The Pipe Bit: The Yellow, The Blue and The Black

By Chris Rentner

            Some things are completely unfair—like Hello Mary Lou Prom Night II using “Soul City” by the Partland Brothers without any type of credit (and the movie used that song three times!)  So it is with the discontinuation of a favorite product.

            Uhle’s was one of the six U.S. businesses to survive 2008, despite the decision to turn down the offered federal bailout money.  But the iron razor of ’08 continues to swing, and has claimed two products that have been friends to pipe smokers for years:  Bee Sweetener and Atmos Fresholator have been discontinued.

            These products provided a minor but appreciated function.  The stem of your pipe could be kept clean and somewhat sanitized by dunking a pipe cleaner in a bottle of either of these products, then swabbing the stem and bit.  They were called “sweeteners” because they not only kept the business end of a pipe clean but left behind a thin layer of sweetness that would go away the next time the pipe was smoked.

            Bee’s liquid was, yes, watery yellow while Atmos offered a blue-green hue in its product.  They each cost only a few bucks, if that, and graced many a smoker’s table through the years.  Any differences between the two were near nil—they had their function and they did it well.  But they were not essential to enjoying a pipe, falling into the wide chasm called “accessories.”

            There were two problems with sweeteners:  they could stain the bowl of a pipe, and—quaintly—the screw-top cap would roll off when the bottle was opened and would, of course, roll to the farthest reaches of the room.

            So Bee and Atmos sweeteners are no more.  As they leave the smoky stage, let’s have a least a round of applause for these products that tried to enhance pipe smoking, took up minimal room in inventory and even turned a profit (until lately).  We can now use alcohol to clean pipe stems, or run then under water (only the stem!) to clean them, yes.  But there were, once, two products dedicated to a single small function, just for pipe smokers.  Thanks, guys, and good night.

            This is The Pipe Bit, a Mark Goodson Bill Todman production.