Cornell & Diehl Cross Eyed Cricket

Only from the Tarheel State could a tobacco named Cross-Eyed Cricket, that tastes like Cross-Eyed Cricket come. It is just plain fun tobacco, that happens to be very good tobacco. This is one blend with Turkish that did not declare war on me. A beautiful dark mostly dark ribbon; it stays very moist in the tin for some time. I suspect that is due to the salad dressing applied to it. The flavour is, well is.....just plain different. Fruity, sweet, but not overpowering. After burning for a bit, you start to notice that under the candy store there is some very good tobacco, the Latakias especialy shine I think. Overall this is a tobacco that everyone should try at least once. It is so different as to defy real classification, yet somehow pleasant.

This has to be one of the top novelty tobaccos of all time. Cross-Eyed Cricket is so unique that most folks will probably either love it or hate it. I had many folks comment on the aroma (all found it to be pleasant), and the fruity, sweet taste was enjoyable, but I'm not sure I'd smoke this very often. I'd definitely call this one an aromatic, although is has an english quality about it too.

This is quality tobacco (a little on the dry side), and the burn is what you'd expect from high-quality tobacco. If your adventurous I'd say try this one for the novelty factor, if for no other reason, but as others have stated, you might want to try one of your least used pipes, since the flavor will taint the taste for a few smokes.

This one is a highly flavored tobacco that is fun to smoke just becasue it is so weird . It's on my top five list of bizarre tobaccos . Be careful as the flavor wil taint a pipe for many smokes afterwards . I'd try it in a cob first if you're just curious , and dedicate a pipe to it if you decide you like it .

General Comment for All C&D Blends. So far, all my samples have burned clean and dry. They contain quality ingredients. If purchased fresh from C&D, I find that I must adjust the moisture content, and let them rest for 3-6 months before sampling. They change flavor dramatically in just a few months.

In my first review of this blend, I found it to be too aromatic. I could not taste the tobacco as the rum addition overwhelmed the blend. I have since let the blend rest for a few more months, and let it get almost bone dry. Then I re-moistened it. Most of the "cricket" had evaporated, and now it tastes more like an English blend with a rum addition rather than a bowl full of rum with something in it. If you can get it to this state, it may be of interest to those looking for an English crossover with an aromatic. I would not mind smoking this now and then, but I prefer other crossovers from C&D like Pennington Gap which uses bourbon rather than rum.

this is an interesting tobacco, an aromatic that thinks it's an english blend. it has a pleasant room aroma, without the syrupy sweet taste that so many experienced smokers find objectionable. this would be an ideal tobacco for a smoker whose wife loathes the aroma of heavy latakia blends. might let you bring your pipe back in the house and avoid marital discord! like all the C&D blends i have tried, this one has good packing and burn characteristics. the taste i would describe as a very mild english blend that would be a good cross-over from aromatics. when i first tried cross-eyed cricket, i was very impressed. then i found other blends i liked even better, which prevents me from scoring it higher. don't automatically pass this one by because it doesn't have a 4-star rating. for many smokers, with varied tastes and intolerant wives, this could be a real winner. 3 stars.

I have tried this tobacco once on purpose, and a second time by accident. This tobacco comes fairly dry -typical C&D fashion, and really doesn't smell too bad in the tin. At this point, Cross-Eyed Cricket has potential to be a decent aromatic tobacco. Packing this tobacco is a little more difficult due to the dry state of the tobacco, but it lights up fine once packed. From there it goes downhill. I am instantly struck by the taste and smell of SOAP. This tobacco has the taste of soap for the entire bowl. It burns down cleanly, but I just cannot get past the flavour of Lifeboy in my pipe.

This is a crossover blend much like C&D’s Brigadier, combining a flavoring with a Latakia blend. The blend is based on unsweetened Black Cavendish, with Turkish, Latakia, and Perique. Its rum punch flavoring smells nearly as strong as Brigadier’s in the tin, only less fruity--if the topping was applied lightly, I sure wouldn't want to smoke anything that got a full dose of it! The combination of flavors can be jarring, as the rum punch flavoring fights it out with the Latakia. But this blend’s flavoring is more restrained than Brigadier and it has much less punch in terms of nicotine. The room aroma is a notch lighter as well, though there’s still a good bit of Latakia in the aroma. It actually works pretty well as an aromatic English. I would recommend this to someone who likes full flavored aromatics and would like to try a Latakia blend, though I don’t know if hard-core English smokers would care for this.

This one is a real surprise to find on this list, because I don't normally like aromatics and this

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one is very much so. It's totally different from every other tobacco on this list, and is such a unique taste experience that I'd urge anyone to

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try it at least once, just for the experience. According to the tin, it is flavored with "rum punch", whatever that might be, but in smoking it

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produces a very friendly and flavorfully sweet taste, with an almost tangy flavor. It reminds me of some mad combination of tangy candy

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and fruit punch... which normally would make me gag to think of as a tobacco blend, but this one doesn't. In fact, it's tremendously

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enjoyable, and one of the first tobaccos I'd reach for to give to the beginning smoker. It does turn a bit moist on me as I near the bottom of

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a large bowl, but it's very well mannered indeed compared to most aromatics out there. Worth mentioning is the great smelling smoke,

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which not only pleases crowds but sometimes makes them ask for more!