Update #1: After somking this blend off and on for a year, I find myself reaching for it less and less. Still tastes fine but the complexity is lacking. I guess my tasted have matured and I have unfortunatly grown out of this monochromatic tobacco. Dont get me wrong...it is still good, its just I can find others that are better.

Another winner from Pipes and Cigars on Central Ave. I must admit I like their stuff, but I am bias...I'm a local. This tobacco is tradional looking to the eye, and the pouch aroma is excellent. I have to keep it up high so my seven year old son keeps his nose out of the canister. It benefits with some drying out, like most aromatics. It packs well, but not as good as others. And it lights well using the three match method. Stays lit very well and is low maintenance in the pipe. Burns to a nice salt-and-pepper ash. Can be wet towards the bottom, but like I have mention in other reviews I am a quick puffer. But the real reason I love this stuff is even though I am quick to puff, I simply cannot get tongue bite and it doesn't make my pipe hot...very impressive. That is not the only great quality to this blend. The taste is very smooth and buttery. I wish there was a better way to expain the flavor without being redundant, but there isn't. Monochormatic on the flavor....but who cares if the flavor changes through the bowl, just so long as it taste well throughout the smoke. The room note is one of the best of all the tobaccos I smoke, a real crowd pleaser. A great aromatic without all the hassles of one.

It's cased burley, thru and thru, with a flavor that reminds me of butterscotch and sometimes vanilla. Very tasty. The tobacco comes thru as well.

There's no tongue bite either, but then, I am a gentle sipper and have rarely been bitten by anything.

The room note is wonderful. I smoked this at a casino one time while playing blackjack. At the table, cigars and pipes were banned (but they still allowed vile cigarettes). I backed away to enjoy my pipe but received so many compliments from both the players and dealer that the rule was broken just for lil ol me and my pipe.

Toward the end of the bowl, bitterness develops as is sometimes common with cased burleys and here's where my difficulty with this blend emerges. It's a strong bitterness. I countered it by not smoking the last third of the bowl and that worked for a time, but the bitterness came earlier and earlier with each bowl. The pipe itself became spoiled and the bitterness is very noticeable in anything smoked in it.

I tried sweetening treatments, careful cleaning, nothing can get the bitterness out of the bowl. Could it have been the bowl itself? Possibly. I was afraid to try it in anything else, however.

My theory is that whatever is used to case this weed breaks down into a rancid, bitter chemical taste that can't be gotten out of the pipe.

Too bad.

I'm not a big fan of straight burleys, and need a fairly strong casing of good flavoring to enjoy them. Butternut Burley's casing is way too light for my palate.

There is nothing offensive about this blend. It burns and smokes cool enough. I find this one a bit boring.

2 Stars.....add a star if you're a big burley fan.

BB loads easily and fires up with no hassles and smoked dry all the way down without having to relight and also leaves a fine white/grey ash.

One thing I have not noticed is it becomming bitter toward the end of the bowl as a couple of reviewers have mentioned.

No tongue-bite to this tabak what so ever! A great all day smoke and has a little nicotine kick as well. It is now definately in my regular rotation.

Butternut Burley seems a fine mixture in many ways, though perhaps not exactly an everyday smoke for me, I've learned to enjoy it from time to time.

I've come to believe that there is a fair amount of sweetened black cavendish in this mixture, the remainder I believe is air cured Burleys. I have played around some with "small batch" alterations adding various amounts of McClelland's "X-40 Burley by the Slice" to it which does seem to take the "edge" off the oiliness that I've mentioned in my original review. There There seems to be a rather large "fan base" for this mixture, but if you find as I did that the "butter" get to be too much and you've purchased a large amount of it, try mixing non flavoured or lightly flavoured Burley in it starting at about 12% by weight and it should help.

******Original Review******** Decemeber 2005

Recently, pipesandcigars.com tobaccos have been getting lots of ?press? on the ASP Forum and Newsgroup. Mostly people have been talking about Russ Oullette's efforts and several have been raving about Scotty's Blends Butternut Burley in particular.

Being a Burley fancier myself, I just had to give it a try. I hate to be a detractor among glowing reviews, but this blend had some distinctive minuses for me.

Appearance: Though the product description lists only air cured burley this looks to be about 60% dark tobaccos, 40% golden-brown. My guess is that two or more Burleys are used. It is varied in cut yet mostly medium ribbon cut.

Aroma: This mixture has a deep sweet aroma very enticing. Immediately one smells a deep hay-like quality, not of hay in neat bales stacked in the barn; rather of freshly mown hay, slowly drying in the summer sun. Deep, sharp and earthy. Carmel tones and nuts are evident, as in pecan or butternut. There is a darker scent to this as well leading me to believe that some of the leaf has been toasted in some maner.

This tobacco is nearly perfect in moisture and I employed the ?once like a baby, once like a lady, finally like a gentleman? method of layered packing.

Lighting usually is a single match affair, and with a friendly ?lighting tamp? I was well on my way each time. As expected, the initial flavor very Burley, with a thick silky mouth feel, notes of butter and nuts. Hay-like tones and smells and flavors of Autumn are abundant with deepening flavors of nuts and butter interplaying in a fascinating way. A very slight vanilla taste is also noted. Combustion is very self maintaining as promised, this very nearly smokes itself every time.

Mid Bowl: Approaching mid-bowl, the fullness tends to build the toothsome mixtures of butter, nuts and Burley develop in strength slowly along predictable lines. The slight vanilla fades quickly, being dominated by stronger flavors. The nuttiness becomes more pronounced and the initially ?simple? nuts taste evolves slowly into a pecan, butternut and walnut flavoring which is very agreeable. The butter sensations become a bit much to me unfortunately. Scotty's description on the web site is of note here: ? How is it for taste? Imagine a blend of warm butter with just a hint of vanilla and honey, then add sweet nutty overtones to round out the flavor. After the bowl is done, expect a pleasant lingering sensation on your palate with no bitterness at all.? What could be a pleasant sensation is just too dominant for me. The buttery mouth feel becomes oily and not in a good way.

Home Stretch: As end of the bowl approaches, the bowl never really changes. This blend remains consistent throughout. The final third has matured nicely with all the flavors working in deepening harmony. Unfortunately the oiliness also remains. It is a shame too, as this blend has so much else working in it's favor. It is a very cool burning consistently dry smoking mixture of fine quality Burley. It is an aromatic that works in many respects however, this oily quality just puts me off.

Supplemental Notes: I will continue to smoke this and perhaps add further notes at a later date. I'm also experimenting with adding other plain Burley to it in controlled batches to see if I can tame the oiliness. Rating for those interested in numbers **1/2 stars

So getting this of my chest... This is a good all day smoke, No bite, great for the beginning piper or to just to relax with for the rest of us. on opening the bag you will see a ribbon cut burley with a whiff of butterscotch not overwhelming but just enough to whit your appetite. upon lighting you will taste what you have been only smelling untill your light , still not overpowering the delicious taste of quality burley all the way to the bottom. Not as others said a clone, but in my opinion a stand alone blend!

The room note is very pleasent and it lights well and stays lit . If you like your burleys, I believe you will not be disapointed in this one. so give old Bill Shakespeare's blends as well as your wallet a rest and light up a bowlfull of Butternut Burley...A 3 star plus

hoo-boy

It's not what I expected, frankly. Having read innumerable ASP posts and discussions, I picked this up out of curiosity. I'm not much an aromatic buff myself, but I do enjoy experimenting. I'm not especially sure why, but I swear to have expected a cube cut burley rather than the ribbon variety. And though I'm still intrigued by a cube cut butternut, this will do. I don't plan on smoking the heck out of this blend, but it's nice to have for the friends.

I rate this against other aromatics, 1Q and LL-7 particularly. Lane must be kicking themselves for missing the secret recipe. Here it is.

Of course most Burley is sold in the form of highly cased blends that in most cases allows little if any tobacco flavor to be detected. Although this blend is cased (I smelled something similar to butterscotch when I first opened the bag) it is flavored only to the point the removes most of the bitterness and bite that is typically associated with Burley, yet lets the flavor of the tobacco come to the surface.

I've smoked several Burley blends in the past, but this one reaches closer to the "middle ground" between overflavoring and a Burley that will leave you with a little calling card the next morning. For anyone fond of Burley, or those just interested in a very good tasting smoke, this one is an excellent one to try.

F. Prefect

The mostly ribbon cut Burley leaf was not goopy when I gathered up the tobacco to put into my pipe. The smell from the bag was of butterscotch. That smell transformed into a butterscotch flavor on my tongue, but what impressed me was the fact that it also tasted like a quality Burley tobacco and had a pleasant hit of nicotine.

The blend does get a tad bitter toward the bottom of the bowl, but it smoked dry all the way down. For lovers of this type of aromatic, it's a 4-star bell ringer.

Butternut Burley is a wonderful aromatic burley blend that doesn?t bite your tongue or overwhelm you on any level. When you open the container you are greeted with strands of some of the best tobacco that will be in your selection.

When loading the pipe you can load it tight or loose, it really doesn?t matter with this blend. The first half of the bowl is just as good as the last half. The blend really doesn?t change at all during the smoke; it?s pleasant all the way.

If you are use to getting dirty looks from people that hate the aroma of your usual blend, try smoking this out in public. . . . they?ll love it.

Pipeing Joe ______(_)

P.S. I should mention that given its' price, Butternut Burley is one of the best values in all of briardom.