Cornell & Diehl Billy Budd Blonde

I should warn the reader that I have zero experience with cigar blends. If I wanted a cigar, I smoked a cigar. I am going into this completely inexperienced and open minded.

This blend really epitomizes a pure tobacco experience. The cigar leaf melds harmoniously into the mixture in that it nudges the other components, never speaking singularly. A chorus of tobacco and more tobacco. The lit room aroma, sidestream, and taste to some extent all share one characteristic, the distinctive smell of a tobacconist with at least several patrons or employees smoking. This takes that classic cigar store smell and puts it in a pipe. It is bitter bakers chocolate, spice, earthy dark tobacco, a vaguely smoky, leathery sense all competing for one’s attention .

Unfortunately this blend can be quite bitter, and though I personally love all things bitter, I’m not sure this works to BBB’s advantage. I found that this smoked much more evenly if rubbed out even further. Has a tendency to develop quite an ashy edge in the second half of the bowl. Not at all a bad smoke, and not one I would rule out ever smoking again. It’s good but not great.

Billy Budd Blonde has a light jar note after 6 months, hay, slightly citrus, and a dusty earthy note but not much else that stands out. The blend is a base of their VA Flake, White Burley (my review on that will be forth coming), cigar leaf and perique. So this is something that with their blending elements you could put together yourself. As such it serves as a bench mark for what a good blender (of which I do not count myself as one) can do with the basic elements. The smoke itself is VA Flake forward and is a little earthy, with notes of hay out front and some citrus behind it. There is a dark fruit notes that soon follows with a little tang. I did note this in their VA flake but this could also be from the perique here as well. The White Burley is a little nutty, woodsy and slightly bitter. The cigar leaf is not as forward as it is in the classic Billy Budd but serves a supporting role and is very smokey and woodsy and a little dry for lack of a better description. The perique brings some dark fruit notes of raisin and to a lesser extent figs and does have a slight pepper note. The nic is about at the center of med. Not something I wanted to smoke all day but was repeatable. Overall, not a bad blend and I did enjoy it but when compared to the original I find it wholly wanting. 2.5 stars rounded down as I do not see myself picking up anymore of this one.