Cornell & Diehl Briar Fox

This is a crumble cake Craig recommended to me. I resisted at first, but as I heard mostly good, not great things about the blend, I gave it a tin try. I am nearly finished the tin in a non-filtered Brigham York. Nice smoke.

This one really needs no addtional aging to taste fairly decent. You need to cut out pieces of the cake and rub it out fully. Packs easy. Burns easy. Dry as well. Pretty cool.

It starts off as a light virginia. A bit plain or boring at this stage. A little sour/sweet taste keeps your attention. (Pease's Stratford if aged about 6 months plus is rounder and a little sweeter by comparison.) Looks like reds, some bright, and a little stoved. The flavors have mostly mingled (more time would enhance that but no matter). The sweet sparkle of the brights does come through often enough, but it is not as sweet (or hot) as a true bright flake might be. I still wouldn't rush the puffing though. All natural tastes to me. No scents.

It develops some red virginia richness in the last half of the bowl, which I find interesting.

If you take care to cut and rub out the pieces, you will be rewarded with a true light-medium, natural virginia smoke. There is something about its purity that grows on me. Recommended as an honest all virginia tobacco. Who could say more?

I agree with the other reviewers that claim a cigarette type taste. This is a Burley foward VA brick. You need to search for flavor ( and little at that) VA sweetness so don't expect it. In the jar it goes for the future when maybe I'm hopefully older and a little wiser. Not!

Lager

It starts out pretty mellow, but ramps up and keeps going. The Burleys and Virginia’s fight over the lead spot. It’s a little inconsistent for that reason, but I kinda like that. It burns really well. Smokes on the warm side, but has no bite. It can get harsh if pushed. The room note is strong I suppose. My wife wasn’t a fan, and she’s pretty cool with almost everything. Not for me, but I might recommend it to a Va/Bur fan.

I smoke this blend from time to time, but I often find that it does not offer enough richness or complexity for my taste. In the last third or quarter of the bowl things improve a lot and a great toasted nutty cocoa flavour with a hint of herbs comes through. At that point it is a great smoke!

Way too often, however, I find that the flavours of this blend are very subdued and often completely lost to a flat and one-dimensional cigarette taste, and that is why it is a two star tobacco for me personally. It also tends to become very ashy. The flat taste is perhaps what I should expect from a burley blend and for some the simplicity is perhaps its main attraction. Burleys are not normally what I gravitate towards, so I don't want to go very hard on it. In fact, when the wonderful flavours finally do come through in the last third of the bowl, I always make up my mind to smoke burleys more often. This is ruined again as the very last bit tends to get very ashy and harsh.

It comes in a crumble cake that is easy to break up and stuff in your pipe. It burns well and the room note is ok for anyone who is already comfortable with tobacco smoke. It burns down to clean and dry ashes and behaves well. As a we smoker I have to run a pipe cleaner down the stem about halfway through, but I can't blame it on the tobacco in this case.

When it is a little above medium, but perhaps not above what is normal for burley blends.

I’ve smoked multiple tins of Briar Fox that were aged 3+ years. I’ve also had fresh BF, and I don’t think there is a huge difference. It’s a burley cake with some VA and cavendish in there. Being in the cake form, you can tell the burley and VA melded quite nice. I don’t get any sweetness from the cavendish. I get more of a small pepper kick in there. Even with the 3 year old tins. A nice prickle on the tongue. It looses something near the bottom of the bowl. It just goes blah. Otherwise, this is a nice all day smoke that doesn’t require a lot of thinking. A good alternative to a drug store blend when you want a higher quality all day burley that is just a bit more interesting.

I received this as a sample packaged in a ziplock so I am not sure how long it had been out of the tin. The tin note (ziplock note) had a slightly smoky aroma to me. I though I might dislike it, as I dislike English/Latakia blends. The moisture level was ready for packing. I didn't realize this was a Crumble Cake rather than a plug and I cut a slice off of the end of the cake. It worked very well, although I think just pinching off a bit would have worked just as well. It rubbed out, packed, and lit beautifully. It burned a bit quickly and hot for me. It was very spicy for me all the way through the bowl. I did not get the English/Latakia flavors that I was worried about and it was more enjoyable for me than English/Latakia blends. I did notice a vitamin N hit. Overall it was a decent smoke, but since I have only been smoking a pipe for about two years, I still prefer sweeter aromatics. I have smoked worse 🙂

Simple strait forward Virginia a little sweet nutty piece of hay

Upon unboxing you can easily detect virginia smell, that's good. It's easy to fill into pipe upon rubbing by hand. It lights evenly and runs same. I couldn't detect any flavor, it's just virginia. For virginia choise i prefer best brown flake instead of this briar fox. B/F reminded me Night Train. Same unboxing condition and similar taste. I dont believe that aged pipe smoker prefers this while hell of better virginias are existing in the market.

Intially I was very impressed with this blend. It had a wonderfull, deep, strong but graceful flavour. Strong & mellow at the same time!? Very full, no bite. Great aroma - it stings my nose beautifully. Burns even & well.

Flavour: earthy almost woody, musky, subtle sweetness. Great after taste.

Lately it has lost favor with me and I do not enjoy it anymore. I just find this blend to be rather insipid.