Having spent decades cultivating gourmet tomatoes, Robert Redd developed a nuanced understanding of a variety of breeding methods, and the advantages and drawbacks of each. In most cases he favored open pollination, for the purposes of growing non-hybridized, heirloom tomatoes—a cultivar of tomato with a genetic history extending at least fifty years back, whose traits are consciously preserved by farmers—many of whom pass the seeds of their favorite cultivars down through the generations. Hence the name, "heirloom." In Redd's case, the best heirloom strains had been in the family for years.

Modern, large-scale industrial farmers favor a hybrid pollination method, through which one plant receives pollen from another species to select for specific genetic traits, such as size, color, and disease resistance. However, many smaller-scale farmers, Redd included, have come to appreciate the distinct advantages that the open-pollinated heirloom tomato has over its mass-produced counterpart. MotherEarthNews.com nicely summarizes several of these, which we have paraphrased below.

1. Superior taste

First and foremost, the heirloom tomato simply tastes better. Before the globalization of agriculture required that cultivars be able to survive long-distance shipping, the primary consideration of tomato farmers was the development of a fine, full-bodied flavor. Redd always bred his tomatoes to be tasty and tender, not tough. Which would you rather sink your teeth into?

2. Higher nutritional value

Recent research has shown that in their efforts to produce higher yields, many commercial growers have inadvertently reduced the nutritional quality of their tomato strains. For Redd, who believed that the body was a temple and lived a long life to show for it, this was out of the question. He carefully bred and preserved the healthiest cultivars possible, and wouldn't think of serving up anything less.

3. Consistency of strain over time

When it came to breeding tomatoes, Robert Redd was a pragmatist. He learned by doing, through careful trial and error, thus finding out in retrospect what worked—in other words, which methods and strains produced the most succulent flavors and satisfying textures. Whereas seeds produced from hybrid tomato strains are notorious for their inconsistent (if not downright poor) results, heirloom tomato seeds are renowned for staying true to type, season after season, throughout generations. Redd, who preferred to take a long view of history, wouldn't have had it any other way.

4. Less uniform ripening

While commercial growers count on hybrid tomato strains ripening all at the same time, small-scale farmers and home gardeners often benefit from the more staggered growth rate of their heirloom tomato crops, which produce a gradual supply of fresh tomatoes. Redd firmly believed in delayed gratification, as a means of maximizing his enjoyment of life's various pleasures, and relished reaping the fruits of his labor over the course an extended harvest.

5. Lower cost

In catalogs and on seed racks, heirloom tomatoes are generally less expensive than hybrid strains. For Redd, who cared about the accessibility of his product just as much as he cared about its quality, the reduced market price was a deciding factor. Redd mostly served the people immediately around him, and wasn't trying to turn a profit, but rather, to extend love.

6. Ancestry

Some of Redd's favorite heirloom cultivars remained in intact lineages extending hundreds of years into the past, originating in places all over the world. A firm believer in the importance of ancestry, Redd felt that the historicity of his cultivars was a key element in his work with them. He insisted that he was not simply growing tomatoes—as delicious though they might be—but preserving a piece of the ancient past. 

The Doering: Cool, swift and graceful—like the perfect golf swing, or an immaculate fly cast. Or driving along a winding country road in a Ferrari, your hood down, effortlessly hugging the curves. You get the idea. 

At REDD, we design each of our shirts to produce a particular effect. Each has its own style, purpose, character—you might even say a persona. The Doering is the latest addition to the REDD family of knits, and what sets it apart, not only from our other shirts but from any polo of its kind currently on the market, is the way it lets you move: with the fluidity of a dancer, the precision of a surgeon, and the follow-through of a championship golfer. 

Look: We can't promise you that wearing The Doering will imbue you with the golden touch. Mastery of any skill requires tremendous time and effort; meticulous attention to every detail of your craft; and, more than anything, the tenacity to persevere through the inevitable plateaus in your development. And The Doering is ideal for just that. With its lightweight, generous Sporting Fit, open sleeves and razor sharp lines, it's specifically designed for the crafty gentleman—or the gentle craftsman—invested in the honing of his practice and the cultivation of a surefire, hole-in-one maneuver.

And speaking of sharp lines and slick maneuvers, gents, The Doering works just as well on the ladies as it does on the green.

Click here to take a look at The Doering in various sizes and colors.

Friends of Robert Redd knew him to be a man of moderate tastes and habits—but by no means a teetotaler. Redd mixed many a mean drink, whether for the enjoyment of guests at a dinner party, or for fellow spectators at the horse races, and occasionally to enjoy himself while reclining in the austere, fire-lit library of his family estate.

It should come as no surprise to our readers that Redd, a connoisseur of the tomato and a meticulous crafter of mixtures—whether the ingredients in question were colors, crop strains or the embellishments of a drink—encountered, tested, and tweaked a variety of Bloody Mary recipes during his lifetime. While these exact mixes remain Redd family secrets, we at REDD hunted down five of the most REDD-worthy Bloody Mary mixes on the Internet:

Classic Bloody Mary by Tabasco.com

It’s no surprise that the makers of a renowned hot sauce would know how to throw together a legendary Bloody Mary.

Ingredients: “1 quart tomato juice, 1 cup vodka, 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice, ½ teaspoon Original TABASCO® brand Pepper Sauce, lime slices or celery stalks.”

Preparation: “Combine tomato juice, vodka, Worcestershire sauce, lime juice, and TABASCO® Sauce in a 2-quart pitcher; stir well. Serve over ice. Garnish with lime or celery.”

Yield: “Makes 6 (6-ounce) servings.”

Spicy Bloody Mary adapted from Epicurious.com

Some like it hot. Chances are, they’re the ones most likely to go for the glory with this mouth scorcher of a mix.

Ingredients: ½ cup Mr. & Mrs. T’s Bold and Spicy Bloody Mary mix, 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce, 1 tsp horseradish freshly ground, 1 tsp garlic freshly pressed or chopped, ½ tsp crushed black peppercorns, ½ tsp TABASCO, ½ tsp sea salt, ½ tsp balsamic vinegar, ¼ tsp celery salt, vodka of your choice.

Preparation: Stir continually to keep garlic and pepper from settling to the bottom. Don’t forget the garnish.

Yield: 1 drink

Wasabi Bloody Mary adapted from RealWasabi.com

For readers with a taste for Japanese flavor and an iron tongue to boot.

Ingredients: 32 ounces V-8 tomato juice or the equivalent, 4 to 6 shots Absolut Citron, 1 juiced lemon, 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 2 tablespoons freshly grated wasabi, 6 shakes of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce, pinch [of] celery salt, freshly ground black pepper, ice, lemon wedges.

Preparation: “In a shaker, add tomato juice, vodka, lemon juice, Worcestershire, soy, [wasabi], hot pepper sauce, celery salt and black pepper with a few cubes of ice and shake vigorously. Check for seasoning. Serve in tall glasses filled with ice!”

Yield: “Serves 4-6.”

The Perfect Bloody Mary Recipe adapted from FoodNetwork.com

Robert Redd only ever used the word “perfect” as a verb, but with this mixture’s flourishes of red wine and sherry, we’re inclined to believe that even he would have placed it close to ideal.

Ingredients: 2 ounces vodka, dash red wine, dash dry sherry, pinch celery salt, salt and pepper, 7 drops Worcestershire sauce, 5 drops hot sauce, 1 (6-ounce) container tomato juice, celery stalks, cherry tomatoes.

Preparation: “Combine all of the ingredients in a highball glass containing ice, stir well, and serve with a celery stick and cherry tomato.”

Yield: 1 drink

If you're reading this, chances are that you've sported your share of sharp, flattering ties. But how much do you know about the tie's stylistic ancestors—the cravat, for example, a men's neckband of Croatian origin circa 1630 A.D., or the ascot tie, a wide, formal band that preceded the modern necktie a gentleman wears today? Traditionally made of grey, patterned silk, the ascot tie entered the height of its popularity in the 1880s as a article of business dress and morning wear, and maintained in widespread usage among gentlemen until the early 20th century.

American portrait painter John Singer Sargeant, wearing an ascot tie circa 1880.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the ascot began to appear again on teenaged and adult men in the United Kingdom, especially but not exclusively among members of the Mod subculture. Since then, ascots have re-entered general use by gentlemen of all stylistic persuasions, much in line with their original function.

Again, Robert Redd was not the sort of man who would tell another how to dress. But for Search Engine Optimization purposes: How would Redd wear an ascot? MensFlair.com offers some helpful advice for first-timers, applicable both to the traditional ascot tie and other neck-covering garments, such as a scarf:

"To tie an ascot, pull the ascot around the back of your neck as you would a tie. Allow the left end to hang a little more than two inches longer than the right. Wrap the left end one and a half times over the right. Continue around, as if you were going to complete a second turn, but push the left end up, through the neck loop, so it emerges over the top. Make the top flap the only visible portion of the ascot, and spread this cascade out a bit at the sides. There should be small creases in the ascot. Undo the top button of your shirt and tuck the ends of the ascot into the opened front of your shirt and center it. For the finishing touch, you can secure your ascot with a stick pin."

Of course, this doesn't tell you much about how Redd would wear an ascot—he'd do it differently every time.

The pocket square, although seemingly a small detail, is a crucial element of the REDD oeuvre. While Robert Redd was never the sort of person to dictate the particulars of another gentleman's style, he wouldn't have considered his kit complete without a crisp, colorful handkerchief folded expertly in his suit pocket.

In both practical and decorative fashion, pocket squares have been in use since the ancient Grecian era, and have since been used as a symbol of station, an instrument of manners, and even in the context of religious ritual. It wasn't until the turn of the 20th century, however, that the pocket square found broad use in a gentleman's get-up. Today, our culture is seeing the resurgence and reinvigoration of many tried-and-true, timelessly classic styles of years past, and along with this renaissance of style, the return of the pocket square as a fashion statement.

At REDD, we believe that every gentleman should have his own way of doing things. Stay tuned for a video demonstration of our pocket square folding method. In the meantime, take a look at the tips some of our stylistic contemporaries have contributed:

• An AskMen.com compendium of pocket square folds
• The ArtOfManliness.com on how to fold a pocket square
• A REDD friend, S. Matheson, on four different styles of pocket square
  
  

1. Pristine Polos: Our gentlemen’s wear features crisp, striking combinations of colors—without a conspicuous brand logo.

2. Classic Cuts: Four distinguished styles, each fitting for the occasion. 

3. Premium Cotton: REDD uses only the best product for its knits—namely, long-fiber Peruvian Pima cotton.

4. Free Exchanges: Customers can exchange any product for one of equivalent price, without charge—we’ll even cover your shipping costs.

5. Free Gift-wrapping: Now that you’ve found the perfect present for the gentleman in your life, let REDD do the legwork for you and wrap it up in advance.

We place a lot of emphasis on the quality of the REDD knit, both in regards to its craft and material, but if you were to ask us to single out the element that most distinguishes our polos, we’d say it all comes down to a single ingredient: Pima cotton, harvested by hand along Peru’s northern coastline.

Pima cotton, or Gossypium barbadense, is a luxury long-fiber cotton with a history of cultivation in Peru that spans centuries, if not millennia, and known to Peruvians as “gamuza,” which is Spanish for “suede.” The plant is most commonly named for the Pima Indians, who were the first to harvest the crop in the United States, but archeologists have traced Pima cotton’s genesis to South America, having found samples that date back to 3100 B.C.

The Incas were especially well known for their practice of cultivating and weaving Pima cotton for both practical and artistic purposes. Like them, contemporary harvesters cultivate the crop by hand, which prevents the contamination of the cotton with the impurities that result from an industrial process, and leave a scratchy texture and yellowish cast. Hand-harvested Pima cotton, by contrast, results in a smooth, lustrously white finish—making it a perfect medium for REDD to mix a variety of vibrant colors.

So what separates Pima cotton from the rest? Stephen Yafa’s book Cotton: The Biography of a Revolutionary Fiber identifies the distinguishing factor in the length of the cotton fiber, of which luxury cotton’s are longer—akin, in Yafa’s words, to “the difference between perfectly drinkable table wine and a celestial Chateau Lafite-Rothschild”.

Sources:

• PeruvianConnection.com
• AlpacaDirect.com
• http://allaboutperu.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/peruvian-pima-cotton/
• http://natural-fabrics.suite101.com/article.cfm/peruvian_pima_cotton_gossypium_barbadense