Show And Tell from the 2014 Chicago Pipe Show
-
Kevin Godbee - May 14, 2014
- 6 min read
Fred Brown
CHICAGO—Well, the 2014 Chicagoland International Pipe & Tobacciana Show is in the history books. There are some left over stories that are just begging to be told. So, here we go:
If you have never been to the show, you owe it to yourself and to your love of pipes and tobacco to put it on the bucket list. You won’t be sorry.
One of the neatest stories at the show was Odalys Gonzales of The Gonzalez Family Cigars. Odalys, 42, is from Cuba and has been in Hialeah, Fla., for about 15 years hand-rolling cigars.
Get this. She learned how to roll cigars as a child watching her grandfather, Lorenzo Gonzalez. The family lived in Pinar del Rio, cigar country in southern Cuba. Lorenzo rolled for the Romeo y Julieta brand, one of the most iconic cigars in the world. Even Sir Winston Churchill was a fan, and had his name forever linked to the cigar with the Churchill size 7×47.
Odalys was busy at her table inside the 6,000-square-foot smoking tent attached to the Mega Center at the Pheasant Run Resort, home of the pipe show, rolling cigars as fast as she could. The cigars, selling for $10 a stick, were flying off the table as well.
Odalys Gonzales of The Gonzalez Family Cigars.
"I have been rolling cigars," she said in a beautiful Cuban tongue roll, "since I was a child sitting in my grandfather’s lap."
The "chabeta" rolled and snipped tobacco leaf expertly, barely making whisking sounds in her hands. The chabeta is the wide blade cigar rollers use to shape the leaf before rolling. It looks like a half moon with a wooden handle.
Odalys Gonzales of The Gonzalez Family Cigars.
Odalys chabeta was chipped and the wooden handle was slick with wear. "My grandfather gave this to me," she says with a beautiful smile, never missing a roll of the chabeta.
Odalys Gonzales of The Gonzalez Family Cigars.
A new pipe line is in the works from Savinelli, one of which is the "piano forte." Brandon S.A. Bellegarde, general manager of Laudisi Distribution Group, mentioned this tidbit while discussing the hot new Kiribi pipe lighter, a dual soft flame for pipes.
Kiribi Pipe Lighter (Courtesy Laudisi Distribution Group)
Kiribi, by the way, is from the ancient art of striking agate against quartz to make sparks for good luck. That’s from Brandon, too, who says his personal favorite is the Kabuto shape, which has the Samurai helmet horn look. Neat stuff.
This year, the Chicago Pipe show added a cigar night for the cigar aficionados, which filled the smoking tent to about max. "This is a larger than usual Thursday night for us," said Craig Cobine, show director. "That’s the point of the cigar show, to bring in more people. And, a lot of pipe smokers smoke cigars, so we thought it was time to have some cigars." Cobine says the show has a distinctive philosophy: "We try to bring in change every year. People want the new, but they also rely on what has been."
Chris Karas, 56, of Burton, Mich., was in a familiar role this year. He won the United Pipe Clubs of America slow smoking contest. . . .again.
And the Winner!
Chris With Time in Background
Chris With Trophy, David Bull (L), Mike Garr (R) – both of UPCA
Going into the 12th annual contest this year, he was a two-time winner. He won the male division of the contest with a time of 1:32.52. He battled it out against Alexey Shekhovpsov, 40, of St. Petersburg, Russia, for about 20 minutes as the last two standing, so to speak. The Russian dropped out at 1:24.29.
Alexey Shekhovpsov of St. Petersburg, Russia, placed second in men’s division of pipe smoking contest
The women’s title was won by Rie Jackobsen of Denmark, who went out around the hour mark just before Shekhovpsov. She was vying to become the first woman to win the contest, but she just missed it.
Rie Jackobsen
Rie Holding Trophy High, David Bull (L), Mike Garr (R) – both of UPCA
Rie Kissing Trophy, David Bull (L), Mike Garr (R) – both of UPCA
This year’s smoking contest drew 92 contestants, the largest field in the 12 years of the contest history. Last year there were 77 contestants.
One show official said they almost ran out of contest pipes, a nicely designed briar billiard by Claudio Cavicchi of Bologna, Italy, and produced by Luciano of Milan, Italy.
Chris Karas is also a three-time world champ with another pipe organization and placed 23rd in last year’s global world cup contest in Poland.
A large crowd watches the pipe smokers in the contest
Scott is from Mt. Pleasant, Mich., and is a member of the Order of Collegiate Pipe Smokers.
Here is a PDF with all of the times from the slow smoke contest.
The Chinese were present in a big, big way at this year’s show. I saw one Chinese shopper walking out of the gargantuan Mega Center 35,000-square-foot exhibition center with three or four large shopping bags filled with pipes. It was like Christmas in May.
Li Jun, public relations manager of a Chinese pipe making outfit, whose name I can’t comprehend, told me that "pipe smoking in China is increasing and is now the second or third largest market in the world."
You might guess that about like everything else in the world, the Chinese expect to be first in the market soon.
"We are the largest pipe maker in China," Li Jun told me. "We have seven pipe makers who are very skilled."
There are not so many pipe shops in China, Li Jun, says, but quite a few Chinese-made pipes are on the Internet.
One American pipe enthusiast was overheard to say that "I picked up a Chinese pipe. It was $3,000." He replaced it gently.
The UPCCA presented several awards during the five-day gathering.
Mark Ryan, president of Daughters & Ryan Inc., and the savior of the St. James Parrish perique fields, was noted for his contributions to the tobacco industry.
Chuck and Susie Levi of Chicago’s Iwan Ries & Co. were also presented a UPCCA award for promoting the fellowship of pipe smoking.
And, finally, there is Reggie Stevens, 71, of Birmingham, England.
He is a member of the Chicagoland Pipe Collectors Club and has been coming to the show for a decade.
"I travel 4,000 miles just to go to work," says Reggie, who is known to one and all who attend the show as "Reggie."
He is like a dynamo, everywhere at once, helping and escorting or ushering.
Reggie is a singular personality, but that’s not so unusual.
He was born in the midst of the blitz bombing of Birmingham during World War II, and spent his first year on earth in and out of bomb shelters with his family.
And, get this, he smokes his pipes only once a year now. At the Chicagoland International Pipe & Tobacciana Show.
All Photos by Fred Brown
|
|
Written by Kevin Godbee
More Pipes and Tobaccos Articles
1 Response
Recent Posts
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 636. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Barry Kane. Barry started smoking a pipe in 1961 when he was 14-years old. Back then it seemed like everybody smoked, and you could buy pipes and tobacco just about anywhere. Barry is a true old-school pipe smoker, sticking to just one blend. See if you can guess which one before listening. At the top of the show Brian will give his take on Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff Tobacco and their announcement that they will be shut down.
There’s a pipe in my collection that I cannot bring myself to smoke, though I’ve had it for more years than I care to recall. It’s old, or shall I say, well experienced; that experience, that oldness came to it long before it was in my possession. The pipe is an old Comoy’s Grand Slam from the 1940s. The shape (#93), a slightly canted, stack billiard (sometimes referred to as a Belgian) is right up my alley, and it’s a beautiful example of it. It came to me with some wear and tear; nothing unusual for an old pipe, but more the signs of one that has been well loved, smoked a lot, treated as a favorite tool, cherished, in a sense, by frequent use. It’s the pipe equivalent of a vintage car that’s been driven a lot, enjoyed fully and maintained adequately, rather than one kept in a spotless garage, dusted and detailed weekly, brought out only for leisurely Sunday drives, or to be ogled behind the ropes at the next Concours d’Elegance. When it arrived, those uncounted years ago, it wanted a little restoration. Nothing dramatic needed to be done to it, but the stem was oxidized, the finish a little dingy. The cake was even and fairly thin, and the airway was relatively clean, both signs that its previous owner cared for it, but the bowl’s surface was a little drab and dull. It took little effort to reveal its beauty, to show the lovely contrasted stain and interesting grain beneath the old wax. I often think I should do before and after photos of pipes that I work on, but those thoughts always come after the work’s been done. This one would have been a great illustration of how years of handling that can sometimes make a pipe more beautiful, can other times make it just look grungy. Once I’d cleaned up the externals, it was time to address the inside bits. I approach this a little bassackwards, I realize. It would be more sensible to take care of the inside before addressing the outside, but it’s how I roll. If an old pipe isn’t pretty to look at, it’s unlikely that I’ll care much about it, and cleaning is usually the hardest part, or at least the most boring part of any restoration for me. Alcohol and pipe cleaners. Lots of pipe cleaners. That’s why I leave it for last. Sometimes, I’ll even give a pipe a test smoke before a deep cleaning, just for a point of reference. I gave it a sniff to get an idea of what I was up against, and it stopped me cold. There in that bowl was an aroma that I had not smelled in decades. My head was instantly filled with memories of being in the back room of a fabled Berkeley tobacconist’s shop where I stumbled upon a few jars of long discontinued blends. One of them, a blend called Forty and Eight, had the most engaging and unusual scent of any tobacco I’d stuck my schnoz into. It was sweet, but not in a candy store way. There were none of the usual vanilla, cherry, berry or anise notes of typical aromatics, nothing that could be compared to aftershave or deodorant soap, but something almost musky, a little earthy, something exotic. The shop’s owner couldn’t tell me what was in it, how, or where it had been produced. The old blend had been retired before he’d bought the place. The printed catalogue gave no clues, either, other than being overprinted with the word “DISCONTINUED” in bold, rubber-stamp type. (And, I don’t recall it as being “highly aromatic” as the description indicates.) There was still quite a bit in the jar. Being, at that point, an intrepid explorer of all kinds of tobaccos, whether I thought I’d like them or not, I had to give it a try. It was burly based, but also comprised a good measure of virginia leaf, and maybe some other varieties; I didn’t have enough experience at the time to really pick it apart. But, that aroma was unlike anything I’d experienced before or since. It was something now completely lost to time. Until it wasn’t. Memories are powerful things, and there is no sense more tightly bound to memory than our sense of smell. One whiff was all it took to carry me back in time, conjuring a vivid recollection of something long submerged in the inky depths of a subconscious mind. Look, I know as well as anyone that pipes are meant to be smoked, and that many feel it almost sacrilegious to have a pipe and not set it to its intended task. In this case, I simply can’t. I won’t. Ever. Rationally, I am fairly certain this pipe would probably be a great smoke. It was too well loved by its previous caretaker to be anything less than that. My choice not to smoke it is an emotional one, not something rational. Of the thousands of pipes that have passed through my hands over the years, this is the only one to create such a singular and vivid, almost Proustian recollection of temps perdu, of lost time. It revivified a long dormant memory that is mine, and mine alone, and that’s enough. I keep it in a drawer with other old English pipes. In some ways, it’s nothing special, just a nice old pipe. I don’t lavish it with any particular care that arguably befits the hidden treasure that it holds. It’s not in a special box, or displayed preciously in a glass cabinet. Every once in a while, I take it out, point my nose bowlwards, and every time, those memories return just as powerfully as they did the first time. I have no idea how long it’s been since its last owner smoked it, but in the years I’ve had it, there seems to have been very little degradation of the aroma, and that’s […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 635. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with James Ravenwood. James is the boutique tobacco blender of Ravenwood Blends. His blending started out as a fun hobby, and he now has professionally packaged commercially available products with some great tin art. Part of his interest in pipe smoking goes back to fond memories of a retired Navy Veteran that lived on his street while he was growing up that would sit in his driveway smoking a pipe all day. Later, in 2011 he began smoking pipes and soon after started experimenting with mixing different tobaccos. His other hobby, that he has been doing for 30 years, is photography. He takes wonderful photos of outdoor spaces, and still life pictures of pipes and tobacco. You can see them on his Instagram @thebriarfellowship. At the top of the show we’ll have an Ask the Pipemaker segment with renowned pipe artisan Jeff Gracik.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big one—Christmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. It’s in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. It’s aromatic! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedom’s philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Pundit’s way of summing it up. You just don’t go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ain’t easy to turn on the lights in Pundit’s rock pit head. Now it’s time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
As a cigar smoker as well this was a great angle for an article, topped off by excellent photos. Hooray for China, they may well be keeping the future bright for those of us who want to continue to indulge in our habit into the future.