pipesandcigars.com Scotty's Butternut Burley

The smell is sweet from some obvious artificial toppings. Nothing unpleasant, but nothing I wanted to dig into upon first whiff. I wish the leaves weren't so broken down, the mix needed a more hearty cut for packing. It was the consistency of Oregano seasoning with a somewhat sticky topping.

The sweetness remained upon lighting up, giving you a very consistent experience from start to finish. It gives off a mountain of smoke, which caught me off guard with a cough.

The Butternut Burley did not work for me, yet I could see someone enjoying it as a no nonsense all day smoker.

I have to echo the reviews of some others here, this blend has changed with P&C's merger with Cigars Int. The first time I bought this was last year and I was greatly pleased. This time it had to be dried for days and still gooped up the bottom of the bowl, had constant re-lights and the smoke seemed a little bland. I guess that all good things must come to an end.

I couldnt quite say I enjoy this blend.Im a lover of strong tastes...strong english strong aromatics....this is entirely to mild for my tastes.....nothing wrong with it....just to mild

It has now been just over a year since I first tried and reviewed this blend. I've had time to smoke it often and "study it" more and need to update this review. The original review will follow:

Butternut Burley seems a fine mixture in many ways, though perhaps not exactly an everyday smoke for me, I've learned to enjoy it from time to time.

I've come to believe that there is a fair amount of sweetened black cavendish in this mixture, the remainder I believe is air cured Burleys. I have played around some with "small batch" alterations adding various amounts of McClelland's "X-40 Burley by the Slice" to it which does seem to take the "edge" off the oiliness that I've mentioned in my original review. There There seems to be a rather large "fan base" for this mixture, but if you find as I did that the "butter" get to be too much and you've purchased a large amount of it, try mixing non flavoured or lightly flavoured Burley in it starting at about 12% by weight and it should help.

******Original Review******** Decemeber 2005

Recently, pipesandcigars.com tobaccos have been getting lots of ?press? on the ASP Forum and Newsgroup. Mostly people have been talking about Russ Ouellette's efforts and several have been raving about Scotty's Blends Butternut Burley in particular.

Being a Burley fancier myself, I just had to give it a try. I hate to be a detractor among glowing reviews, but this blend had some distinctive minuses for me.

Appearance: Though the product description lists only air cured burley this looks to be about 60% dark tobaccos, 40% golden-brown. My guess is that two or more Burleys are used. It is varied in cut yet mostly medium ribbon cut.

Aroma: This mixture has a deep sweet aroma very enticing. Immediately one smells a deep hay-like quality, not of hay in neat bales stacked in the barn; rather of freshly mown hay, slowly drying in the summer sun. Deep, sharp and earthy. Carmel tones and nuts are evident, as in pecan or butternut. There is a darker scent to this as well leading me to believe that some of the leaf has been toasted in some maner.

This tobacco is nearly perfect in moisture and I employed the ?once like a baby, once like a lady, finally like a gentleman? method of layered packing.

Lighting usually is a single match affair, and with a friendly ?lighting tamp? I was well on my way each time. As expected, the initial flavor very Burley, with a thick silky mouth feel, notes of butter and nuts. Hay-like tones and smells and flavors of Autumn are abundant with deepening flavors of nuts and butter interplaying in a fascinating way. A very slight vanilla taste is also noted. Combustion is very self maintaining as promised, this very nearly smokes itself every time.

Mid Bowl: Approaching mid-bowl, the fullness tends to build the toothsome mixtures of butter, nuts and Burley develop in strength slowly along predictable lines. The slight vanilla fades quickly, being dominated by stronger flavors. The nuttiness becomes more pronounced and the initially ?simple? nuts taste evolves slowly into a pecan, butternut and walnut flavoring which is very agreeable. The butter sensations become a bit much to me unfortunately. Scotty's description on the web site is of note here: ? How is it for taste? Imagine a blend of warm butter with just a hint of vanilla and honey, then add sweet nutty overtones to round out the flavor. After the bowl is done, expect a pleasant lingering sensation on your palate with no bitterness at all.? What could be a pleasant sensation is just too dominant for me. The buttery mouth feel becomes oily and not in a good way.

Home Stretch: As end of the bowl approaches, the bowl never really changes. This blend remains consistent throughout. The final third has matured nicely with all the flavors working in deepening harmony. Unfortunately the oiliness also remains. It is a shame too, as this blend has so much else working in it's favor. It is a very cool burning consistently dry smoking mixture of fine quality Burley. It is an aromatic that works in many respects however, this oily quality just puts me off.

Supplemental Notes: I will continue to smoke this and perhaps add further notes at a later date. I'm also experimenting with adding other plain Burley to it in controlled batches to see if I can tame the oiliness. Rating for those interested in numbers **1/2 stars

This has been the IT tobak of ASP for the fall and winter it seems, so I ordered up a sample. First impressions- exceedingly moist and a little sticky. Sweet smelling. Despite the moisture, it lights easily and doesn't gurgle or bite. AS for the flavor, it has gradually grown on me, but it seems to really need to be smoked slowly to get any flavor out of it. Not a bad tobacco, but to me, not worth the buzz. It beats 1q as an aromatic, but I still prefer autumn evening.

This blend was sealed tight in a Mason Jar for a year. Upon opening, the tobacco had some "gooeyness" in it. I rubbed it out and waited about 30 minutes before loading in a slim walled Vintage Big Ben pipe. If someone enjoys aromatic burley blends, this mixture may be great. In my opinion it is one dimensional without tobacco character or depth EXCEPT for the very sweet butterscotch and vanilla taste. The flavoring was too much for me.

Burley and flavored Black Cavendish comprises this blend. As far as this type of aromatic is concerned, it’s decent and bite free. It’s not always consistent for whatever reason and I have received some that was less than stellar in its blending. But overall it’s not bad. It seemed to be better when Scott Bendett sold it when he was the original owner of P&C before Cigars International bought it out.

The smell of this blend is wonderful, very buttery. I was very excited at first and hoping for a great smoke. All I got was an "ok" smoke. Nothing to write home about. May help to dry it a bit, didn't seem moist (least nothing out of the ordinary for an aromatic smoker) but just couldn't keep it burning well. The taste was just meh, again nothing interesting about it, nothing terrible about it.

I find the description of this blend to be a bit wordy and over the top, so I'll simplify it with my comments on this blend.

If you want a pleasant tasting burley tobacco that you could literally smoke all day long and have a tongue left, this is your huckleberry.

A simple blend containing a quality burley, some black cavendish and some flavoring that to me tastes like butterscotch. The flavoring doesn't overpower the burley, so it's a nice balance....when made correctly.

I've smoked it for years, but there does seem to be a consistency problem with the flavoring applied. Whereas in batches in the past one could easily taste the burley, the amount of flavoring applied to my most recent order suggests a heavy hand was used in adding the butterscotch flavoring so that it completely overwhelms the tobacco. It's almost like smoking pure butterscotch flavoring. Nearly unsmokable, this order only merits two stars. It will likely take weeks in an open humidor to make it what it should be. They need to tone down the flavoring considerably and return to what it used to be, a well balanced burley aromatic.