Cornell & Diehl Bow-Legged Bear

Opening a tin from 2015. The pull-tab fairly bursts open. Tin note is immediately apparent: soy sauce, sour lemons and a very faint undertone of nutty burley. A new-to-me Stephen and Roswitha poker is my tool of choice and I have a snifter of Bearded Iris’s Last Laugh Imperial Stout. The poker is quite capacious, and I’m wary of the tobacco’s much-vaunted strength, so I feel a half-bowl should suffice. The cube rubs out into a nicely-workable rough cut, and the pre-light draw gives me the same flavors as the smell: lemons, some dark chocolate, some soy sauce. I don’t smell much of the latakia, but it’s one of the first flavors to come through on the charring light.

The settling in mutes the flavors quite a bit. A little cream creeps in, complementing the chocolate and the nutty taste from the burley.

The latakia plays a very interesting role here, tying the sweeter and more understated flavors together. There is a little of its characteristic incense going on, but it’s definitely not the star of the show. A little sweetness is present, somewhere in the vein of brown sugar. Also always present is the hint of soy sauce. I find that note a little harder to like, but it’s not a major player.

No one flavor stands out, as other smokers have noted. This is definitely a tobacco *blend*, which I appreciate. Someone who knows what they’re doing blends this. A little wheat, a little earth make themselves known: very pleasant.

Also making itself known is the nicotine. Not as strong as some of the Gawith ropes I’ve sampled, but certainly stronger than Nightcap. I made sure to eat something before sitting down to review this, but even so, I’m feeling it. (That imperial stout is no doubt contributing to that as well, at 10% abv.) I would pair this on subsequent smokes with a nonalcoholic beverage, tea or coffee with cream and sugar. Certainly not a black coffee; the sourness would be too much.

Funny, I always think of burleys as a yard work blend. Something you can cram in your pipe and puff away at. This is not that. You’re not going to want to puff away on this. I’m liking this better as a sipping tobacco, as I’m getting that creamy chocolate and nuts profile with gently sipping and snorking. And the strength is just about all I can handle.

Burns very cleanly, leaving only the smallest bit of dottle. And I am sleepyish and content. This is burley and latakia done right. Too rich for an all-day or even everyday smoke, but a wonderful dessert smoke. I’m looking forward to my next bowl and a pairing of coffee with almondmilk.

"The bow-legged bear walks through the woods..." - Perhaps every man in Russia remembers these lines from childhood. Of course, the Cornell & Diehl blend with this name could not escape my attention. Seeing a large tin of aged tobacco on sale, I couldn't resist - I bought and immediately opened it to try it. However, I wasn't able to write a sensible review of the blend until ten days later. After reading it, you'll understand why.

Given the date of manufacture, January 23, 2016, one would expect the blend to be aged. The tobacco in the tin was packaged in 4 packs, 2 ounces each. This is very convenient - you can take one such pack and put it in a smaller tin, and close the rest tightly again. The composition of the mixture confused me somewhat: it's a kind of vinaigrette, "let's take everything and mix it up together". For a complete set there is only cavendish missing, and apparently, its absence gave reason to put this mixture in the category of "English".

The type of the blend is a pressed briquette of different types of tobacco, which is called a "crumble cake". But this particular crumble cake is pressed well enough, and therefore does not crumble - you have to break off as much as necessary and then knead it to get the blend. The color of the tobaccos ranges from yellowish brown to almost black, and the different types of tobacco are clearly visible. The briquette is a little dry, but I didn't moisten it further (probably should).

The scent bouquet is tar, mild pepper, a little vinegar, a little dried grass, some turmeric and coriander, and a faint note of blackberry. None of the notes dominate, and it took me almost a week just to determine this bouquet completely. During that time I tried five different pipes - straight, curved, large, small - but I never quite figured out which one smoked the best. It was equally easy to light and tasted almost the same in all of them.

Taste - a little bit of sweetness from latakia and Virginia, a little bit of pepper from perique, a little bit of spice from Turkish tobaccos, an earthy note, and on top of it all a strange flavor, as if you were eating bread with maasdam cheese and drinking a simple dry white wine. I read in one of the reviews that if you could compare it to Deep Purple saying "everything is louder than everything else," this one is "everything is quieter than everything else." Perhaps that's the most apt definition of the blend - it's hard to catch individual notable notes, but it's also not a faceless blend.

It smokes warm, but not hot. As you smoke, the taste becomes easier, leaving the core of latakia, turkish and perique, and the light sourness goes into the aftertaste. The strength is medium, the nicotine kick caught me only once - when I took a large pipe to try, in medium and small pipes you can not be afraid of it. The ash is light gray in color, there is not much of it, there is no moisture at all.

The smell of smoke, of course, is reminiscent of English blends, but with a bit of sourness in it.

As a result, I find it as a kind of "antipode of the Danish blend" - a little of everything, but no expressiveness. To be honest, I still don't know whether I like it or not. I think I'll finish this briquette leisurely and save the rest for winter. Maybe it will sound different when it's cold.

Update: in wet autumn weather it plays different! Latakia feels a little more and sourness is less. I puffed rest of tobacco during my dog-walks with pleasure. 3 stars updated,

I first felt the pull to pick up this blend while I was experimenting with higher nicotine tobaccos. They all seemed to involve heavy doses of Perique or Dark Fired, so I thought a Latakia mixture would be interesting. I will say that my sample has an age of around 2 years on it.

The tin is fun, quirky and something that could be displayed. When you open up you find a typical C&D Cake, it's speckled dark and light brown. It crumbles really easily and comes at a very nice moisture content. I've never had to dry this before loading my pipe. The tin note is complex. Smokey Latakia, tangy Orientals, vinegary Red Virginias and more. Lighting is easy and consistent.

When lit the first thing I detect is latakia, but not really. Everything in the bowl is vying for attention. The Latakia is smooth and creamy, but behind it is a toasty, nutty Burley. The Orientals make it herbal, and slightly sour, but the Virginias come behind with bread to round it off. The Perique is adding dark fruit, and to my nose a bit of spice. It burns really nice and cool.

For the taste, I give this a medium. Even with everything giving flavor up front it does so in a smooth way. But this was not what I noticed when I first opened the tin. When I opened it a year ago, I called this a kitchen sink blend and would have given it two stars or less. It was rough, and none of the components seemed to agree. With some age, it has really melded together and formed a consistent smoke. For the strength I give this a medium-strong. It will make itself known, but I haven't had breakfast yet and I don't really sense it a whole lot. The room note is a typical English so if your loved ones don't like Latakia then you won't bring them to the dark side with this one. A decent relaxing smoke.

Bow Legged Bear is my first experience with a crumble cake. It requires just a small amount of prep work because it breaks up very easily and has the right amount of moisture to pack right away. It’s pretty easy to pick up the Latakia and Virginias from the tin note.

Brine and bbq smokiness are dominant with a similar flavor in the retrohale. There’s also a noticeable note of earthy pepper as well that comes forward in the second half of the bowl as well as a nice toastiness.

Bow Legged Bear smokes quite nice, lasting well over an hour in a pipe that typically takes me just under an hour to finish and required several relights. Overall, the strength makes this an evening smoke.

I purchased a tin of this when I got back into pipesmoking due to the tin-art, I'm a sucker for bears and trains.... back then when I tried it, it was overpowering no matter if I had ate or not. I jarred up the rest and let it set.

I pulled this back out in October 2020 and find to my taste now its a much more enjoyable smoke. It's latakia heavy to me and I have a hard time picking out individual tobaccos much beyond that even though the combination makes a decent background but mostly campfire. The 2nd half of the bowls I get a little bit of peppery note which I'm giving to the perique. Still nothing much from the Orientals sadly. The burley adds some nuttiness', so I really think of this more as an "American" blend than a true English. The strength to me nic wise is still high, its definitely a smoke on a full stomach evening blend and I can't imagine smoking it all day.

I love the tin-art still and love the crumble-cake presentation but there are just other blends that I enjoy more. I have plenty left from my 8oz can to enjoy, but I can't see buying more of it at this point.

Bow-Legged Bear is a complex work of art. It verges on being too complex given all its components but I enjoy it. The burley seems most dominant with savory nutty notes and sweet chocolate hints. Some hay from the Virginia, pepper from perique, woody notes from izmir, and a small amount of smokey latakia all surface throughout the smoke but mostly what I taste is grapenuts. The nicotine content is perfect for me at a solid medium-full strength. I’m excited to see how this ages.

Cornell & Diehl - Bow Legged Bear.

Like Exhausted Rooster I love the tin art: a big, stupid looking, buffoon of an animal! Unlike blends such as Mississippi River, or Bengal Slices, where the cake's either broken apart or in slices, this is just one block. It's speckled with many different tobacco colours, and a touch too moist.

The smoke: now, I usually find the taste of C+D's Latakia blends second to none; my current wake-up smoke is their Mississippi Mud, and I always have a tin of Black Frigate to hand, but this doesn't do it for me. The Latakia has more of a vacuous taste, comparatively speaking. It doesn't have much richness to it, but more of a sharp, cutting, flavour which I don't enjoy. The other leaves seem miniscule in flavour because of the volume of the Lat'. On the plus side it burns well, and doesn't bite.

Nicotine: strong. Room-note: heavy.

Sadly I find this one of their worst offerings. Not recommended:

One star.

The tin aroma is something weird. I mean really weird. When i opened it, i yelled a big heyyawhohhhuuuahh. Dirty, muddy, odorous. I prefere to smoke it in a big bowl. I tried it from filtered and non filtered as well, but since it is extremly full, and not a mild smoke, i think it is not a big problem to smoke trough a filtered airhole, we won't lose significant amount of flavor. Burns quickly, maybe, 'cause i can not resist to smoke it briskly…because it is an incredibly comlex, very tasteful baccy. How do i get to the bear? As i smoke it, i feel i've got an entire forest in my bowl, i mean all the things starting from the soil through the rivers, the animals, trees, bushes...i think a bear can feel the same, when he leisurely walks around his territory 🙂 Very interesting, unusual outdoor baccy.

I highly recommend if you are an english and burley lover that you try this blend at least once--I have yet to experience a blend as richly nutty (in every sense of the word--the association of "nutty" and "burley" came through for me here) and unique as The Bear. While other reviewers might warn us of the towering nicotine inferno this blend can deliver, it surprisingly did not knock me to the ground (probably because I am accustomed to smoking stronger blends), but it was stronger than most tobaccos I have smoked. Hmm, I do recollect, however, that when a colleague of mine and I packed The Bear up to the top in our biggest pipes for our first taste. . . one of us didn't make it (but at least we were outside). This was still not enough to keep either of us away, and we both enjoy The Bear's company often (who thankfully has a sense of humor). If you want a unique, full strength, nutty, chocolaty/coffee tasting blend with character and enjoy some blends with a little strength, do buy a tin and sit down with The Bear yourself--he won't bite, I promise.