BriarWorks International Bacon Old Fashioned

The very smoky, woody, dry, spicy dark fired Kentucky is the lead component by a mile. The grassy, citrusy gold cavendish is amply present, but not very forceful at all. The orange topping is light while the lightly sweet and sour bourbon is the dominant topping. The essence of bacon is not quite what I would classify as “bacon” per se, but they made a good attempt to replicate it. It’s not strong, and is amplified by the smoky dark fired Kentucky. The topping do tone down the tobaccos a bit. The strength is a tad closer to medium than it is to mild. The taste is medium. The nic-hit is almost in the center of mild to medium. Won’t bite, but fast puffing will get you some tongue tingle, so I recommend a slow pace as it burns a little warm. Has a mostly consistent mildly sweet and savory flavor and burns at a slightly slow rate. Leaves little moisture in the bowl, and needs a few relights. The after taste has a little bitterness. Two and a half stars rounded down to two because of the potential for bite and tongue tingle.

-JimInks

Canadian Host, orange peels, liquid smoke, and Virginia tobacco. My problem is that I like to drink an Old Fashioned occasionally, so trying to smoke one seems counterproductive to start with.

I smoked samples of this before I bought a jar of Pete's Beard, and was immediately turned off. I've had more terrible whiskey aromatics than good ones anyway, without the awful addition of smoke flavor and way too much citrus. Somehow Briarworks managed to replicate the taste of cheap whiskey the morning after. I wanted to brush my teeth and shave my tongue while I was smoking.

Between the two blends, I'm pretty well soured on Briarworks. No offense to whoever loves this stuff, you can smoke it all, I won't be competing for jars of it.

I had high expectations from this, as an avid bacon afficionado. Delivered in a cool self-sealing mason jar. When opening, I get a strong smell of citrus and not much else. Maybe a slight hint of smoke.

When smoking, there's a dominant flavour I can't really describe. Not unpleasant; I'm just not sure I like it.

After a while, a hint of smoky bacon appears at the back of the mouth. A little bit weak for my tastes. I would have liked more bacon flavour. It's a really nice and pleasant smoke. The room note smells of citrus, and that touch of bacon. The more I smoke, the more dominant the bacon smell in the room becomes.

Not bad at all 🙂

Highly recommended if you want to try something different. But I think it's 50/50 if you will love it or hate it.

When I purchased this a few months back I gave it a try and to be honest with you I didn't have much hope for the blend. The jar note was kind of unpleasant and I really didn't get the taste either. So I took it out of the original jar, put it on a plate and gave it a good mix up. I rejarred it in a larger mason and put it on the shelf. A couple of days ago I decided to give the ole drunk porker another try. The tin note was still like cheap whiskey and an old smokehouse. I loaded up an old Omega and fired it up. Much to my surprise it hit me, the bitter sweet flavor of an old fashioned, the bourbon, the bitters, the sugar and even the orange came in loud and clear. Pleasant aftertaste and it left me wanting another bowl. Pretty good smoke I think. Have had several bowls over the past few days and the effect has been the same. I have found the flavor is enhanced fo me with a cold RC cola over ice. The tobacco itself seems to be of good quality and the cut as one reviewer stated was typical C&D, all over the place! I think that this will be one of those love hate blends though. If you want a bit of a different experience you should give this one a shot.

Another small sample from Pete, this one is a "C&D cut"... that is, the cut is all over the map. I found long narrow ribbons, short wide ones, some cubes and some chops. Weirdest bag note ever - a sort of cross between woodsmoke, booze and something I couldn't identify. Closest I could come is baby vomit. And yeah, that wasn't appealing but I soldiered on. Came dry and smoked dry.

Smoky flavor? Yes, this has it in spades! All the blends on tr.com that reviewers have thought as "smoky" have nothing on this one. HUGELY smoky! It was indeed sort of a smoky bacon flavor but it struck me as more woodsmoke with the booze flavoring close behind. This is not your typical goopy aromatic, as the flavoring took a backseat to the tobacco. By taste, I can't tell if the base is burley or Virginia, as it doesn't have any Virginia sweetness and yet it doesn't taste like an earthy burley. This is one that I'd like to experiment with further. On its own, it doesn't quite do it for me, as it needs a lot more natural sweetness. But the flavoring is downright intriguing! I think it has potential. A must try, even if only to show you what can be done with aromatics so that the flavoring and goop doesn't bury the tobacco taste.

You know when you are so sick you throw up and it comes through your nose. And you can taste it like a retrohale? That's what this taste like. Vomit

To make this short, this is the worst tobacco I ever get smoked! I find the taste far from "bacon". It reminded me of being a young student again, smoking some ciggy-butts from the day before, the morning after...

For some reason I was expecting a maple topped blend due to the name and Russ Oulette's Bacon blend and not having read the description (I follow them on Instagram and when smokingpipes starting offering it I just loaded up my cart) but after looking up the classic cocktail "Old Fashioned" I appreciated BOF much more. The jar is a very neat and original container and once opened releases a light aroma of smoky Orangey / Citrus that enticed me to dig in. Easy to pack ribbon in various browns and some black strands, no sticks or logs which is awesome. Very mild on both strength and toppings, do not expect a maple syrup full on aromatic (for that mix Autumn Evening with Old Dark Fired, its great!) but for what it is supposed to emulate, I think they hit it right on the head.

I must admit, I generally find anything with added bacon better than it is without added bacon! With that said, I had some issues with Bacon Old Fashion as it related to the balance of tastes. There is an ample amount of what would be described as a smoky bacon flavor, but not much of the “Old Fashion” as the spirit component was lacking. Dry to the touch, it burns cleanly for an aromatic but lacks the sweetness that one would expect with an aromatic. This leaves just tobacco and bacon flavor. In fairness, my two bag sample may have lost some of the added flavors because it was stored in a sample bag. So there is a chance that fresh out of the cool jar that this arrives in, that your results will be better than mine.

BriarWorks International - Bacon Old Fashioned.

Hmmmm, not one for my rotation!

As it says, it is indeed a ribbon cut blend. However, sitting underneath the cap to mine was a tobacco leaf about 2 inches long. Huge! It's mostly a medium brown, with good hydration, and a perplexing aroma; peaty, sharp, citrusy, whiskey!

Messy; this word suits the flavour for me. Out of the tobaccos the Dark Fired leads, giving a deep smokiness. The Cav' isn't anywhere near as strong in the smoke. The tobaccos are ok, but the topping doesn't compliment them well, at all. The smokiness is a contradiction to the sharp citrus and acidulous whiskey, so the taste becomes a mess. On the plus side it burns well, back on the lower side of things it bites me.

Nicotine: medium. Room-note: rank.

Bacon Old Fashioned? LOL, I'll stick to having my bacon on a sandwich, not in a pipe! Not recommended:

One star.