There is a whiff or rum or something, but it is really tobacco flavored. The taste is not what I would call delicate or nuanced. It is a basic smoke that satisfies.

Great job on this one Russ!!!

CBK is a good looking tobacco in the pouch with a nice medium brown color and comes as a broken flake, although it is advertised as a flake. It has a very nice aroma in the jar, too. As with most broken flakes, I gave it a quick one second spin in my old coffee grinder that is reserved for this purpose. For most of this test I used an old favorite burley pipe, a Savinelli Bing's Favorite that seems to love burley blends

CBK lights easily and often doesn't need a charring light. It burns slow and cool, which is really nice because Bing's Favorites tend to burn hot because their walls are thin. CBK also needs a minimum of relights. The taste is that of chocolate mixed with a very mild burley nuttiness. I love the taste and my wife loves the room aroma, which she says reminds her of chocolate (she is a chocoholic). I REALLY like this tobacco!!

Scores for CBK?: flavor- 18 of 20, lighting and burn- 9 of 10, value- 9 of 10. That gives Classic Burley Kake an outstanding score of 36, for a high **** review. This is the highest score I've ever given a tobacco and a lb. of CBK will always be in my cellar.

And today I decided for a break from the Virginias and the Englishes that populate my pipes and palate...and so pulled a pouch of the old Carter Hall for a rare resampling. The past few weeks I've forced myself to cease my monthly tobacco restocking, simply to finish off a few the many blends that I push off to the side in neglect. I chose to smoke my rare Burley sampling in a very small pipe to limit my discontent, as the leaf tends to wear on me in larger pipes.

I got that "nutty" flavor of which so many remark, though I only call it "nutty" for lack of a better vocabulary. It is that characteristic taste that grates on me over time, endemic to most of the lower end OTC blends, but seemingly lacking in the higher end blends like Solani's Aged Burely Flake, which I admire most of all.

The smoke was decent, and I put together a pipe to immediately follow my most recent Carter Hall experience, filling her with Russ's Classic Burley Cake. My sample is nearly a year old at this point, and has a peculiar rubbed out consistency. Either the press failed or was forgone entirely, of which I'm not certain. This has happened before from Russ's blending house, as in my purchase of Plum Pudding, also conspicuously absent of the press--though not that it would matter much in the smoke. The blend itself smells sweet out of the mason jar, and quite inviting. The moisture content is quite high, and the tobacco itself is very soft but not at all sticky to the touch.

Upon light, the casing is more muted than what I have read from the reviews here. It is indeed evident, but never detracts from that nutty flavor of the Burley. I do see some darker leaf in the jar, which I suspect might be the Kentucky referenced in the description, though it appears to be minimal, perhaps less than five percent of the blend. At no time could I detect the Virginia, though its inclusion might explain a limited profile of that characteristic Burley nuttiness.

Classic Burley Cake is a mild blend, more so than the Carter Hall, and never builds an intensity that I find objectionable. It will be admittedly difficult to finish off the remainder of these 2 ounces, but that is of no fault of the blend. I can't speak for other reviewers, but I don't suspect the flavoring will repel the more hardened Burley admirers out there--toward the end I could pick up light chocolate notes, but the primary character of the topping seems to me a an added sweetness that compliments the leaf. Or maybe that's just my sample, as perhaps I got an odd batch? To be fair, I wouldn't have picked this up had I known the tobacco wouldn't have been caked as promised.

Regardless, this is a decent blend, but not one for the Burley connoisseur. It's simply a light, sweet Burley blend with no pretensions, very fitting for those times one would enjoy a kind, mindless smoke.

The tin note is Plum, Prune, Raisin, and chocolate (very subtle) and lights up like a dream! The tobacco comes fairly moist, but smokes cool, and like a well dried and aged tobacco! The crumble cake is like a moist brownie ready to eat....(tried it, not very tasty)

Smoking this blend has put all other blends on hold for me, nothing in my collection quite stands up to this one! I have smoked it every day 3-4x a day now for about a week and have yet to desire something else. Balkan blends taste strange to me now, and VAPER doesnt cut it for me either.

Burley Kake is here to stay, and my god I LOVE IT!

Later on, I found a bag of this I'd stashed away, & tried it in my 1948 peterson dublin. WOW, huge difference! I immediately tasted flavors MUCH more pronounced than when I'd previously smoked it. Lots of sweet vanilla, almost a caramel, a subdued almost savory prune, very nice. It had a tendancy to bite if pushed too hard, but when barely sipped, it behaves wonderfully, & smokes like a champ.

I have had MANY compliments from co-workers & passerby when smoking this, many remarking that it smelled like a desert in the oven.

When smoked with a slow cadence, the flavor of the burley really shines through, like a good old school OTC blend.

I highly recommend this smoke. And for those with the negative reviews, I suggest trying a different pipe, it made a world of difference for me.

CBK reviewing an 8oz tin, came in broken kake, moisture was high on first tin- pop, casing super strong, hard to keep it burnig and overpowered by casings which I don't like in my bacci ( I like the Med-full English as well as our Vs and Vaps)...now with that said I put out a few pipe fulls for a 24hr dry time..after that this stuff is GREAT, smoked it in a big rusticated Boswell OPaul, just gravity-fill pipe with a light tamp....and off you will go.... pure bliss is given from this stuff, nice toasted nut flavors along with deep dark and rich chocolate flavors...all I hear from quality burley and LONG finish...Mmm-mmm-Mmm....

The bag aroma is a nutty high quality burley smell with cocoa and a hint of something else in the background. This is not low quality cocoa but more like Ghiardelli Cocoa. Very rich and full on the nose.

Packing was easy as my kakes had broken into a ready rubbed in the bag. Took a char and light immediately and decended into smoking bliss. The flavouring is not overpowering but lingers on the nose and in the room note. Definately cocoa with perhaps anise and unmistakable good quality burley. The bowl burned down with little tamping and only 1 relight and the flavour remained consistant until the final 1/3 when the burley dominated.

Room Note was like freshly ground coffee... even hours later it left a faint coffee/cocoa smell.

Overall this is a winner, far better than what Wessex is offering at a fraction of the price. Is it Egdgeworth? I think the flavour is close, but I can't say for sure since it's been years that I tasted Egdgeworth.

Upon lighting, you will notice a musty aroma that really takes you back in time to the days of your grandfather. The flavors blend perfectly to produce a tasty and mildly sweet burley smoke. It burns clean and the burley flavor is consistent throughout the bowl with no bitterness.

All things considered, this is one damn fine tobacco.