Borkum Riff Cherry Liqueur

Couldn't help but notice all the failed ratings for Borkum Riff Cherry Liqueur from fellow reviewers so I went out and bought a pouch as I am a fan of sweet cased aromatic varieties. Hate it when one of these gets ripped to shreds in the reviews.

But the critics are absolutely "spot on." Riff is an old, respected house and considered a premium blend among supermarket and drug store customers - but apparently some of their batches imported these days to the U.S. are simply sub par.

It kills me to say it about a sweet cased aromatic - but this tobac is simply dreadful. Reminds me of the moist concoction tobac derivatives used by hookah smokers.

Only way I could salvage any of it without tossing was to mix it with some Admiral's Choice Cherry Cavendish from the CVS Pharmacy. And then on about a 5 to 1 ratio so it gives you an idea of what is going down.

Emitted a totally bitter taste from light up to cool down, didn't stay lit, left a goopy after burn and after taste as well - all the pejorative qualities that make up one lousey smoke. I've got a pouch of BK Cherry Cavendish and I'll open that one soon and let you know. Astonishing and shocking. Rating: Thoroughly Unacceptable...

Borkum Riff - Cherry Liqueur.

I had to wait until I'd stopped guffawing to be able to type this: Pipestud's review of it made my day! I don't think he's a fan 😉

Two words would do as a review of this: strong aromatic! Right from when I stuck my nose in the pouch this was the situation: stone me, it reeks! The blend contains three colours, light, medium, and dark brown. There's no problem with my pouch's moisture.

It lights easy enough, and then goes like the clappers: hotter than hell and as fast as Usain Bolt. Don't expect much tobacco taste from it, or even ANY: it's 100% topping. The cherry liqueur is like a dichotomy of fruit and toxicity: a sweet leading taste with a chlorine-like background note. Mentioning the tobacco flavours would be moot as I can't taste any.

Nicotine: mild. Room-note: nice.

If Cherry Liqueur thinks its sorry ass is going to be saved by the redeeming feature of quite a nice room-note it's wrong! Not recommended:

One star.

I had a little of this at a football game because I forgot to bring a supply. My friend offer me some of this. I was appreciative to smoke anything until I lit it up. Good Lord is this awful stuff. Like smoking a throat lozenge. My friend asked me how I liked it and I smiled and told him not bad. I was truthful as it is not bad......it's friggin awful! This is almost the worst I have ever smoked. No stars for me but a great big trash can!! I will not go into tin note (cause it doesn't come in a tin but a sack) or room note or heaven forbid taste. Avoid this like it's medicine cause that is what it taste like.

A jar of this stuff was given to me by a friend of mine. Since I need to burn-in my clay pipe, I figure I would use this jar of stuff to do so. Nope -- not even clay pipe can save this blend.

There are a few problem of this blend. First off, it has this artificial flavor that seems to be just slightly better than those employed by cigarettes, so the flavor is strong in a bad way. Yet at the same time it definitely is strong in nicotine (surprisingly). Now I like my tobacco strong, but only when both my tastebud and my head come to the agreement to the feeling.

The other problem is that it will clog up your pipe during smoking. For clay pipe this is an even greater problem, since airway for the pipe is much smaller than those of wooden/corncob pipe, so much that you are unable to smoke more than half a bowl because it simply refuse to burn through the remaining bowl properly if at all -- you just feel your draw to be worse and worse in the same bowl, until you just cannot draw at all with half a bowl to go. Now I have not encountered the souring problem, but do note that I used my clay pipe for this.

So I decide to do a try with a woodie MM which I have broke in somewhat... in short, it BURNED away quite a bit of the sidewall. Good thing MM woodie is just as easy to replace, but I am still miffed. Picture this: MM woodie is probably one of the most common drugstore pipes, and the tobacco managed to ruin the bowl.

In short, if you have any pipe that you remotely like, do not put them into the bowl. I am not even letting it touch my tobacco pouch.

I bought a sample pack of Borkum Riff. Cherry Liqueur is smokeable but barely. The chemical taste is obvious, the tongue bite almost painful. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

Bought this from a local discount tobacco shop (not my usual fine tobacconist), thinking it would be smokable. Ugh, that was clearly an unreasonable expectation. What I got was smokable, in a sense, but airy, ashy, cigarette-like tobacco with minimal flavor. I can't honestly say if it was all the tobacco's fault, because what I got was bone dry, golden colored tobacco without almost any noticeable casing, much less the gloopy red mess I've heard from others. Taste and strength are negligible, except for an extreme bite and ashy chemical smell. Room note seems like it'd be not too objectionable.

An exciting blend of burning car tyres, burning plastic and chemical artificial cherry. This is the pipe tobacco you get a new pipe smoker to smoke so they know to never ever go down that road again. Gastly

I have received a few pouches of this as gifts over the years, and it must be said that the blend has improved a bit over the decades that I've been familiar with it. Still, this is a mediocre blend at best.

Upon initially opening a new pouch, one is greeted with a powerful maraschino cherry aroma. I happen to love cherries, and find this an irresistible invitation to load up and fire away. Sadly, the smoking experience goes quite downhill from there.

Borkum Riff Cherry Liqueur is very moist upon first opening, is not at all appealing from a visual standpoint, and feels not unlike cold spaghetti to the fingers as one loads up. It is a very difficult smoke to manage effectively. One must sip very slowly to avoid tongue bite, and this means frequent relights as the mixture just won't stay lit unless you constantly draw upon on it. Even when sipped cautiously, one will still find their pipe gurgling away by mid-bowl.

Flavor is another disappointment--weak and insipid, there just isn't much here. This is a very light burley mixture, and the primary flavor note is that of very mild Burley with additions of sweetness and a Merlot-like tang from the cherry casing. Acrid, ashy off-notes are also ever-present here. Note that I said Merlot, rather than cherry. The lack of genuine cherry notes here was another letdown.

On a positive note, the blend does present a pleasant cherry aroma to the nose and elicits positive reactions from those sharing the room. Truly, this is a blend that may well be enjoyed more by the bystander than by those smoking it.

All in all, this blend is generally not recommended. This was the first blend I ever purchased when getting into pipe smoking decades ago, and it was such a difficult and unrewarding exercise that I was left to wonder if pipe smoking was even worth the bother. Absolutely not recommended to the beginner, this may hold a few rewards for the experienced piper wishing for a very light blend that will likely please those around him.

In my locale, there are only 2 otc brands available: Captain Black and Borkum Riff. I tried nearly all the CBs and they actually weren't that bad. I figured I would try BR so I purchased this Cherry Liqueur and Bourbon Whiskey (reviewed separately). It was only after I had purchased these and a few other tobaccos that I started reading tobaccoreviews.com. Well here's my experience. Please pass it on, especially to newbies.

I read that it tastes like chemicals, burns the tongue easily, and leaves a bad room note. I think someone complained about it leaving a goop in the bowl after smoking it. I've read that it ghosts your pipe. To reduce the possibility of goop and bite I left it open in its pouch for 2 days. It was fairly dry when I smoked it. It started OK, but there was very little flavor. I had trouble keeping it lit. I think because of the frequent relights and the irresistable urge to puff harder to try to get some flavor, you end up getting tongue bite. So I let it cool about a minute between relights and I relaxed my puffing cadence. It bit much less. Now for me, there was never any cherry flavor, not even a scent in the pouch when it was first opened. What I tasted in the smoke was plastic. Very unpleasant. Some of the worst cigarettes I've smoked tasted better than this smoke. It left a stale aroma in the air afterwards, worse than the aforementioned cigarettes. At the very least it did not ghost my pipe, maybe cuz I only allowed the smoke to take 15 minutes. Lastly, although it was not cheap at $10, I couldn't force myself to consider smoking another bowl ever again. I tossed it in the garbage. The Bourbon Whiskey was only marginally better, but still bad. I can't recommend this tobacco when the other otc brand does it so much better.