Cornell & Diehl Mississippi Mud

Happy Friday and TGIF! I have a nice cup of Turkish coffee and some time to relax.

This is a bit of an odd blend for me. The tin is enticing with an image of someone playing a banjo looking across what I assume is the Mississippi River. Now as a banjo player that gives me hope. When you open the tin you will find a really coarse ribbon cut with some stems. The tobacco is almost completely black. The tin note smells of earthy, smokey Latakia and musty fruity Perique. This comes at a good moisture and packs and lights easily. Burns cool.

When you light this blend it is Latakia forward. The Latakia is creamy, earthy, smokey and woody. I think there is a fair amount of Perique in this blend and I can taste the dark fruit, and mustiness its also quite spicy on the retrohale. There is some Brown Cavendish which adds some smoothness and sweetness to the blend and rounds out some of the rough edges. It can tend to be a one note blend, the Latakia has to be around 60% of the blend.

The taste is a medium-full. The nature of Latakia fills your mouth in general. The strength is a medium-strong. The Perique always add some strength and I feel like it could be around 15% if not more. I do feel the nicotine at the back of my throat if I haven't eaten. This blend does well when the sun is down, the air is cool, and I have a strong coffee. I think this is a good blend, but not to my taste. I give this two stars.

A bit of a bruiser, Latakia for slummers, Raven Wing's spiky-haired brother, an old familiar with a bit of rough-trade glitter. Good for a tumble in the park, but ultimately as witless as a morning-after breakfast.

Looks to be that I will again be the contrarian on this one - 2 Stars for effort, but not much else.

Admittedly, I have not delved very deep into the C&D well, but this one suffers from the same deficit I've felt about all the blends I've tried so far: no spark.

I really wanted to like this one - especially after opening the tin and getting a whiff. I am a big fan of strong, offbeat tastes: Laphroag, Guinness, Latakia, and the strong earthy, almost manure-like aroma of this tin definitely had me intrigued.

But much like Sunset Harbor Flake before it, Mud came up less than the sum of its' parts: flat, unbalanced, meh.

Unless I can get a couple of "do-not-miss-this" recommendations regarding other C&D blends, I'm going to come to the conclusion that the guiding philosophy of this brand is, "throw every combination and technique at the wall, and hopefully something will stick."

Mud, indeed.

Tin opens to a nice slightly chocolate aroma. Someone here mentioned it smelled like canned pig farts. Guess I'm a fan of pig farts. Filled a bowl fresh from the opened tin, and it smoked clean, smooth, evenly,with no bite. An amazing blend that is so balanced that it simply bored me. The latakia and Perique are there, but the flavor is muted by the black cav. I tried so hard to find some variation of flavor that I ended up drawing to hard, to often and ended up with nothing but the hic-ups, from sucking up the nicotine. I salute C&D for an innovative blend that will find a following. Personally, I won't smoke another bowl.

I have tried several C&D blends, and only one of them has made me want to come back for more. This isn't it. (It was Bayou Morning Flake, if you're wondering) The concept of MM was intriguing, the idea of all the black tobaccos in the same blend. I tried something similar years ago with rubbed-out Dark Star and very small portions of latakia and perique. I called it "New Moon," and it did have a certain charm to it. And the flavor of MM was mildly interesting, though at times confusing to the palate, and the aroma was unique.

As a side note, I have seen several reviewers on this website say that they have a perique allergy. Until I smoked MM, I always thought that comment was strange. Now I understand! It made me sneeze, and left me with a frog in my throat. Not a deal breaker if I like the blend in other ways, but that definitely added to the negative experience of smoking this.

The only C&D blend I haven't tried but want to is Bow-Legged Bear. Other than that, this brand as a whole has almost always been disappointing and I'm about to say goodbye to it.

Update: Be warned the cavendish will flavor your pipe for at least the next several smokes.

I'm gonna have to take a different view of this blend than the majority of other raters....I did not find MM to be strong, brutish, smelling of pig farts, or any of the other "strong" descriptions listed.

What I did find was a nice tobacco, that gives a good representation of a latakia and perique blend. It stays the same from start to finish, and is enjoyable enough. I'd have to call it pretty tame, and would suggest this to anyone who has never tried an "English", and wants to know what it's about. It'll get you started, and there will be no surprises along the way. You'll either like it or not....

I'll smoke this tin, and enjoy it, but will not go out of my way to buy it again. There are blends I like much better.

Not sure what to make of this stuff. It's rich and tasty, but rather strange. Like a few other of C&D's Neo-American blends, it's a bit of a brute, decidedly adventurous if not overly nuanced. Lustra's delightfully creative review pretty much sums it up.

Like Pirate cake but with Perique added,and rubbed out. A manly smoke that at first I thought I would like a lot,but as I have smoked more of this I too have found it laking. The taste is as others have noted,one sided. It's strong,and really just lays there is a latakia dry acidic sort of fog.

Tin note of smoky, sour, and slightly sweet. Tobacco is dark brown and black Coarse Cut. Tobacco is moist, but not wet. No drying or prep needed. Burns normal with few relights. The strength is medium and nic is mild. No flavoring detected. Taste is medium to full and inconsistent, with notes of smoky, cedar wood, dry earth, musty floral, overly toasted bread, mild sweet tart fruit, mild bitter dark chocolate and a mild peppery retro. Latakia is leading with the cavendish and perique arguing back and forth about who's the best supporter. Room note is tolerable to strong, and aftertaste is ok.