Now that I have that out of the way... this is a wonderful American burley blend with a hint of latakia. Normally I don't want any latakia in a blend unless it's the "driver" of that blend. In this case it serves its purpose as the mildest of spices, a wisp that just adds a tang to the burley. I can understand why many call this an "all day" blend because I find myself reaching for it several times a day. It always delivers.

As mentioned in other reviews, this is a great change of pace for the smokers of PA and CH and a nice "pseudo-aromatic" for the English smokers that want something less offensive to those around them. It's an unassuming blend, and by not trying to do too much, it ends up doing everything right to my palate. And it's dirt cheap... for now!

UPDATE 12/20/11

This blend has turned on me! The last three tubs I've had were bitter and bitey. I find it doubtful that they changed the recipe so I can't explain this turn of events. But I no longer find this nearly as enjoyable as I used to. Taking away 2 stars.

Upon opening, I was greeted by the aroma of what seemed to be more straight tobacco than some of the others, a nice variety of mostly rough-cut pieces with only a very light hint of some sort of topping. The original aroma of the tobacco seemed to change after the tub had been opened for a few days, the subtle smokiness of the (presumed) Latakia seems to become more pronounced. I've been smoking this now for 3 days straight and have to say it has bumped out CH for my favorite burley blend.

It packs extremely well without seeming to be overly moist. I usually let my pipe sit to dry for a while after filling but this doesn't seem to affect Walnut one way or the other, I find it does not take the first light as well as do PA or CH, and benefits from a tamp and relight. Once that ritual is over, you are rewarded by the usual thick clouds of smoke that tell you that you are smoking an American burley blend. It smokes cool but can get hot if overly puffed, especially if the air is moist and the bottom of the bowl gets wet. I have also found that the pipe I smoke it in affects the taste more than I expected. I first was smoking it in a cob, and the first half of the bowl was fairly bland, but developed subtle sweetness that carried on until the end. In a larger-bowled briar, the sweet nature comes almost immediately and does not leave for the duration of the smoke. And despite the aroma of the Latakia coming out in the tub, I can't claim to taste any of it in the smoke. This burley does smoke quite slow, a largish group-4 size can last well over an hour of steady puffing. The other characteristic I have noticed is a peppery nip on the tongue, not tongue bite but rather a perique-like nip.

My early conclusion is that for now, despite being labeled an English style tobacco, Walnut is my top pick for an American style burley. With tobacco prices increasing, it is a quality bargain that I will be stocking up on while I can.

Additional comments made on 11/5/09: I just received a 12 oz tub of this fine mixture. I transferred it to my large jar. The lower half did seem a bit moister than many would like. It was pretty much clumped together and needed some breaking up. I think it will dry out nicely though. There does seem to be some large segments of leaf that missed the QC guys and made it into the tub. Having smoked several pipefuls of this in several types of pipes today, it does not seem to be too ungodly moist. The comments above are unchanged from the original review and still ring true for me and are based on a 2 ounce sample.

Its a nice cool and dry smoke. Funny thing: theres no one flavor that comes out to greet you and it could almost be considered a tad on the bland side but I like the stuff. Its a well behaved, comfortable, slow burning and mild burley based blend with a subdued flavor. I'll definitely keep this around. Seems to have a decent room note.

At first, I was put off by the bite and the flavor was very one dimensional. Eventually, I put half the tobacco on a platter and set it in the sun for about forty five minutes, stirring it frequently. I let it go till it was dry to the touch but still had enough moisture to keep the spring in the tobacco when I packed it.

Evidently, this was the ticket. The tongue bite was gone and the flavors came through quite well. I smoked it more and more frequently over the next three or four weeks and now it is my favorite tobacco. No one tobacco dominates in this mixture, which I consider the primary quality in a "mixture". The burley gives it good bottom end and fullness and the other various tobaccos create a wonderful taste with an underlying sweetness from the tobaccos and not casing.

Now I've got all these tins of the "best" tobaccos along with jars of tobacco shop bulk tobacco that, in my opinion, don't offer the pleasure I get from Walnut.

I am surprised but I'm sold on Walnut and very happy I took the chance and tried it.

P. S. Whisky compliments this blend very well.

Walnut is as someone else put it, an Americanized English blend. I find it to be a very pleasant burley with some exotic condiments barely but nicely noticeable. It reminds me of Dunhill's London Mixture, but much milder, and for me more enjoyable. I find the less full flavor very nice, although nicotine content seems higher than the other Middleton tobaccos.

I don't know if Walnut will become for me an everyday smoke, but I hope it's available for a long time to come. Recommended.

Takes one back to Philly waiting rooms when doctors and lawyers would still affect a pipe...and were expected to.

An American English? I suppose so. A nice comfortable anytime smoke that burns well if packed well. I don't detect Columbian figs, 3.6% Syrian latakia or anything beyond value for dollars spent.

Sometimes the day and experience are simply about firing up a pipe and there is where Walnut shines.

Update - 5/17/09 - Down Grade to Two Stars! This will be my last tub of Walnut. Good aroma, but I'm experiencing a nasty chemical aftertaste and alittle tongue bite. Prefer Private Blend from Iwan Ries. Down grade to two stars.

OK- This is an update to the bulk of my original review after several POUCHES of Walnut. I've bumped my first-response from somewhat recommended to recommended. I have made my peace with burly, whose tobacco sweetness is actually probably the "tobacco juice" background taste I mentioned before. It is really not meant as a negative comment, so much as a highly subjective & specific comment with a history. My father habitually cleaned his pipes when he got a sudden shot of juice from his pipe - maybe that was the "old codger's blend" smoker's method. Anyway, I'm afraid I picked that up from him back then. With PA (or any blend where burley predominates, it is a practice rewarded by that inevitable sudden reminder. Even though I've long since broken the habit, I know that taste, associate it with burley, and can pick it's potential in the distinctive taste of burley as soon as I light a burley-based blend. I think it put me off burley for all these years. Brebbia Balkan cured me of those negative associations permanently, and let this balkan smoker appreciate burley flavor as a base. Trying something new educates you. I learned more about tobacco by smoking a vintage tin of 759 than by any other pipe smoking experience, for example. The several burley-balkans Tinder Box sells first made me aware that some consider that acceptable in a "balkan." Well, maybe an Americanized English - which is what Walnut has always claimed to be, I think; and actually is - or maybe was in 1859 when Walnut was first blended.

Walnut IS working for me as a daily tobacco. Even so, I've ordered some syrian latakia to further balkanize (here, a positive adjective), the smoke.

ORIGINAL REVIEW FOLLOWS: I wanted to try Walnut, and just before I found the above source I'd already broken down & ordered a 12 oz can for $14.

My favorite available blend is Penzance, but I've also learned to enjoy SG's Best Brown, and Buteria's Balkan (which, with it's use of burly was a stretch for me as I don't remember my father's PA that fondly. To keep me from cigarettes - this was the early 60's); pop bought me my first pipe and offered me all the PA I could smoke. And I am grateful to him for that. PA was was ok, but what I really wanted to smoke back then was Hickory, which my mom said I couldn't smoke in the house because it smelled like it would "leave a film on her curtains."

Times are tough right now & I just couldn't debit the kind of $ to my checking account that I have been. I wanted an acceptable standard tobacco so I could order along with a two oz tin of something more costly (which I did do already, a tin of Best Brown). Walnut is so inexpensive that, alone, that 14 oz. doesn't meet the minimum purchase requirement at Noggins. Imagine.

So how did that work out for me? I tried a first bowl of Walnut in a Peterson system meer, as I know I can clean just about anything out of it & not taste it later. If I'd gotten the 2 oz pack I don't think I would have trashed it, as I just did a pack of Carter Hall, and 3/4 of the way through this first bowl I'm not sure yet that I'll make it through the whole can - but I might. It has a kind of tobacco-juice flavor in the background of a different kind but reminiscent of that Kendal-taste that lurks in the background of many SG & Gwaith & Hoggarth blends that I like just fine.

It is a definite cut above Carter Hall, which would have been my previous nominee for best "drugstore blend." It won't replace anything else I smoke in bulk. But it may (or may not) tide me over until better times as a replacement for bulk orders of Penzance - or, maybe it'll just make Penzance last longer in my drawer. I'll have to revisit this site later for a comment futher down into the can - which means I want to give it a fair chance.

Some smokers of better blends may well find Walnut accomplishes all I'm after for them right off the bat. Tastes differ widely, after all, and I've tried blends at several times the price that never made it to a second bowl. Walnut has already passed that standard.

A must try for people that enjoy drugstore blends. And if you really like this and you're willing to spend some extra bucks, give Bald Headed Teacher a try. You won't regret it.

As an English blend, Walnut is like Erinmore Balkan's quiet, rather uninspiring younger brother -- the one that nobody noticed until he ended up owning a huge software company in the 90s. I would call it an English for people who do not smoke English blends because it is very shy as far as the orientals and latakia are concerned.

Smoked in a cob, orientals come to the fore, and smoked slowly it has a flavour of its own -- English, yes, but different. As I said, it is the shy, retiring relative of the bolder English/Balkan blends, but should not be judged as of inferior quality on that score.

Smoke this if you want a little English flavour or an interesting mix of flavours without going to aromatics. More than a burley, less than a Balkan, Walnut fills an important space in the tobacco pantheon.

Judging from the number of years it has been around, an awful lot of people have enjoyed it, and I am pleased to join their number.

Then there it was a few days ago, sitting on the shelf at my local tobacconist next to a tub of (ugh, Mixture #79 CHERRY--can you imagine...).

$18, but its here...in my hands...a nice hefty block of tobacco...no shipping and no wait...no time to back out. I purchased...

Suprising look in the tub, more of a "normal" looking tobacco than the industrial american burlys I usually smoke. Wow, I can smell the latakia in this, also a nice stewed fruit sort of casing. Perfect moisture level to the touch.

Initially packed a smallish filter dublin and smoked a bowl on the ride home, windcap in place. Somewhat of a bite, but nice flavor and great "car note". No gurgle. I was suprised that it went out once or twice as I have been smoking mostly Kentucky Club, Cherry Blend and PA and I tend to chuff pretty heavily at times. Dumped it at about the 1/4 bowl when it got a little ashy.

I accidently left the tub in the car and smoked a couple of more bowls while driving and then brought it inside and loaded up a bigger apple/brandy half bent and concentrated on having a nice slow savoring type of smoke.

Very nice. Quality lightly cased burley with just enough Oriental to give that slightly "chalky" mouthfeel of an english and a hint of Latakia (just enough of a hint, in my opinion). When smoked slow I experienced no bite at all.

Delightful "nose aroma" out of a bent as someone had mentioned earlier. The casing burns off at about half bowl and you are left with a nice, though somewhat bland, burley/virginia kind of smoke that occasionally gives up the spirit of a touch of oriental and latakia to balance out the sweetness of the burley component.

Believe it or not, this sort of reminds me of MacBarens Solent Mixture but easier to smoke and a hell of a lot cheaper.

I think this is good stuff to keep around for a change of pace while still keeping with my recent "american burley" summer obsession. Blows the doors off of Revelation (similar "drugstore eschelon competitor) because of it's higher quality leaf, better cut and more subtle casing. I can imagine myself smoking more of this stuff as the summer gives way to fall...

If you're a snob about "english tobaccos", forget about it. If you like the simple pleasures of PA, Carter Hall and Half and half, give Walnut a try for a nice change of pace.

I got Haunted Bookshop, Stonehaven, and this in the mail... Maybe it's simply because it's the least challenging blend, I've liked this the best so far. Sure to change, right? I mean, I don't even like latakia, and I'm one of those that always say I don't like toppings. I'm sure to be tired of it in a week, but right now, it's a great change of pace, it's mostly burley, and it's nice...