I bought a 25g pouch from tesco supermarket as it was one of the first pipe baccys I had seen over the counter. On opening, you are greeted with a flowery scent and a good batch of I would say medium broken flakes. Moisture was just right and it packs well.

The taste is very nice if a little strong for my likening. There is a hint of floral and a buttery taste as well as the sweetness of the VA but not that sweet. It was soapy as well but not too much (Condor was soapier!) It lights well and rarely needed to be relit but it is a wet smoke as other have said. I also found that it was a fast smoke too.

Not one I will go to first but I will always keep a pouch handy. It does give a Vitamin N kick though and I recommend a full belly for this one. It also burned the bejeezus out of my nose when I exhaled, regardless of technique.

a 2 star tobacco for me with an added star for availability

A very pleasant taste at first, it was soon replaced by such a level of Vitamine N that it excluded anything else to emerge.

When the nicotine started settling down in my stomach, I put the pipeful away. I was able to finish it much later on.

I attempted a second try. 30 min after, that was it. Never again.

i won't even try the flake, which I heard is even stronger.

But yes, as others have mentioned, this is a superb tobacco. Less perfumey and nicotine-rich than Condor, it nonetheless provides an extremely satisfying smoke and never fails to interest with its rich and dark qualities, which are balanced nicely with an array of lighter fruity notes.

It's unfortunate that a pouch of this old favourite is no longer only a short walk away.

It's cut thicker than it used to be thanks to EU regulations, and as presented may need a bit of rubbing out (the old thinner cut rarely did).

In the pipe,as far as I can tell it tastes pretty much as it always did - medium in flavour, but with a quite sweet meaty fullness to it and a nint of spiciness. It's clearly a Virginia/Kentucky blend, but the tobaccos are well cured and almost black. There's hardly any bite, though it can burn a bit wet. However, it's intended to be smoked fairly moist - dried out too much it has lass flavour, burns hotter and starts to bite.

Overall, recommended, especially as it's often available at supermarkets in the UK. A classic of it's kind.

By the way, the flake is similar, but stronger and with more depth to it.

When I was done, I was left wanting more, kind of like the Condor, I'm not by any means a long time pipe smoker, but starting out with these two strong and heavy hitting tobaccos remind me of when I was 4 years old, sat at my Great Uncle's house, he used to love both St. Bruno and Condor and the smell of the tobaccos being smoked reminds me of that, he did used to smoke Dunhill's Nightcap and that is one I must soon try!

Overall, I like St. Bruno for that typical meaty English tobacco flavour, maybe St. Bruno is the patron saint of Pipe smokers haha!

One of the first over the counter baccies i tried when i first bought my Peterson rustic bent apple 33 system pipe with the moisture trap resevoir in the stem.

Being the only pipe i had at the time i over smoked it and never gave the pipe a rest (i did not know about pipe rotation)and inconjunction with smoking St Bruno which is a wet smoke which can have a sort of a unique style of fermenting(smelling funky)if the pipe is not allowed to rest or dry.I blamed the tobacco at the time for what was my own lack of pipe hygene i suppose.Its only important to mention so that nobody else makes the same mistake of judging Bruno too early.

Anyway the upshot was that i used to inhale back then as well and it gave me bad breath which i thought tasted a cross between soap and dogshit(there is a story;as a kid i was running round the patio and trod in sparky's(my old dog) shit.My mother washed my feet by holding me over the bathroom sink and using washing up liquid and a brush was trying to clean my feet.I couldn't stand the feeling of the brush on my soles tickling and i was screaming and kicking and my mother was nearly puking as she shifted the dog dirt from between my toes and i was putting my hands over her mouth incase she was sick on me! ha ha!Anyway the odour from the steaming water in the sink was like my pipe and the taste i had in my mouth.A funny memory which i had forgotten if not for StBruno bringing it back for me to look back and remember and laugh).

When i could smoke in pubs before the smoking ban, i was in a trendy pub with the lush "beautiful" pretentious people and people were turning their noses up and i could hear some women saying from behind the pillar"phew somebody is smoking a pipe in here and it smells of shit".I had to que before i got in the place actually and lit up outside before i got in because they were only letting people in if others came out and left. So i thought i would be queing a while and thought "why not?".Once i got it going the wind blew my smoke along the wall and it went accross all the faces of the que infront of me leaning on the wall,and suddenly a row of faces winced and a mexican wave of offended heads suddenly looked at me as if to say "do us a favour"!

Basically St Bruno is a meaty smoke if smoked in the same pipe too much and it will smell like a tin of opened pedigree chum dogfood.And you would possibly have to fresh your pipe once in a while if you were smoking it exclusively all the time in only one pipe(unless you like it as an aquired seasoning taste). Its not unique to St Bruno btw,my other baccies were doing the same but bruno was doing it stronger.As it is, this does not happen with clay pipes which was why i went onto them later because i was getting bored with the maintenance that briar pipes seemed to require.

Anyway roll on about 9 years later and having about 150 old pipes and many different types of vintage metal and nylon stem system pipes i decided i would revisit a few old tobaccos of my past to see if i could make friends with some of them like i wanted to first time round.I really wanted to like St Bruno because its a brand thats been around for as long as i can remember and i rememeber all the adverts in the cinema and tv as a kid. Pleasingly ;previous smokes which seemingly were not making high impressions could now be blamed on my technique at the time or not having enough variety of pipes to give a fair trial. I now have enough pipes with different diameter draught holes and stem lengths to tune the taste i get from the final exhaust. And so as part of my OTC pipe smoking Odyssey i can now give my reassessment of good old St Bruno!

50g Pouch bought at sainsbury's supermarket and guaranteed to be available at any tobacco counter that actually sells any pipe tobacco at all.

Appearance in the pouch:Rubbed flake but distinctly different from the "St Bruno flake" version.

Buttery, slight sour fruit plum or apricot/dried fruit pouch note.

A slow and cool smoke,long lasting actually. Quite a buttery thick mouth feel with a slight "wrights" brand "coal tar soap" leathery taste factor which is pleasant.Soapy but not a kendal style lakeland essence as much,this tastes like its the tobacco rather than fortified.

Smokes well strait out of the pouch. Quite a moist tobacco and leaves a lot of tarry condensation in the moisture trap of the falcon pipe, and due to the large size hyperbowl i use to smoke this in,the trap has to be wiped out about 5 times during the smoking session or drown.But:for its wetness in the heel during a smoke,it takes light like a cooperative champ and it burns fine all the way down no problem.Its worth the perceverance and the easy clean falcon moisture trap prevents bad odour ever occuring as well.

No bite at all when smoked in the falcon :i wouldn't want to smoke this in a conventional briar to be honest without predrying for a time because of the moisture.But in the falcon with its moisture trap, it is well handled and the heel doesn't drown or gurgle like a conventional briar which means no dottle wastage and relighting. I actually like it more without drying because it produces a thicker smoother smoke. (*Bruno was never a biter first time round even when i smoked it in my early peterson rustic bent apple 303 days;but getting a mouth full of liquid gunk in the mouth or ingesting it in the smoke when going all day on it did leave my mouth a bit tarred and fethered back then)

More on taste:a buttery virginia brown/golden sugar taste,malt loaf earthyness-more of an earthy smoke than a smokey smoke. On top of the virginia is perhaps a mellow brown cavendish/sweet heavy kentucky here.Some sweet raw carrot-wet acrylic paint(in a nice way like when opening a fesh tin of wall emulsion that smells almost eddible). Very natural full tobacco's and not airy at all;here is a full dense delivery,very round and heavy creamy,slight treacle molasis factor,,faint nutmeg-ish spice of the kentucky.

Easily an alldayer of the stronger type-would go well with a cream tea chaser or coffee and bailey's irish cream liqueur. Room note is pleasant enough for me but revisiting the room later it can smell a bit leather shoeish and ammoniac. Gets stronger down the bowl and the kentucky kicks in more-The dried fruit factor is felt more than it is directly tasted and is more like eating dates than figs actually-yes;definately dried dates and rich also.The mouth feel at the bottom also tastes quite reminicent of cake mixture for rock cakes prior to baking like when liking the mixing spoon.Imagine date and walnut cake minus the actual walnuts for a date cake and you will get my drift.

According to that ogdens sales rep which everybody seems to know like the story of the never killing the albatros;i will try mixing this with 50/50 with "Gold Block" by the same brand.

Years ago (@7 or 8 so not that long)i thought this was a fairly mediocre smoke,but having tried it again in system pipes i can totally give it a 4 star,so easy to smoke i look forward to coming home from work and loading a fatty bowl of this.The fact that its easy available and a good as anything which is harder to aquire is worth an extra star itself. I am on my second recently purchased pouch and intend to keep some handy.

[Edit] This stuff gets better with every smoke - I'm smoking it as I type in a meer, and I'd swear, if I didn't know, that it was a Latakia blend, and a pretty strong one at that. I'm a big Lat fan, so that's fine with me. It has definitely replaced Condor as my favourite OTC.

I recently read in an online pipe smoking forum that EA Carey UK made a match for this tobacco. I found their web site and ordered a pouch (along with 3 other blends to be reviewed later). Not only was I able to order with a credit card, but I received my order in 10 days time. Simply first rate service! It came packaged in a 50g pouch that was labeled "Carey's Bruno Special." The pouch aroma was heavenly. There was the smell of maple, a hint of vanilla, an an undetermined fruit essence. It came as a Cavendish style mix - no sign of flakes rubbed out as found in the style of Mac Baren. I packed it in a cutty nose warmer that I use for new blends and it took to the match readily. Now I have to say that I have never had the original St. Bruno in any of its available forms, but if this is a true match, I have been missing something! This is no aromatic in the American sense. It is sweet tasting, although it may be a bit cloying for some as it was quite sweet. Although it managed to remind you that you were smoking tobacco and not candy, I would have preferred more in tobacco flavor and less of the sweetness. 3 P's is far superior in that respect. It is not floral or Lakeland-like in the pouch nor in the smoke. While discerning its sweetness/Virginia profile, I found it similar to Erinmore Flake without the Erinmore flavor (apricot and prune), but Erinmore retained more of its tobacco presence - a good thing for me. It smoked cool and dry to the heal without the slightest nip. It reminded me of Peterson's 3 P's (which happens to be a favorite of mine), not quite as strong in nicotine or tobacco flavor. In some ways, it reminded me of many Danish-style aromatics I used to smoke in my early days of pipe smoking that could be had from the Tinderbox and the likes., but way sweeter. I urge anyone that has wanted to try St. Bruno but has had difficulty locating some (USA especially), to visit EA Carey at eacarey.co.uk and go from there. They have blends that are not available from their American store, and not overly priced either. Although a lot sweeter than I would have liked, I am very satisfied with this tobacco and do recommend it.

UPDATE 2-1-12: This review has now been placed under Carey's Bruno Special

It comes in rather attractive curly strands and fills a bowl nicely, lighting took a while to really get going but after that it requires very few relights (if any)

I find this tobacco a nice alternative to some of my usual blends and it's very convenient due to the fact many places stock it. While not being something I'd go out of my way to buy and keep a reserve of, more something I'd buy when the mood takes me or I want something that smokes slow, coolish and convenient.

Overall: not too shabby.

Just as fantastic - no really: OUTSTANDING!!!!!!

Jakob Kiilerich, Denmark.

This is available from most cigarette retailers in supermarkets etc and is actually a lot nicer than I was expecting. I'd class this as a "no frills everyday smoke" with a nice solid flavour and pleasing smoke.

My one complaint. As pipe tobacco is not as widely smoked as it once was, I have no idea how long this pouch had been sitting on the shop shelf before I came alone and bought it. It was absolutely bone dry when I opened the packet. It wasn't too difficult to re-hydrate over a couple of days and I was able to smoke it.