What a loss. This has to be one of the finest blends I have ever had in my 10-year piping career. Not as long as some, and I can't claim to have encountered as many blends as others on this forum, but I have to say that Crooner is one of those blends that calls out "Here I am, you found me"; we recognise the flavour as something we have been searching for, but could never really describe.

Outstanding burley taste, more like Sir Walter Raleigh than the usual CD burley (dark, strong, and rather angry); slight deer tongue flavour, but not much. A kind of herbal overtone to the burley in the bag, and in the smoke, making it a slightly aromatic, but an unsweetened aromatic.

The only drawback is keeping it lit. Other than that, a superb example of what can be done with burley. I would call it the closest that CD comes to an OTC. Fantastic in every respect.

Smells fine in the tin/bag/pouch. However you buy it. The aroma is an invitation to dabble into the unknown. It actually makes you overly curious about what it will taste like in the bowl. There's no way you can stop yourself once you smell this tin note.

1st lite had me wondering if the flame got to close to my knuckles and i had burnt a few hairs. But this stuff is hard to lite let alone keep lit. A bunch of puffs latter confirmed to me that I wasn't burning the hair off my knuckles. Thats the deer tongue. But once I keep smoking the bowl that pretty much went away. But its still a very weird flavor to put it bluntly.

The room note reminded me of growing up. As a child running through the hot and humid meadows of Up state new york. You can literally smell every weed, flower, every blade of tall grass. Take that as good or bad. For me its a fond memory.

Over all I can't handle the flavor. Its just too ..... alien. Its like nothing you've ever smoked. In fact to be completely honest it made my head spin and gave me nausea for 8 hours. The deer tongue is definately the cuplrit there.

I fail to grasp the old fashioned use of this in tobacco. Some say it was used to give toby more of a vanilla flavor. But it sure does exactly the opposite here.

Gee grandpa what were you thinking?

I won't give this one star when a few people do like it. So I'll give it 2 by saying...... I somewhat reccomend this for curiosity sake only. If you can get past one bowl and want another your a tougher SOB than I am. You'd had to pay me to give it more than the 2 stars.

From the package, these little cubes were quite moist. You could just feel it rubbing them between your fingers. I hoped for the best, gravity fed the bowl and fired up. It is a difficult blend to keep lit. I would imagine with some drying time it would burn better, however, I would worry about the heat and the burn rate if it dried out to where it needed to be.

The flavor is great, when you can keep it lit to get the flavor. I enjoyed the Deer Tongue, and the Burley was rich and nutty. Great combination IMO.

In general, not a bad blend, however the the difficulty keeping it lit makes it more troublesome than it is worth. Nice for a change of pace, but not an everyday. 2 stars is the best I can do.

The trick to lighting it is just dipping your pipe in and lighting. Give it two or three char lights then tap down. The aroma before it's lit reminds me of a fresh field from my youth when I'd go fishing. It burns nicely and has a pleasant aroma as well. My only problem is after two bowls I get a pretty lousy after taste in my mouth for a few hours. But for a once a week smoke you can't beat this stuff.

Crooner is a high quality tobacco. My rating is less about if I would recommend it than how it hit me. What happened is that after the first 4 or so bowl, the deertongue flavor wore me out. I don't know why or how. Perhaps I'm just not used to it.

Two stars for how I liked it; four stars for recommending it as something everyone should try once. But for God's sake, give it a dedicated pipe! The flavor is hard to remove from a briar pipe.

the more I smoke this the less I like it. It will be a chore to finish 4 oz. Dropping rating to one star.

Any pipe smokers in Montreal got something worth swapping?

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Well this is something unique. It resembles gunpowder green tea -- tiny balls of rolled up leaves, with the occasional dried shoot of deer tongue. Is there also deer tongue rolled into the tobacco? Where is the vanilla taste coming from? The deer tongue, or a casing?

I must say the deer has a talented tongue. It's licked me in all the right places.

This is a strange blend. The burley is like BB's. Packing this blend is in a word.....ODD. I'm never sure if it is packed, or not. I gravity fill the bowl, and the pack tightly. It seems to resist over packing. It lights with a couple of lights, and burns nicely. The flavor is quite sweet, and the deer tongue can be detected. This blend will most likely not be in my daily rotation, but I will keep some around for the times I want to take a detour from the Virginia hiways that I so love. Rate * * *

Original Review: Got this in a sample pack from C&D. It should be noted right up front that I am a burleyphile. Especially those "pedestrian" blends that harken back to the days when pipe smoking was as much a part of being a man as shaving. All that said, the reviews of this blend were a little hard to gauge. It appeared to be one of those love it or hate it blends. Curious to see what side of the fence I was on I just had to try it. For me at least, it was something totally different. Normally a remark like that is something akin to saying a lady has a really nice personality but not so with Crooner. It was very tasty and an initial "Man, what was that!" quickly became a "Gee, that's some really good stuff." The deer tongue is conspicuous throughout the smoke but never in a mundane, predictable way. It's contributions swing wildly from an herby, earthy kind of flavor (reminding me of cedar) to a very vanilla sort of a taste (without the goop and gum normally associated with a tobacco that tastes like vanilla). All of it's incarnations seemed subtle, tastey and somewhat exotic, unlike anything I had ever smoked before. I was however, always quick to load another bowl. I didn't experience the difficulties keeping this lit that others have reported. It does however demand a fairly robust charring light. Tamp and relight and you're off. The cube cut burley was a very slow, cool burner and true to the classic burley genre, slow and steady (puffing) wins the race. Quicker, aggressive puffing resulted in slightly hotter but never bitey or bitter smoke. It burned clear to the bottom of the bowl with leaving only a clean, dry bed of white ash. Those around me reported a room note something similar to gingerbread. Crooner's niche in my rotation will probably be as the kicked up, something totally different but classic burley nonetheless blend. Burley blends are all about understated simplicity. Occassionally, I crave a bit more complexity without sacrificing everything that's great about an old school burley(smokeability, low maintenance, great taste). Crooner is the cat's pajamas in this role. This is a must try for burley lovers and a blend that could very well convert a non-believer. My lunch time smoke today was a metaphysical experience. I loaded a four digit woodie with Crooner and kicked back for an hour long smoke while reading the newspaper. Beauty says I, very well done and highly recommended.

Revisited 2008: Tried this again and it did not impress. There are too many other amazing offerings right now to spend more time puffing "tongue-weed".

Crooner has the classic burley nuttiness, with an added bonus of the vanilla notes coming from the deer tongue. Some like it, some don't, I personally find the vanilla flavor adds to the pleasure of the smoke. It is a little more assertive than in blends like Hearth and Home's Old Tartan and Capitol Stairs, and I will say that I prefer the latter two to this blend. If you've read the other reviews, you know that opinions vary widely on this blend, so I would recommend getting a sampler before making a final decision to order a pound.

Scores for Crooner; flavor-13 of 20; packing and burn-7 of 10; value-7 of 10. Crooner gets 27 points and a *** rating.

Update 10/07- After smoking more of this tobacco, I find I am not as fond of the taste as I was at first. I am downgrading it to two stars.