patriot, it was the Marines.--ed.] during World War II. That first pipe helped Ford get his big Hollywood break.

"When I returned from the war, nobody would hire me," he recalls. "Then one day I met Bette Davis. She was looking for someone to star with her in A Stolen Life. She asked me: 'Do you have a pipe and a decent jacket?' I was wearing my captain's uniform at the time."

When he returned for a screen test, Ford made sure he had a jacket--and his lucky pipe. Davis loved his audition, "and I got the role," says an ever-thankful Ford, 81. The movie made him a star.

Glenn Ford retired from acting in 1991 due to health problems. During his remaining years he lived a quiet life with his son and his son's family in Beverly Hills. In his later years, he had suffered a series of minor strokes which left him in increasingly frail health, and he passed away on August 30, 2006.

When once asked how he wanted to be remembered, Ford said, "he did his best and he believed in God."

UPDATE: LawDog has details on Mr. Ford's military service.

UPDATE 2: Castle Argghhh! also remembers Mr. Ford.

NOTE: This post was originally published on one of my other blogs not long after Ford's death in September 2006.

Pipes & accessories in the 1964 Sears catalog

This week's vintage ads are actually two pages from the 1964 Sears catalog, featuring Kaywoodie and other pipes, and lots of accessories. Click the pictures to enlarge.




Found at Wishbook Web. Thanks to Power of Babel for the tip.