Cornell & Diehl Autumn Evening

It's funny when you sort through the 1 and 2 star reviews how people purchase an aromatic and then complain that it smells and taste like an aromatic. Go figure. I think this is the first aromatic where people complain about it ACTUALLY tasting how it smells. There was one reviewer that said it ghosted his pipe. Really? An aromatic that ghosted another blend? Didn't see that coming at all!!!! *eye roll.* I found this to be a great morning smoke with a big cup of coffee whenever I feel like something sweet. I also smoke it in public or around people I know might not like the smell of a bold english blend given the pleasing aroma.

Tin Note: Heavy on maple, sweetness and vanilla
Cut: Coarse. I thought this was going to be an issue but it seemed to work with this blend.
Dry Time: 2-2.5 Hours
Packing: Given the coarse cut I thought this might get compacted on the bottom of the bowl but I had no issues. I packed slightly loose using a three pinch method as this seemed to work best. If you pack really loose VERY small taps goes a long way in tamping. I didn't even put the weight of the czech tool when tamping.
Nic-Hit: Low

The reason people hate aromatics is usually due to inexperience or they're just set in their ways and if something goes wrong they blame the tobacco. More often then not it's operator error they cant smoke an aromatic. You can't treat an aromatic like an english or straight virginia or any other style of tobacco. The reason being is because, obviously, it's topped. This topping increases the tobaccos' moisture content. Most who dry out their tobacco to the proper moisture content will leave it out for 5-15minutes depending on blend. Because of the topping the tobacco will not dry as fast as the topping will not allow the tobacco to breath. This is where an extended dry time comes into play. Allowing the dry time up to 2.5 hours even 3 hours will mellow, and in some cases, improve the flavors, slow the burn, will not moisten the bowl and cool off the pipe during smoke. An experienced pipe smoker can sip this all day with no tongue bite and a cool pipe.

1st third of bowl - Upon first light that maple and vanilla really come alive. The sweetness isn't overpowering and, in my opinion, blends with the cavendish very well. I usually dislike anything with cavendish but C&D's house cavendish does not steam like the typical American black cavendish. The retro hale really brings out the liquor flavoring and is quite pleasant. Burns warm at first but proper technique will cool things off.

Halfway through the bowl - The top half of the bowl is interesting as the maple, vanilla and sweetness start to fade. The liquor and virginias start to take over with a bread like flavor. The liquor flavor is interesting because it brings a woody almost oak like flavor along with it. Almost like woodchips that I found to be quite nice. Still burning cool with nice slow sips.

Bottom half of bowl- Maple and vanilla have faded but the slight sweetness and whiskey still remain. The bowl was barley warm to the touch and the ash hardly ever needed a tamp.

Bottom of the bowl - A citrus note really started to poke through and remained in the aftertaste. This is where the first and only relight occurred. I got all virginias with a slight woodiness the rest of the bowl. Ashes down almost all the way to the bottom with almost no moisture left in the bowl. There was a pleasant citrus aftertaste.