Cornell & Diehl Blockade Runner

(2.85)
C&D's true Navy cavendish crumble cake is made with hand stoved red Virginia and golden Virginia, soaked in a premium rum for seven days, then lightly stoved again, pressed and cut. The seven days are the time it took our seagoing forefathers to sail back to New England from the Islands with the tobacco in their casks soaked with rum. The ship on the label is the Advance, the South's most successful blockade runner.

Details

Brand Cornell & Diehl
Blended By Craig Tarler
Manufactured By Cornell & Diehl
Blend Type Straight Virginia
Contents Virginia
Flavoring Rum
Cut Krumble Kake
Packaging 2 ounce tin, 8 ounce tin
Country United States
Production Currently available

Profile

Strength
Medium
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Extremely Mild -> Overwhelming
Flavoring
Medium
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
None Detected -> Extra Strong
Room Note
Pleasant to Tolerable
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Unnoticeable -> Overwhelming
Taste
Medium
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Extremely Mild (Flat) -> Overwhelming

Average Rating

2.85 / 4
16

39

13

7

Reviews

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Displaying 1 - 10 of 75 Reviews
Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
May 03, 2017 Mild to Medium Medium Medium Pleasant to Tolerable
The hand stoved red and golden Virginias offer a little grass/hay, citrus and stewed fruit, some dark fruit and earth, along with a touch of spice. The rum topping has a little richness, and sublimates the tobaccos without drowning them out. The nic-hit (which can sneak up on you as you go along) and strength levels are closer to medium than they are to mild. The taste level just reaches medium. The krumble cake easily breaks apart to suit your packing preference. Burns cool, clean, and a mite slow with a consistent flavor from start to finish. Leaves little dampness in the bowl, and requires a little more than an average number of relights. Has a pleasant after taste, and is almost an all day smoke.

-JimInks
32 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
May 31, 2003 Mild Medium Mild to Medium Pleasant to Tolerable
Bone dry, rum soaked and different, Blockade Runner is unlike any Navy flake I have ever encountered. Not a super star, but very flavorful and surprisingly punch strong as its foreboding, dark appearance would indicate. It crumbled and packed nicely.

I'd purchase another tin and enjoy it.
21 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jul 26, 2007 Medium to Strong Medium to Strong Medium to Full Pleasant to Tolerable
An intriguing tobacco, the strong scent of rich rum burst from the tin on opening. I, too, found the two wrapped blocks, which were slightly oily to touch, and crumbled with a little effort. My initial sample was smoked in a clay churchwarden, mimicking the methods that those sailors would have used in days past. the reward was a full-bodied robust flavor, heady with rum notes and walnut taste. After a few days, the tobac was drier, the rum notes more muted, but the flavor as intense. An excellent late night smoke with a flagon of ale or stout, good in briar, but finishes wet at the end.
19 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Aug 15, 2016 Medium to Strong Mild Medium Pleasant
A very nice example of a Navy Cav. A nice tang with notes of hay and dark fruit. A good bit of sweetness from the Virginias and a little more from the rum that also provides a light note of molasses. Has some body and strength to it. It's about a 3.5 smoke for my taste, but I'm gonna round up to 4 just because I want to.

Body is medium to strong. Nic is medium. Flavoring is mild (probably because I like my tobacco dry). Taste is medium. Burns very well when dry. I like McClelland's Navy Cav just a shade better than this, but this is a close second.
Pipe Used: MM Little Devil Cutty, Little Devil Acorn, Marcus
PurchasedFrom: pipesandcigars.com
Age When Smoked: fresh
16 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
May 23, 2015 Medium Medium Medium Very Pleasant
Update: 7-31-15. After smoking more of this I've found that the virginias used are just too harsh. Theres a bitterness no matter how you smoke it. If the tobacco is dry it's much worse. I find dry tobacco bitter anyway but this is very bitter dry. It's too bad because I love the cake and the rum used. It's fun to smoke while gardening but I reach for Navy Cavendish 9 times out of 10 instead.

Great range of virginia flavors with a wonderful rum flavor. Flavor seems to be only quality rum and like it was truly soaked in it. The cake is fun and nostalgic. The only problem I have is that the cut can rub out to be too small sometimes. I tend not to rub out as much as flake tobacco because I'm afraid I will end up with saw dust or fish food. I pack little bunches and put very small pieces on top.

One of my main smokes is McClelland's Navy Cavendish. I prefer NC to blockade runner. It's a better all around smoke. BR is good to have on hand though and I have it once in a while for a change of pace. It's not quite a regular smoke like NC, though.

High quality but the cut is weird! All in all good stuff and fun. It's nice to bring on a fishing trip or camping with some cobs for friends who don't smoke pipes much (cigar smokers). Most of the non smokers comment on how nice the smell is.
Pipe Used: briars & cob
Age When Smoked: new
13 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
May 19, 2017 Mild to Medium Mild to Medium Mild to Medium Pleasant to Tolerable
Cornell & Diehl - Blockade Runner.

The 2oz tin contains a whole, unbroken, kake, with an unequivocal smell of rum emanating from it. Filling a bowl is easy, a smokes worth can be easily pulled away from the block, so there isn't any necessity to have to sit for fifteen minutes or so crumbling the whole thing.

For the initial part of a bowl the rum's a lot sharper, with more actual alcoholic traits. After about a third of a bowl it develops more of a molasses sweetness, and becomes soft as opposed to sharp. The temperature and burn are good: cool, and slow. The smoke has a nice texture, being thick and palpable, and at no point in a bowl does it bite me.

The room-note scores 5/10, and the nicotine's just below medium.

I love a good krumble kake, I think it's a nice way of presenting a blend, but when the mood takes for one me I'll stick with Cornell & Diehl's Back Frigate. That's one star better!

Recommended.
Pipe Used: Friday Altinok Lee Van Cleef meer'
PurchasedFrom: Smokingpipes.com
Age When Smoked: 6 months
10 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
May 27, 2014 Medium Strong Medium to Full Pleasant to Tolerable
Strange I thought I reviewed this back in 2004 when I first tried it. I can remember clearly driving down the Garden State Parkway with my Father as we were buying our first boat. I was smoking it in a mini meerschaum, you know the ones with plastic stems that look ridiculous compared to real pipes. Well back then even in that tiny tiny pipe I got kicked by the nicotine. Fast forward to 2014 and I am smoking a fresh tin, still next to dad, in a MM Country Gentleman and the strength is perfect. Amazing what a decade does to the ability to handle Nicotine. Anyways BR smells like Myers dark rum, has the most ingenious cardboard container inside the tin that keeps the block intact. Red and black Virginia is evident. Burns easily, is a little spicy through the nose although no perique is present, must be the Spiced Rum I taste in the snork. 3+ years make this blend a 4 star event. Fresh its tasty but the Virginia has not had time to relax and get sugary, so I did what I learned over the last 10 years to do: buy two tins to age while I smoke a third. Smoke in a narrow pipe like a MM Country Gentleman, slowly like every breathe and you will be rewarded with butterscotch and baked bread flavors. I'm thinking buttered croissants Mmmm! Roomnote is not terrible, I love it, bystanders say its not that bad. Whats not to like, the cuts great, black and red V - A+ and all held together by dark rum... O btw it never bites.. the spicyness might seem like bite but its not. Enjoy Me Hartys!!!
Pipe Used: Various Missouri Meerschaums & Mini Meerschaum
PurchasedFrom: Smoking Pipes
Age When Smoked: fresh tin
10 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jan 17, 2015 Medium to Strong Mild Full Tolerable
A really satisfying smoke. During a bowl I'm never blown away, and yet it seems to be one I crave. I'm still relatively new into the game, and I'm still purchasing lots of things to try, but this is one that I really missed when it was gone. I was initially attracted to its description as what seemed to me an authentic navy weed, Virginias cased in rum- and I think it delivered on that.

First, the tin art is nice. The presentation of the cake is great- the first one was quite dry and easily broken, the second was slightly moister and more durable as a result. The tin aroma is pure tobacco, slightly woody, with some distinct rum tones. I keep the preparation simple, merely breaking off what I need, which is then easily rubbed out. It takes the match readily, but the dry tin really packed a wallop before quickly settling down.

The flavor is full, and to me the dominant taste is of malt or unleavened biscuit. At times the Va hay notes pop up, especially on harder puffing, but more often the malt mixes with wood notes, and hints of sweetness and nuttiness. The nicotine is there, but is very well matched to the rest of the experience. It's not particularly complex, but what is there is nice and tends to flatten out towards the bottom of the bowl with a slightly ashy taste. I find I can enjoy it without wholly dedicating my attention or continually hunting for more hidden tastes. It burns very well, requires little attention other than light tamping, and smokes great outdoors even in wind. It easily suffers abuse, but the taste and nicotine content are sufficiently high to preclude the need to puff hard. The quality of the tobacco is undeniable.

This will certainly be a staple for me. Someone looking for a historically accurate mix would be very well served by this offering.
Pipe Used: Boswell bent billiard, Sasieni bent billiard, cobs
PurchasedFrom: Pipes and Cigars
Age When Smoked: 3 months and 6 months
9 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Aug 03, 2018 Strong Mild to Medium Full Tolerable to Strong
What this blend is trying to do, it does well -very well, in fact. First of all, the presentation is wonderful; the cake is very easy to break apart into a medium/fine cut by hand (it tends to peel into layers) and though it can feel quite dry at this point, resist the urge to hydrate it. This is a blend that is definitely best smoked as it comes right off the cake.

Initially, it smells strongly of rum, though in the actual smoking it is the virginias that are the main player. Dark and rich, they give this blend a lot of body without ever becoming heavy or musty as C&D virginas can sometimes be. All the while, a gentle and above all NATURAL spiced rum flavor floats around in the background. This favor is both sweet and smooth, but it also really nails the spice and pleasant mouth burn of a good rum that gives it an almost perique-like character at times. This alternating sweetness/spiciness really keeps things interesting in what would otherwise be a high-quality but fairly pedestrian straight virgina.

This blend absolutely shines in a smaller pipe, particularly in hot weather. It never bites and it generally burns right down to a light-grey ash with only one or two relights. As other reviewers have noted, aging does improve the overall experience and even as little as six months can produce a noticeable difference. Nicotine-wise, it can take some getting used to if you are sensitive... it is comparable to, say, Nightcap in strength. However, I consider this part of its charm and it seems to really fit its character as a truly great, lazy summer smoke.
Pipe Used: Tsuge Mizuki 942
PurchasedFrom: smokingpipes.com
Age When Smoked: 6 months
8 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
May 09, 2017 Mild to Medium Medium Medium Pleasant to Tolerable
The VAs are nicely balanced and form a good structure, but for me, the rum is the slightly stronger player here. It's not a sweet smoke, but there is no doubt about it being flavored (although it is not as strong as the tin note suggested). The crumble cake certainly crumbles, sometimes into too fine of particles, so this is one blend that would be easy to over-pack, esp. if too moist, and sometimes it needs a relight. Overall, fans of the flavor of a Navy flake who aren't fussy about the form should give it a try.
Pipe Used: briars, cobs, and meers
Age When Smoked: 15 months
7 people found this review helpful.
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