Borkum Riff - Bourbon Whiskey pipe tobacco reviews

Review

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Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
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dtcb	01/08/2012	Mild	Mild	Mild	Tolerable
Can't recommend this blend. got it out of desperation at duty free while rushing to catch a plane and was out of tobacco. smoked 2 pouches (50g each) worth out of a box of 5 pouches and they last three are hideous spectres that lurk in my pipe drawer. casing is with the pouch when opened but slowly dissapates a reveals a bit of a chemical scent lingering beneath. I tried blending it with a straight viginia to see if it would add substance to it when I returned home but all it did was detract from the virginia I blended. It is easy to pack with out much notion and stays lit but overall flavour for me is not there. I've had too many better tobaccos to ever want this in the rotation. To be honest I wouldn't give it to a beginner and I get way better room note compliments on stanwell melange or hearth and home marble kake (or any standard vanilla for that matter).
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Billbo777	12/27/2011	Medium to Strong	Mild	Medium to Full	Tolerable
I Just started smoking a pipe 2 months ago. I've only had Captain Blacks Cavendish to date(being a newbie). I got this(Borkum Riff-Bourbon) and a new briar for Christmas. I love my new briar but am sorely displeased that I put this crap in my new briar as a first tobacco. It burned my tongue like I've never felt before and leaves the tip kinda numb for about 15 minutes after. It smells kinda like cat piss and smokes a little on the damp side. I deeply regret putting this crap in my new pipe. I can only hope that it doesn't linger. I'm no expert or old hat at this stuff and I still say "This stuff sucks butt" I will make sure it is not bought in this house again! One hard lesson learned and now it's time to get informed so I can put out 'brand' requests for next Christmas.
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Redd	12/15/2011	Mild	Mild	Medium	Pleasant
I give this four stars based upon that growing u as a boy about 11 this was favorite blend. It seemed so rich. the aroma was wonderful. Priced at about 69 cents more then a pack of smokes at that time. I have tried it ver recently and found that alothough it may not be up the the connoisuer level we are all up to today. It is still a good smoke. Smoked ever so slow the favor comes out. So enjoy it while we are all able to still buy tobacco. pretty soon it will all be but a memory. REDD
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R.Betz	12/13/2011	Extremely Mild	Strong	Extremely Mild (Flat)	Strong
God. Awful. In just about every way. This tobacco will bite even the most experienced smoker. HARD. Absolutely zero nicotine content. Sickeningly sweet pouch-note. Tastes like old cigarette butts and makes the rest of the room you smoked in smell the same way! Avoid this blend at all costs! And if you happen to find yourself in the ownership of this blend, dispose of it immediately! You can thank me later.
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adkboater	10/19/2011	Mild to Medium	Mild	Mild to Medium	Tolerable
I have been somking a pipe on and off for 37 years (I started in high school) and have tried a multitude of tobacco brands over the years, but this stuff (I'm thinking of another word...) is the poster child for horrible! I bought a can of this in 1974 for around seven bucks, tried it twice and promptly sealed the can. I threw away the can a few years ago when I was going through old stuff. I should have learned my lesson then, but in my nostalgic middle age, I picked up a pouch of this the other day when I ran out of my usual fave (Hearth & Home Classic Burley Kake). I was hoping over the years that it was just my youthful inexperience that was to blame for absolutly hating this stuff, but I was right even then. This is horrible from the get-go! The pouch aroma is pleasant enough, but that's where the party ends. The smoking is harsh to say the least and bite is worse than many of Balkans out there. I found NO Bourbon flavor or aroma in this, so... I added a quarter ounce of Evan Williams Bourbon to the pouch and let it set for a week. After I aired it for a few hours, I loaded my pipe and I fired up this Frankenstein blend and was pleasantly surprised! The addition of real bourbon mellowing tamed the beast here and was quite enjoyable. I still think that 2 stars is pushung this a bit much, but the experiment changed the entire make-up of the tobacco.
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atomicbuster	08/28/2011	Extremely Mild	Extremely Mild	Mild to Medium	Unnoticeable
My first BR tobaccos were this and Cherry Liqueur (reviewed separately). I'd read that it smokes fairly hot, so I let it out to dry for 2 days. The pouch scent was really faint and not really pleasant. It didn't bite too much. It required a few relights. It tasted worse than the worst cigarettes. I couldn't detect any whiskey. It was not cheap ($10). Thankfully, it did not mess up my pipe. Other otc brands are better. Most online-ordered brands are certainly better. Bad quality and bad price, there's no way I can recommend this.
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Kokinhenik	08/25/2011	Mild to Medium	Extra Strong	Overwhelming	Pleasant to Tolerable
Neptune’s trousers! this stuff is God awful. If you took your ass and left it out in the hot summer sun for a week, this is what it would taste like. That's just the initial taste. The after taste is worse. It's a slowly dying taste of essence of sun soaked rotten ass and strong copper rod.
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Taylor3006	08/08/2011	Medium to Strong	Medium to Strong	Overwhelming	Tolerable to Strong
On the upside this tobacco is easy to find and not too expensive. It also smells pretty good in the pouch. Not great, just pretty good. You really should just sniff it in the pouch cause its all downhill after lighting. The stuff stinks, is harsh, tastes like old, partially smoked cigarettes. Horrible stuff. Does a good job of burning all the way down and requires no relights. The taste is so very strong that it is damn near impossible to blend with something to smooth it out. If this were the only pipe tobacco available left on the planet, I would quit smoking. Just isn't worth your time or money.
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Tom Servo	08/07/2011	Mild to Medium	Mild	Mild	Tolerable
The pouch aroma is like raisins, chewable vitamins, bran muffins and graham crackers. No real evidence of bourbon. Definitely artificial in character, but there is an underlying scent of stale burley tobacco. Fine ribbon-cut packs OK, lights well. Starts out bland but not off-putting. Notes of cigarette, trash fire and mouth-coating chemical flavors creep in and take over. Tobacco flavors are uninteresting at best. Bitter vegetal, and unpleasant anise/clove-like flavors come in halfway through the bowl. Second half of the bowl is harsher and soapy. Seems to me a complete waste of time and money. To paraphrase Monty Python - This is not a tobacco for smoking, it’s a tobacco for laying down and avoiding. As Fubber put it in his review - Just don’t! However, good or bad, life’s too short for drugstore tobacco. Support your local (or online) tobacconist, and do yourself a favor.
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wosbald	07/05/2011	Medium	Mild to Medium	Mild	Very Pleasant
[Note: This is the same Borkum Riff tobacco as that listed as "Whiskey."] In the pouch, this long, 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. Chamber Gauge: Medium to Wide
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earl_of_cumberland	07/01/2011	Medium to Strong	Strong	Full	Tolerable to Strong
Bought this when I was out of tobacco... I wish I hadn't. Tasted awfull and I gave up trying to like it and ended up giving it away. I recommend you to try this first before buying it and se if it is to your taste. Oh and the Bourbon taste? Naaa no Bourbon just a wierd taste to the tobacco.
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Bourbon	05/29/2011	Mild	Mild	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable
I saw the "Bourbon Whiskey" and had to give it a try. No bourbon taste, no whiskey hint, no hint of anything really. Burns easy and fast, but I may of just got an old dry bag. Gave it to a friend, and he didn't care for it so much either. Kentucky gentleman from out local Straus tobacconist is much better, and actually has a pleasant hint of whiskey.
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Raylon	03/09/2011	Very Mild	Very Mild	Mild	Pleasant
Has anyone ever used a mixture of Borkum Riff Whiskey and Old Drum by Grant's, a Tabacco store in San Francisco,Calif. ?? I smoked this blend 30 years ago and it was outstanding. My wife and anyone around me really enjoyed it. It had a light chocolate smell. I am starting the pipe again and wanted to see if anyone out there has heard or used on this mixture.
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mastro	01/18/2011	Medium	Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Tolerable to Strong

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NBPiper	01/14/2011	Overwhelming	None detected	Overwhelming	Tolerable
As a newbie pipe smoker, and a whisky drinker, I thought this would be a great choice for me. Boy, was I wrong. Way too much bite to it, and really hard to keep lit. Not recommended at all.
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Arkie	12/22/2010	Mild to Medium	Mild	Medium	Pleasant
After reading the reviews for both Borkum Riff and Captain Black I'm confused. The concensus seems to be BR is bad and CB is great. IMHO, neither is very good but, in comparison, BR is much better. No offense to those of you who like the CB blends but they gag me with their sickeningly sweet sticky toppings. (Actually, gold label is the only CB blend I've tried. It was so nauseating I couldn't bring myself to try the other CB blends.) BR does have decent tobacco leaf and the casing enhances rather than hides the taste of the natural tobacco. It burns a tad bit hot if puffed too briskly but it stays lit and it doesn't bite. If drug store stuff is all that is available I buy a pouch of BR.
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TheWhiteAfrican	11/27/2010	Mild	Medium	Full	Pleasant
The more people tell me something is terrible, the more I want it. So, I ran down to a pharmacy (I believe it was RiteAid) and picked up a pouch. Yum! I can see where people wouldn't like this, but I am a fan of Bourbon, and, for the price, this was a fun and tasty smoke. Cheap, and my eccentric lover really enjoys the room note. If you like aromatic alcohol tobaccos and enjoy experimenting, then try this. If you don't, then don't.
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Spider	11/23/2010	Mild	Very Mild	Very Mild	Unnoticeable
Personally, not a big fan, very dry and similar to a non-filtered Camel cigarette. This is the first "drugstore" brand in which i've not found one likeable quality. Pass on this one.
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hockey01	11/01/2010	Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Tolerable
Ahh, Borkum Riff. I'm old enough to actually remember when this tobacco was introduced to the US market and, oh boy, was it the whip! It quickly developed a very loyal following and I know men who have been smoking this tobcco since 1968 and will not budge from it. It won't kill you to smoke this blend and it does have a very distinctive room note (you can immediately tell if a pipe smoker is puffing Borkum Riff) which is not unpleasant. There is absolutely no flavour of eight year-old Kentucky Bourbon whiskey at all; you're going to have to crack open a bottle of Wild Turkey to get that. This tobacco simply has no discernable taste. As other reviewers have also cautioned, you need to smoke this blend slowly to avoid t/b. Don't smoke this blend in your best pipes either. Over the years, as tobacco blenders became more skillful and varied, more sophisticated blends began to proliferate in the marketplace. This reduced Borkum Riff to a common "drugstore" status in the pipe tobacco world but, as we all know, smokers of drugstore blends can be militantly loyal. "Borkum Riff"? I don't know how that translates in English, if at all. "Bore'em Stiff" maybe? Smoke half a pouch and you'll probably throw the rest away.
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Unsal	10/11/2010	Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable
Somewhat Recommended
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