Haunted Bookshop is a delightful and very mild blend. Virtually a non-aromatic. The extremely light topping strikes me as possibly just a touch of Anise. I consider it a non-aro. I enjoy the quality leaf, the easy light and comfortable smoke it delivers. I do highly recommend it. But you should also try the other two as well or you will be missing something.

This is an excellent blend for Burley lovers but it has a bit more character than a pure Burley. This is something that I welcome in a blend of this type.

Enjoy it. It could be an easy all day smoke if you are looking for one. It is a good investment and will likely not let you down.

The high quality leaf gives this an extra star from me, but frankly I find little going on here. Very cigarette-like in flavor, the burley overwhelms to the point where the virginia and perique are barely noticeable. The taste doesn't change its shape as the smoke progresses unless it's to become harsher. It's a lot like smoking hot air (which might be what reviewer Old Puffer meant when he said strong but dull, or words to that effect).

The blend is not cantankerous in the least, and smokes fairly easily down the bowl with no tongue bite. I guess as predominantly a virginia and VaPer smoker, I'm just used to a lot more complexity. There is something to be said about a tobacco that doesn't demand much of a smokers taste buds, however - something comforting, perhaps. It's just that when one averages only about 10 bowls per week, perhaps something with a little more personality is required. At least for me. With tobaccos, as with most things in life, your mileage may vary. I'm going to add a dash of blending perique to this and see if I can spice it up a bit.

UPDATE 1/21/10

As I become more enamored of burley and try different blends, this one needs to be elevated from 2 to 3 stars. This is a great take on the American OTC blends and is something I'll return to occasionally. The complexity I mentioned above... well, I'm not sure complexity is the point here. I think this is just a nice, tasty, interesting bowl of tobacco that one could smoke all day if one were so inclined - and I think that was true of most of the old OTC burleys. Good stuff!

To it's credit, once properly started, this mixture stays lit well but what the heck for?; Does not bite and smokes cool; No apparent casing or topping; No problems with packing and does not stink up the pipe (This is a little "maybe" since I couldn't finish the pipe and dumped the first load at half bowl}.

Am gifting the wife with the remainder of 4oz. tomorrow as a possible enrichment to her plant potting mix (she's getting used to this).

This review is of tobacco from a 50 g. tin of fresh vintage.

Medium brown and light tan ribbons, this smells like straight burley. Starts out very mild with little taste. Pleasant room note! Tastes a bit nutty early on, but by mid-bowl, this has turned monochromatically sour and bitter. Having little experience with burleys, I got this after reading all the reviews and references. I really, really wanted to like this, but it has convinced me that unflavored burley blends are NOT for me. My loss.

Compares to any unflavored blend where the burley predominates. While I dislike most burley blends, C&Ds #104, Crooner, has a great taste and doesn't turn bitter in the bowl.

I will not be keeping this blend on hand.

I give it only two leaves out of nine.

This is now my main smoke. I smoke as much of this as all other blends put together. A few more months (total of 9) tempers the bitterness a bit more to a level I find perfect for any occasion. The last few puffs at the end of a bowl have a nice Va/Per flavor which makes the bottom of the bowl something to look forward to rather than dreaded. I find this blend tastes a bit acrid in large bore pipes. A medium or small bowl pipe works best. This blend will not wow you at first but wins you over given some time.

"The Haunted Bookshop" is a book by Christopher Morley which features a lot of pipe smoking. It is no longer copyrighted in America, so you can read it online, for free, at:

http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Christopher_Morley/The_Haunted_Bookshop/index.html

Smoking this blend while reading it's namesake is a very relaxing experience.

Original review 12/16/2008:

This review is for the tinned version of HB. As with all C&D non-cavendish blends, don't even think about smoking it unless it has some age on it or you will be rewarded with a poor smoke. I waited until my tin had 6 months on it. It was dry but not excessively so. Packing and lighting are a breeze as long as you leave a bit of room for the cube cut burley to expand. For the first 1/4 bowl, it is slightly sweet, grassy, mild, and light in taste. After that, welcome to flavor country. The burly really comes forward with a nutty bitterness which is tempered a bit by the perique and VA. This goes great with a sweet cup of coffee, but if you aren't in the mood for an earthy, non-sweet tobacco flavor, it can be overbearing. But this is the flavor it was obviously designed to present, and it does so well. There is nicotine here but it is not overbearing. It stays like this to the bottom of the bowl. This blend reminds me of Prince Albert, except that it far more flavorful and of vastly higher quality. It isn't finicky about pipes or puffing pace. The room note won't win you any friends as it is somewhat cigarette like, but I appreciate the straightforward tobacco aroma. I like it and would buy it again, but if the bitterness were just a bit more subdued by a smidgen more VA, I would smoke it more often and I think it would win over a few more fans.

I hope your experience with this is better than mine!

I'm smoking 4oz of Haunted Bookshop in bulk, and it burns like tinder - whoosh! and it's gone. Pack it tight so you can to slow the burning.

Personally, I like a longer smoke that lingers. This burns too fast for my taste. If they make this in a flake form I think I'd buy it again.

CAUTION: The cut is rather fine and upon inspection the visual appearance looks like something you would see in a little jar of seasoning. Due to this cut, I have noticed a lot of "dust" in the tins which makes packing tedious as one tends to get tiny particles of tobacco in the mouth when testing the draw and lighting up. Lightly shaking the tin helps to settle a lot of the finer particles which helps to avoid having a sandstorm hit your tongue.

CHARACTERISTICS: Haunted Bookshop burns faster than most other blends. It also makes a lot of powdery ash that usually requires dumping halfway through the bowl. Tamp this tobacco lightly and you should have no problems. It burns dry, bites very little and leaves the pipe clean. It will "color" your pipe on the first bowl so avoid trying this in a favorite pipe to avoid ghosts.

SMOKING: On the initial light you taste the cigar-like flavor of the burley and Perique. Throughout the bowl the cigar flavor trades places with the subtle sweetness of the red Virginia. The nutty flavors are there and the prune-like presence of the Perique speaks its voice each time you sip it softly. When puffed hard the burley flexes some muscle and you get a big bold bass note with a sidekick of nicotine.

SUMMARY: This blend is similar in the vein of "Old Joe Krantz" but with more high notes, sweetness and less nicotine. It is strong enough to satisfy a nicotine craving, yet light enough to be enjoyed all day.

Haunted Bookshop is a natural blend reminiscent of the old-school blends of a time when a man came home to a clean house, a hot meal and a happy family. No fancy tricks here, just good honest tobaccos skillfully put together to form a delightful and relaxing smoke. Well done!

maybe the tined package is better quality.

If want top quality strait burley: Aged Burley flake (tin only) from solani or Golden Blend (pouch tin and bulk) from Mac baren.

While both OJK and HB are certainly modern incarnations of my beloved codger burlies. In presentation, OJK would seem to be a perique blend with large quantities of burley and a little virginia to mitigate what would otherwise be a perique flavored tire iron to the face. OJK is cigary, acrid and borderline harsh, everything that HB is not. Although the ingredients of the two are identical, HB remarkably seems a very different tobacco. No harshness at all here. If OJK is Thai food, HB is meatloaf, mashed potatoes and corn with just a healthy sprinkle of black pepper.

The uninitiated have sometimes referred to HB as boring or monotone. I just don't see that. Like it's big brother OJK, HB is simultaneously simple and extremely complex. For me, this blend smokes like a parfait. The top of the bowl is very lightly cigary. Mid-bowl the grassy sweetness of virginia comes front and center with the burley just perceptible enough to make the virginia a bit doughy and totally bite free. Towards the bottom is a grab bag of any taste you've ever heard assigned to burley (i.e. bread dough, chocolatey, nutty, cigary) with the grassy sweetness of virginia peeking in and out just strong enough to be noticed before it gently fades and another burley taste emerges. What about the perique? Well, it just doesn't seem to be a huge part of this blend. At its strongest the perique in HB is condimental. Seems just enough to provide that extra "something" that is neither burley nor virginia but not readily identifiable as perique either. I would compare the perique content of this to something like PS Luxury Navy Flake (i.e. just above invisible). Without a doubt this is an old style burley blend but is light-years ahead of most codger burlies with regard to sophistication and character. It is a smooth, all day smoke which remarkably does not lack vitamin N. So perfect is the balance of burley and virginia that one could nearly be persuaded that there are equal quantities of both in this blend. They just seem to take turns being the tobacco in front. At times, this could probably be mistaken for a virginia with condimental quantities of burley and perique. Other times it is unmistakably burley with condimental quantities of virginia and perique.

In my rotation HB initially was my light change of pace tobacco from OJK. More and more though, I see Haunted Bookshop and OJK sharing my pipe days in equal measure. Haunted Bookshop covering the earlier portion of the day and OJK for the afternoon kick in the pants. I would strongly recommend HB to any virginia lover exploring burlies. Even if body chemistry conspires against you and your are averse to perique, I would think you'd be OK with Haunted Bookshop (this means you Rick!) It's low maintenance codger burliesque smoking manners would also make a great "doing something else" tobacco great for yard work, fishing, driving, woodworking, etc. If your normal fare is heavily latakia'd and smokes like a shredded truck tire, Haunted Bookshop would be a great, light, change of pace without having to contend with the vitamin N depletion normally brought on by most "light, change of pace" tobaccos. This one is a keeper. The more I smoke of it the more I like it. Top Shelf Smoke for sure, Well done Mr. Runowski, well done.

I would only add to this a spot on analogy made by my most excellent friend Quaffer, "OJK is the Beast and Haunted Bookshop is the beauty."

Haunted Bookshop's robust Burley taste has been elevated by a smidgen of Perique and a delicate touch of Virginia. This one is more sweet than bitter and more heavy than light. Although not at the level I enjoy most, the nicotine content is recognized with no problem either. As is the case with most Burley blends, Haunted Bookshop is an extremely cool burning smoke with no bite to it.

I finished my tin in a week and will seek more in the future.