Cornell & Diehl Briar Fox

Lies! Lies I tell you! This is no straight virginia. There is plenty of burley here. Granted it is good burley that C&D is known for, but the virginia flavor is well surpassed by the burleys here. Definite nuttiness and cocoa predominate the flavor profile. This is probably great for burley lovers, which I am not one. I just checked the C&D website which confirms my burley suspicions. Updating the description as of today on this site to reflect true contents.

I came into possession of this tobacco in four half ounce sample packets included as a bonus from SPC orders over a year ago. I had decided from the beginning to put a year of cellaring on them, as my taste was not on VA at that time. So into a small jelly jar they went April a year ago.

Last week it was time. The cake cubes were very much intact, and the original aroma diminished. I sliced off a nice section, and sniffed the cut. The expected sour/vinegar smell was there, but not the sweet/sour of McClelland blends. There was also a heavy hint of what was very close to stale urine. I was not impressed...

The cake cut well and crumbled easily. On the rub out, the "Prince Albert" burley smell became crisp, along with a hint of something slightly sweet. Overall, the smell of this rubbed out is very much like certain cigarette tobaccos. As I was to soon discover, this is something that carries forward with the smoke.

First pipe choice was a small, pre-1934 Smokemaster Apple straight (before the patent), without the pipe cleaner in is as a filter. I like small bowl pipes to sample Virginias. The final rub was a nice mix of light and dark short ribbons, and it packed easily and firm. The char light held the height of the tobacco, and lit evenly. Second light got it full on, and the flavors came out.

I smoked cigarettes--brands and RYO--for 40 years. My first thought was that I had torn a cigarette apart--or filled the pipe with Bugler. The whole mouth & throat bite, complete with the ashy cigarette taste in the mouth. Only by a small sip could any VA sort of sweetness be determined--and a regular pull VERY full and what some call 'earthy.' My lexicon has that as a mild dirt taste...

By the first third of the bowl, I had a pleasant nic buzz--more than any of the Balkans I smoke and INHALE. My discovery was to be gentle with it, as it will turn hot and nasty in a heartbeat. After letting it go out at the halfway mark, I re-lit a half hour later. The slightly sweet and the heavy nutty of the burly were all there, but it still smoked like cigarette tobacco. It gets stronger toward the bottom--and begins to be more like smoking a natural wrapper cigar. Can't tell you what the bottom quarter was like, as I never smoke a pipe beyond that.

The next experiment was to rub and roll as a RYO in a Zig Zag paper. I will not dwell on this, but it smokes fine as a cigarette. Onward, I chose an old BBB bulldog meer for its larger chamber. This smoked slowly allows more of the flavors to develop--but still resembles and tastes like a well blended, strong cigarette, and quickly shifts to cigar notes in the bottom half.

The final stop was in an 1861 German meer, with a bowl so big it took pretty well a whole 2oz block. Here it burned much slower and cooler, and allowed more of the VA to emerge--but it is a dry, straight and uncomplicated. No figs, chocolate, new mown hay, nuts, or unicorn farts. Very clean and raw in my estimation. I made myself nearly sick with the nicotine on this round.

Burns to a grey, cohesive ash just like cigarette blends. Final opinion? If you like smoking cigs, and milder, natural Connecticut wrapper Costa Rican cigars, this is for you. Fully satisfying from that perspective. Makes a nice RYO, and a not too unpleasant blend for a changeup. However, I will not be adding it to my cellar--when it is gone, it is gone.

I've smoked through a half ounce of this and expected to like it much more than I actually did.

Bonus points for being a crumble cake. It smells good, somewhat reminiscent of Jack Knife Plug.

I think DK nailed it with the 'cigarette or cigar' mouthfeel. Unlike him, I think that also comes through in the taste. It's earthy to a fault. I'm not one for super sweet VA blends, but this is lacking in not only sweetness, but also in zestiness and that nice pungent tanginess that I really like in VAs. Instead, there is earthiness in spades. I think that the burley component is pretty significant here. I started smoking it and didn't care for it, but could understand how a particular type of smoker could smolder this all day. Then the halfway point came, and it just kept getting harsher and harsher. Maybe age would smooth out these very rough edges, but I'm not inclined to find out.

I'm giving it two stars rather generously, but am picturing there being folks out there who want something vaguely cigarish and earthy. Maybe this wouldn't seem harsh to those folks.

This is based on a single tin that was purchased and cellared at least two years ago (maybe more as my sticker was now gone) as I have a better time with many C&D blends after a little bit of aging. Briar Fox is an easy to work with crumble cake and at first light, I thought that this was going to be much more Burley in flavor than Virginia. But it quickly settled down and the Virginia sweetness evened off the smoke. I don’t detect any added flavoring and the Virginias taste more to the bright side, leaving me wanting a bit more red in the blend than I could taste. BF smokes cool and there is definitely some strength to it which I enjoy. I didn’t taste the cigar or cigarette flavor that others have mentioned and I am guessing that the time in the cellar helped to dissipate that outcome. However, my issue with this blend comes in the later stages of each bowl. I simply don’t care for the flavor after about two thirds the way though, which was disappointing as I really enjoyed the beginning stages of this smoke. By the time I had finished a little more than half a tin, I had lost interest. Oh well….

While the rating of a specific blend is ultimately the subjective perception of the reviewer, certain observations regarding the composition may be offered objectively. For example, although I am not particularly enamored of a few of the Dunhill blends (Royal Yacht comes to mind), none can deny that not only is top quality leaf employed, but world class craftsmanship is standard operating procedure. As in the case of Dunhill, the appearance of the words "Cornell and Diehl" on a tin is as sure a sign of quality as one could hope for, irrespective of one?s opinion of a particular blend. Briar Fox is interesting. Nestled inside the smallish tin, topped with the requisite whimsical C&D label, is a clump (there is no better word) of what on first impression appears to be small, dense slabs of meat loaf (as so ably indicated by Tantric). The three to four puzzling little slabs are not sliced, as in Penzance, and tend towards the dry side. Mostly mid-brown to black, the overall appearance is fairly dark. Tin aroma is pure, and fairly mild. Crumbling the cakes is a chore or a kick, depending on one?s disposition, and a light hand is recommended, as it is all too easy to pulverize them into quarks. It lights easily, and produces such copious amounts of smoke that at least one person has commented "Sir, your pipe is on fire." Despite this instant pool hall/card game/mosquito repellent quality, room note is fairly mild, if cloudy. The flavors, at first quite pedestrian, quickly settle into stride and reveal a smooth, medium bodied palate redolent of pure, unadulterated, Virginia leaf- a delicious, unalloyed tobacco. Special care must be taken, as it can easily burn out of hand. It won?t bite, but you may notice your pipe far hotter than usual. It continues to gain in complexity to the rather abrupt end. My complaints are admittedly petty and trite. I find myself getting fewer bowls per tin (due to the construction), fewer minutes per bowl (due to the rapid burn), and, consequently, fewer hours per tin. This may make it one of the more expensive blends to smoke in my portfolio, but I?ll certainly live with it. It?s a small price to pay to enjoy one of the middleweight contenders in the world of straight Virginias. Overall, it?s not a life changing, epiphany inducing smoke, but it serves quite nicely, and is worth seeking out.

Addendum: Repeated tastings of this blend seem to accentuate its shortcomings. The hot, excessively dry burn and the lack of complexity grow tiring, and I must lower my recommendation.

The cake is a melange of red, orange, and brown leaf. There are sparse black flecks of leaf interspersed. There is no Perique, Latakia, or black cavendish billed in the description. I was thinking maybe DFK, and I rubbed one such black leaf between my fingers. When I sniffed there was no smokiness to suggest DFK. So, what exactly is the black leaf, who knows?

This summed up the tin note, mild, bland. The tobacco smokes fairly wet, but the smoke stays smooth. I got delicious notes of dark cocoa bean and roasted nuts every bowl. This is a simple pure tobacco experience. It is earthy , only lightly toasty. Per my experiences with BF, the burley seems to rule the roost, running roughshod on the VA. This may burn on the wet side, but it stays cool. The neutral burn qualities make this blend perfect to break in a new pipe. Not at all a bad blend, just kind of “meh.”

I want to like this tobacco more than I do. By the description, and by the other reviews here, it sounded right up my alley; unfortunately, I was disappointed.

I love the cake form, which rubs out and packs nicely, and the tobacco came at almost a perfect humidity. Burn is even and relatively cool. Smell in the tin is not totally unpleasant, but it does smell like quite a bit like sour milk.

Flavor is tangy, spicy, and chimeric. The Virginias are not as sweet as I expected - mostly just tangy, sometimes with a pronounced nuttiness. Oftentimes, I could swear I was burning sandalwood. Overall, it is airy and light tasting; seems fair to set it in the daytime / desk work category. The perique undertone gives it an interesting, complex flavor and is well-proportioned relative to the other flavors. Smoking very gently helps to bring out a balanced complexity; puff too hard or too long, and it just tastes ashy and dirty, like a cheap burley.

This likes a small bowl, which is not a problem because it is quite slow-burning.

I'm right on the border of giving this 3 stars - it's a quality tobacco, and I know there are people who will love this. Nevertheless, I am not one of those people. I'll smoke it up, but won't buy again.

When I first popped the lid on this tin (20 months old), it reminded me of Kajun Kake, both in presentation and aroma (I smell brownies).

The tobacco is very dry, so I have to smoke it rubbed out whether I like it or not.

My biggest issue with this tobacco is the consistency of taste throughout the bowl. It starts out well enough but gets more bitter as the bowl goes on. I have tried new pipes and carefully cleaned pipes and I still get the same result. I also find that DGT does not work well with this blend either.

Actually, when I smoke straight Virginia tobacco, I prefer some sweetness such as found in McClelland #27, Dark Star or Christmas Cheer. There is very little sweetness here.

It is not a bad tobacco, I am just less impressed every time I smoke it. Maybe a 4 or 5 year old tin will yield better results for me.

Smoking now from a corn cob.

The perfectly square brownie style cake looks fantastic. It smells like how the woods smell after it rains and has a wonderful sour citrus note. Lights and smokes easy. Non offensive however can give a slight bite if smoked too fast, keep it slow, and have a drink with it. A wonderful earthy, grassy, slight tang taste. After taste isn’t the best but it’s not too offensive. This is a blend to smoke when the wife and kids are not around. Room note is stronger.

Can’t wait to age some of this and try it next summer. I hope with age this gets better.