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Intriguing Virginias, smoky dark fired Kentucky, and a splash of mild cavendish make this delicious tobacco a strong eye opener! Smoky, earthy, and great for breakfast, this blend will put a pep in your step as you break camp, saddle up, and set forth about your day.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rustedrailsmokes (293) |  |
Medium to Strong | None Detected | Full | Pleasant to Tolerable |
This one has become my morning smoke since getting my first bag from The Squire. I have never had a bad blend from the Squire, but this might honestly be my new favorite.
It's a spicy mix of flavors which I feel is led by the Kentucky component which carries this blend. There is some sweetness on top which I'm guessing is the cavendish.
It goes great with my morning cup of coffee, it goes great with some bourbon in the evening.
Recently I used a noodle press to compress this down into a crumble cake. The flavors are even more intense now and I just break off a chunk when I'm ready to smoke.
Pipe Used: various
Age When Smoked: fresh to 1 year
Purchased From: the Country Squire
Similar Blends: Mac Baren - HH Old Dark Fired Ready Rubbed.
15 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| Cobman (15) | |
Medium | None Detected | Medium | Pleasant |
I normally do not like blends with Kentucky Dark Fire because they are almost always waaay strong. But this blend is wonderfully different. The Kentucky is added in condimental amounts and gives the blend a nice smokey top-note, but different from Latakia. Where Latakia tastes like charred wood, this is more like fresh bacon or ham., right from the smokehouse. The Virginia comes through great, with its natural sweetness, and hay-like finish. The unflavored Cavendish seems to blend everything together and smooth it out.
This blend lights very well, and burns at a medium rate, with no tongue bite at all. Its a little sweet, a little earthy, a little grassy, and topped off with a delicious smokey finish that is not over-powering. It never gurgled, and burned all the way to ash with few relights.
Overall, a wonderful smoke, and I will be keeping this in my stash.
Pipe Used: Larsen Canadian briar
Age When Smoked: new
Purchased From: Country Squire
Similar Blends: Peterson's Irish Whiskey, but less harsh..
14 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| YoungToby (4) | |
Medium to Strong | None Detected | Full | Pleasant to Tolerable |
Created an account just to review this blend. My first experience with dark fired was with MacBarens ODF. I’m still to inexperienced to smoke that correctly, if such a way exists. With this blend, you get that beautiful smokiness alongside a beautiful cedary note. Then comes some sweetness from the cavendish and Virginia’s, rounding out into a nice smoke. It lights readily, and requires minimal relights throughout. Burns to the bottom easily. A perfect blend to wake up to, and best paired with hot coffee as the name might suggest. I’m buying more of this.
Pipe Used: Peterson Donegal Rocky 105X
Age When Smoked: Fresh to a week out of the bag
Purchased From: Country Squire
7 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| Hrhead (6) |  |
Mild | Mild to Medium | Medium | Pleasant |
First, I highly recommend you try this, read on...
This took me a long time to write this review. Every time I thought I had it, I did one more smoke and dang, it was different. After a lot of trial error I found two things. First is that this blend is subtle, but full flavored. Because it is subtle, you'll get any bit of ghosting in a pipe to throw you off. Best to use one consistent pipe while you get to know this or something that just doesn't ghost. Second, this blend is physically tricky. It has what appears to be a ribbon cut virginia, but there are also darker rubbed out flakes of some kind and larger strands of what I think is black cavendish. The darker rubbed out flake I think is Kentucky. I think the cavendish is slightly sweetened, but I don't pick up a significant aroma. I think it's there for the mechanics and to augment the natural sweetness of the tobaccos. This makes packing tricky if you want a great smoke. That's not bad, because once you learn this, you can make this blend's flavor over the top amazing.
I took the rubbed out flakes and broke them up a bit. I then packed the more homogeneous ribbons first to create a bed and then took an even mix of the flake, ribbon and cavendish and filled the middle of the pipe. I then topped with a good mixture of smaller pieces.
The initial light has distinct sour note. If I didn't know the ingredients I would have guessed Oriental, but I think that's the Kentucky. The sourness is consistent throughout and is much like a sour coffe blend. Nothing like a dark roast or a toasty donut shop blend. The sourness is quite good if you like something like Honor Blend or the sour fruitiness of Eight State or Temple Bar.
Once you've smoked about a third the fun really begins. This is a blend that shifts between flavors making it totally intriguing. There's a sweetness from the cavendish that pops now and then along with plumes of smoke that are round and full in the mouth. When this hits, it's like wow! It'll then settle back to the sourness. This will accent either the Kentucky or the Virginia which causes the flavor to shift back and forth. When the cavendish fades, you're back to straight tobacco goodness. This is by far one of the most dynamic and interesting smokes I've had.
If you like to puff and like volumes of smoke, like me, you will find this a winner. And since the volumes come and go, you anticipate the next plume but you're not quite sure what exact flavor you will get.
I smoked this in the morning with a medium roast coffee with cream. Makes for the beginning of glorious day. My fall morning just started off beautifully.
The nicotine is noticeable, but I don't tend to get wholloped no matter what. Your mileage may vary.
Picking the right pipe is essential due to the composition of the leaf. I tried several, but have come back to my 114 KS. The larger bowl makes packing this just right easiest and allows the flavors to shift whereas a narrower bowl tends to blend the flavors consistently and frankly makes this blend less interesting. I did use a 6mm Savinelli charcoal filter because my mouth requires it.
BTW, retrohale... I have to in order to pick up all the nuances.
Pipe Used: Savinelli Trevi 114 KS
Age When Smoked: Fresh
Purchased From: Country Squire
4 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| Tombstone (6) | |
Mild | Mild to Medium | Mild to Medium | Pleasant to Tolerable |
Perfect moisture content right out of the bag.
First char can be tricky, as it wants to pony up and buck out of the bowl. You may need to tamp down and relight, rather than ember chase from the top.
Once the fire is cooking, you're off to the races. Flavors are delivered in a smooth ride with no bite or effort. You're riding a prize stallion. Cavendish smooths the smoke, fired KY gains subtle strength as the bowl deepens, a dark horse, taking the lead on the retro.
One bowl with good VA technique and you’ll never want to step out of the stirrups.
The only thing left to do is order pounds, age them, and smoke them.
10/10
Pipe Used: Many MM cobs
Age When Smoked: New
Purchased From: The Country Squire
Similar Blends: Cool, cool water, after a day of facing the barren wastes.
3 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| NickMdMx (3) | |
Medium | Very Mild | Medium | Pleasant to Tolerable |
I just received this blend about a week ago, and have been smoking a bowl of it several days this week. In that short amount of time in a jar, the blend has changed a surprising amount. It has gotten quite a bit sweeter. The cavendish comes through even more. Sweet, smokey, savory. Everything I look for in a good Virginia kentucky blend. There is something about the cavendish that I can't quite put my finger on. I'm assuming it's cased in something, I'm just not sure what. It reminds me of the cavendish in frog morton (cellar in particular). There's a sweetness that almost has a vanilla whiskey type flavor, to me at least. The sweetness stays pretty consistently through at least halfway, and then more of the smokey kentucky comes through. There is a bit of a creosote finish that some may find offputting, but I think it's a perfect end to the bowl.
The description is quite good. Not sure how much kentucky is in the blend, but there is enough to give a nice punch of nicotine that is almost unexpected because of how sweet the start of the bowl is. By mid-bowl the strength starts to come through. While it is not overwhelming (I'm a bit of a nico-wimp), I would recommend a smaller size bowl to start with if you are sensitive to nicotine. It is a fantastic eye opener bowl :)
Pipe Used: Morgan bones, Morgan blackjack, Dagner anse
Age When Smoked: Fresh
Purchased From: The Country Squire
3 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| Brunello (166) | |
Mild to Medium | Very Mild | Medium | Pleasant to Tolerable |
This is really more of a 3.5 star blend for me, but I can't quite go four stars, which to me means a really great and distinctive blend, like Rivendell. But this is the blend I enjoy more than any other with morning coffee. By the way, the Cavendish in this isn't coffee flavored, but does impart a subtle brown sugar sweetness. Tastes like it could be the same brown Cavendish (TS-3?) that is used in Cherokee.
So, if I give this only three stars, why do I always keep this on hand, when I gave four stars to Indian Outlaw but won't be buying that again? What's the logic in that? Well, I try to keep only a couple of the best blends in each category for my permanent rotation. For full aromatics that means Rivendell year round, and Figgy Pudding for a seasonal treat. I don't need a third one. But Cowboy is a deft rustler who earns his keep by wearing more than one hat . . .
When I receive a fresh shipment of Cowboy I divide it into two jars: one jar is kept as it is for my morning coffee needs, the other jar is for tweaking. Cowboy makes a perfect base for easy customizing. For an afternoon smoke with a little more umph I add a pinch of dark-fired. For a savory after-dinner smoke I add a little Sutliff 507 stoved Virginia. I've even tried a crumble cake version I made in a noodle press combining Cowboy and Rivendell, and I called that one "Cowboy Cookie Crumble." Mmm-mmm good! There's also a piper on one of the forums who has a good variant called "Urban Cowboy." So you see, this one is just too much fun to be without!!
But let's say you're not one inclined to tinker - what can you expect from Cowboy? Mostly good, smooth, natural tobacco taste, like a good codger blend with an added Michelin star. It does have a little more flavor and backbone than Burley-based favorites like Edgeworth or SWR. yet is still very smooth on the finish, and doesn't outstay its welcome, if you know what I mean. I get a hint of scorched brown sugar, probably from molasses in the pH tempering sauce, a faint bit of earthiness from the dark-fired, some cereal notes (like Cheerios), and a bit of mellow malt; all well-integrated without anything drawing attention to itself. Sometimes it come a little moist but still burns fine without the fuss of drying.
In a nutshell: I like it!
1 person found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| cwbristow (11) | |
Medium to Strong | Extremely Mild | Full | Pleasant to Tolerable |
I have smoked this several times now. I purchased this because cowboy coffee is the only way I fix coffee. Thought I may enjoy the flavor. Although it seems the cavendish is sweetened, It's so subtle that this is barely detected.
This could only be an evening smoke for me. Earthy and stronger, I didn't find this tobacco complex, or smooth. I have to sip on this to keep the bite from creeping in too much.
It's an ok smoke. Nothing really wrong with it. Just yes not exceptional either. I don't think I'm much of a dark-fired Ky guy. I love my VA's, burleys, cavendish, latakia, and orientals. This borders on the strength/taste of a cigar to me.
I do appreciate the fact that the topping on this is very light and allows you to actually taste the tobacco as it is meant to be.
Pipe Used: Savanelli 305 Tortuga
Age When Smoked: 6 months
Purchased From: countrysquire.com
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