Cornell & Diehl Briar Fox

One of the best C&D blends in their extensive lineup. The 1lb brick comes vacuum sealed in a bag. If you plan to cellar I would recommend getting the two or eight ounce tins instead. This, like many C&D blends, needs some shelf time to soften and meld. With as little as six months age it really opens up and becomes a bit more complex. This can be an all day smoke and won't have any tounge burn or wear out your pallet.

Another home run by C&D! This is an exceedingly smooth blend, the very definition of an all-day smoke.

Crumble cakes are my favorite cut, so easy to work with and infinitely customizable. This comes in an attractive block that is predominantly a press of medium brown ribbon, but includes lemon Virginias and some blackened pieces, presumably uncased cavendish. The tin note is mild straight tobacco. Great tin art too with a 70s exploitation cartoon fox with a floppy hat, turtleneck, and wide lapel jacket- think Shaft.

It takes the match well and burns cool and dry. The smoothness jumps out, and the smoke is soft and velvety like rain water. There is a wonderful aroma that is mossy with some boozy undertones. The impression is one of utter freshness, but no hint of being green, unseasoned, or harshness as in a young tobacco. A latent sweetness persists throughout the bowl. As the bowl progresses you are greeted by some woody and toasted notes. Cobs accentuate the dark notes while briars contribute to sweetness.

I've plowed through this tin quicker than anything I've yet tried. It hits all the right notes in all the right ways. A unique VaBur that is like nothing else I have yet tried. Fantastic.

I bought two tins of this blend from a guy's duffle bag of blends being offered for sale at our 2014 NASPC show in August. I was curious about it as it had predominately positive reviews. I intended to use it as a Virginia component in English microblending. I was obliged to sell one tin to a long time Virginia smoking buddy of mine and he felt so-so about it. I opened the other tin and this is what I found: a light-colored, brownie-sized rectangular chunk of naturally aromatic and quite variegated tobacco in appearance. The variegation ran the gamut from light blond to dark and was not only appealing to the eye, but looked very much like a lot of medium English blends that I have smoked - most unusual for a Virginia blend. I then lit up and found it to be a pleasant smoke; more pleasant than any Virginia blend I could remember. The taste and aroma were somewhat narrow compared to Englishes I had been smoking, but there was a wonderful nuance of flavors in the smoke. In there, somewhere, was a slight kick-up in taste that I later found out was a Burley component. I enjoyed this blend far above almost all other Virginias I have tried. I started to give it three stars and then thought, you're judging it as to how it can stand up to an English blend - judge it for what it is: a four star blend. Good job C&D!

When I first opened the tin I was greeted with a smell that I have come to associate with most C&D blends. A pre-hamster hamster cage. Not all that prominent in this blend (unlike Burley Flake #3), and it dissipates rather quickly after opening the tin. After that the flavors shift towards a sweet citrus with a little bit of bitter chocolate.

Dividing up the pressed cake is a matter of personal preference. Sometimes I cut a piece off and use it like a flake, and sometimes I just take a pinch off with my fingers. It is quite moist when the tobacco is first removed from the tin but a few minutes out and it's ready to pack.

The flavors, while not all that complicated, are lovely. It has the typical citrus taste of most golden Virginias with a little bit of bitter chocolate. Almost identical to the tin note.

This blend will kick you hard if you smoke a lot of it, but a light pack in a standard size bowl is nothing to worry about. Overall an excellent blend, but for a Virginia I still prefer Orlik.

It is obviously easier to comment on the other fine reviews here than to conjure up an original thought. Accounting for that, it is interesting to look at the differing thought about taste clues questioning addition of other leaf components. That variability may well be what draws experienced pipe smokers to the better "blends". Finding an individual leaf that has it all may be out of the league of probability as a fine grape is to wine. It may be noted that this is far from a typical Danish blend in every way but for having Heeschen's name attached.

Moisture: a bit on the dry side, with very little, if any, technological additive.
Compressibility (cut): It is pressed from a wide cut, not too hard and not too moist, so it becomes a wide ribbon cut after crumbling.

Starts with a bitter smoke, confirming my suspicion of Burley dominance, which I guess you can guess is not against me, being a definite Burley fan. The second impression is the strong presence of nicotine. Not discreetly, definitely. When you immediately feel the buzz in your limbs. And the smoke is a spicy Burley. From the best selection. If I didn't know for sure that it didn't contain oriental or other spice tobacco, I'd definitely be suspicious. But there isn't, and that means that this Burley-Virginia blend delivers even that. No one has boasted that any of the ingredients or the blend have been particularly aged, but something has certainly happened to it.
- Middle: Virginia only just hints at a slight tongue acidity (I wouldn't call it a sting), and a good part of the spice note may come from it, but it doesn't show any character traits: no caramel, resinous or strawy notes. The deep nose test also shows such a soft, neutral pH and slight spiciness that I have to seriously question the Virginia dominance. Why would the manufacturers lie? Then the only explanation for this wonderful experience (because it is!) can be that the Virginia is infinitely more mature and noble. Only the final pressing could not have produced such a result. Burley tends to be very appreciative of this type of maturation, it certainly doesn't get its almost fruity spiciness from natural fermentation, but from late maturation, and it suits it as well as if it had this character in it from the start.
- Finish: This blend was put together by a master who loves and understands tobacco. There are few of them, most are instinctive. Attributed to Peter Heeschen, I pay homage to the master even in his death. He has produced an extremely refined tobacco, matured to the extreme, which will probably acquire even more noble qualities with further storage. In the last quarter, the Virginia character comes forward, the sweet caramel emerges from behind the Burley, making the experience round, full and unforgettable. (My personal taste did not miss it, I would have been perfectly satisfied if the Burley dominance had remained throughout, but it did not detract from the experience.) The very end is a cavalcade of aromas and flavours that the pipe smoker rarely gets to experience, unless he has a lot of museum pieces in his stash. In the tobacco fields from which this batch comes, the sun has been shining for a very long time, and from there it must have brought these almost oriental spice and tobacco aromas, which were hinted at at the beginning and now, at the end, revealed in all their glory.

Well, this tobacco is anything but boring. Every minute is a treat, but the end is cathartic. Only the most noble, mature and tastefully selected and blended tobaccos can do that. Even if it's not always available to the home smoker, it's definitely worth a visit. I consider myself lucky to have done so.

Presentation: A mottled krumble kake with caramel brown and gold with a nice protion of darker leaves. My tin had one large block and a little half inch slice sitting on top. With C&D kakes, I find that they can vary in terms of consistency and whether this is done by design or complete accident, they still are presented uniformly in shape, but different in ribbon size. This krumble kake is more chunky than others I have experienced such as Black Frigate or Redburn, and is more in tune with the way Pirate Kake is. The former is more fine and blooms more with a pinch while the latter needs a bit more finesse to rub it apart due to the larger leaves. Still, it breaks apart with relative ease.

Palette: A lovely tin aroma of dark stone fruit, sweet earth and hearty bread. This reminded me of the way GL Pease Fillmore smells if you omit the perique. It is heavy in the department of rich and savory goodness which I attribute to the portion of red VA in this blend.This smells like raisin bread. The burley is present in the bouquet but it takes some deep snifting to pick it out individually. The taste of red VA offer a lovely bready and buttery taste and semi-sweet. Once in a while you will get a small spice tingle on the retrohale. There is a malty characteristic to the red VA, like a good brown ale. It is not too strong and also offers a nice fruit undertone if you sip slowly. The burley is a little nutty, semi-dry wood and offers the slightest hint of cocoa. It blends well the the VA and brings some needed nuance of what otherwise would be a full blown VA blend. It's quite monochromatic in the flavor but is rich, unobtrusive and smooth. It doesn't need to be complex and it does well with what it has.

Performance: I have tested both ways, drying a portion out for about 15 minutes and straight from the kake. I find that drying out the blend makes for a somewhat hotter smoke and leaves hardly any moisture in the bowl, but loses some flavor, whereas smoking straight from the tin with no dry time leaves more moisture, smoked cooler and longer, didn't produce as much smoke but definitely more flavourful. Smokes down to the bottom with more than average dottle due to moisture in either case. Has a medium nicotine hit and can be smoked for more than one bowl a day, but I wouldn't be smoking this all day as it can get kind of boring more than 2-3 bowls.

Conclusion: My tin was dated 07/2015, so this review is coming from an age just shy of 5 years. While Briar Fox seems to me at first glance a really bland blend, I was glad I decided to purchase this and give it a go. I was really surprised and to the degree that reading reviews on here can only give you a sense of doubt when it comes to the negative ones. You must take reviews as a subjective mindset. Some might say it get's ashy/cigarettish towards the bottom, and it does, but it does not detract from the full experience in terms of flavor, smokeability and quality.This blend has some serious aging potential and my kake was covered in crystals. Each pinch rewarded me with more crystals impregnated throughout the kake and it made it that much more delightful to hold a light up to it. This has become one of my new favorites and one blend that I can smoke without thinking about. It's not a codger blend, but it's also not a blend where you have to disect each flavor for enjoyment. I can see why this blend is one of C&D's best sellers, as it is pretty basic and appeals to alot of pipe smokers who want something neat, non over simplified and just want a good bowl of tobacco without dressing to the 9's. I will be cellaring this heavily as the aging on this is sublime.

I've had this stuff aging for many many years. And baby, it's right down the middle of the fairway for me. Great Virginia taste - a little grassy and a little sweet and a little bread taste. It has a pretty good nicotine kick, too. This one is definitely in the starting rotation. One of my go-to tobaccos. (And from time to time, I'll add a pinch of it to some of my subpar choices to help them out.) Highly recommend the Briar Fox. Time to get foxy!

I tried a tin and just received 2 more. That sums it up. Love the crumble cake as it’s so easy to pack and light. Burns to the bottom and no dottle.