It's that rare thing, a tobacco that manages to have no good points at all. The other one-star reviews are more than fair. Avoid.

UPDATE 8/04/2012 I added whiskey to the pouch (1/4 ounce) and gave it a couple days to osmosis around. The addition of whiskey definitely mellowed the bite and tamed the overall strength. It did improve it considerably. But not enough for me to consider buying another pouch.

Upon opening the packet I was greeted with a sickly sweet tarry smell fading to rotting leaves. The substance within (I refuse to acknowledge it as tobacco) was in thin strands and sticky and moist to the touch.

Fooled by its appearence I packed it quite loosely expecting it to burn slowly. Wrong! it burned very fast and very hot, probably due to the petro-chemicals it was drenched in, (diesel oil perhaps?). If I tasted anything in the first few seconds It was tar, my toungue and mouth were so scorched as to be useless. I was too nauseated to finish a whole bowl and knocked it out to refill with my then usual fine cavandish cherry. On firing up my refilled pipe I had to check I had not refilled it with Riff by mistake as the toungue burning tar taste was as strong as before! On investigation I found a soggy black mass of chemicals anealed to the bottom and sides of my pipe bowl. An hour of frantic reaming and cleaning cleared enough muck to alow me to smoke again but the bitter/tar taste lingered for several pipes afterward.

The room note, (stench would be a better word) was acrid and sweet with a chemical burning smell akin to an acid spill in a chemistry lab.

It cuts me to the quick that the manufacturers of this filth have the gall to label it premium pipe tobacco.

The astonishing thing is people still buy it and smoke it, presumeably after they have got thier arms out of their strait-jackets!

In the pouch, this fine-cut ribbon blend has the typically sweet cavendish aroma along with an unobtrusively natural bourbon scent.

This is a blend of golden virginia and burley cavendishes along with black (burley?) cavendish that is rather sweet without becoming excessively syrupy. The bourbon whiskey topping is credible and admirably plays the role of unifying agent.

A classic, Borkum Riff Bourbon Whiskey is a quietly elegant smoke for those who enjoy tobaccos on the sweeter side. This will ghost a briar and seemed best in narrow to medium gauge chambers.

There is truth in numbers!

PROS * Readily available wherever cheap tobaccos are sold. * Finely cut ribbons of tobacco that packs easily * It light's readily and burns to a fine ash * The room note is tolerable * It is inexpensive

CONS * It tastes like crap * It BITES, hard * Burns hot

Borkum Riff Whiskey is most definitely a triumph of marketing over reality. Seriously, this stuff is everywhere.

Last week, while waiting for my wife to emerge from a local discount shop, I ducked into a nearby tobacconist in search of pipe cleaners. The BRW caught my eye and while the thought crossed my mind to whip out my smart phone and pull up the reviews here, I didn't want to look like too much of a nerd. It was cheap, so I thought, what the heck, I bought it.

I smoked a generous bowl in the confines of my truck while continuing to wait for my wife. I became readily apparent that BRW was not all that it was cracked up to be.

Now, I pulled out my smart phone and pulled up the reviews for BRW, reading while I smoked. Oh boy! I must say, some of you are quite creative and brutal.

I won't go so far as to describe BRW as "piss soaked cardboard", but as someone who NEVER throws away tobacco, even stuff I don't particularly like, I am seriously thinking about it.

By the time my wife joined me in the truck I was two thirds of the way through the bowl. I had a headache and my mouth was burning.

Do yourself a favor, buy something else.

If you like very mild tasting tobaccos with a corn-like sweetness and very faint nutiness from burleys, give it a try. But there are far better Whiskey blends available out there; China Black for example.

The original was overwhelming in its casing. The casing was so strong that it generated tingling in my head. And I am not figuratively speaking.

It would bite like you wouldn't believe it and smoked wet.

The new version could be a life saver but only if nothing else is available.

I am not one of these who have tried hundreds of blends. But, I probably have tried in the neighborhood of 35-40 blends. This is maybe the only one that I have smoked a couple of bowls full, then threw away the package.

It has been awhile since I have tried this so I can not give any specifics about its 'qualities', but I just know that is was totally unsmokable, and I can not imagine how a company could stay in business selling this garbage.