Cornell & Diehl Bayou Night

This is a real man's tobacco. It's full flavor and full strength! Vitamin N knocks my socks off. I had thought that habanna daydream was my favorite but this one has replaced it. I get mine in bulk from smoking pipes. The bag aroma is smoky sweet, similar to habanna. At first light the virginias and latakia come thru. As I work my way down the first third of the bowl I get a full tobacco taste and aroma, with a slight dried prunes smell, clearly this is the perique. Every now and the I get a little smoky latakia aroma in there. As I work thru the bottom of the bowl the nic really kicks it in to high gear, now I'm in tobacco heaven! This is a great tobacco for the lovers of strong flavor and aroma. I think it would be good for most vaper lovers. Good value too, at 28 bucks a pound. C&D really knows how to make fine tobacco at a good price.

It's been a while since I sat down for a review of a Cornell and Diehl blend, but this is a blend I've been smoking for a while now and so I thought a review would be in order. I've done the review of C&D's Bayou Morning and Bayou Morning Flake, which I love, and there were good things about both. For one thing, all of these blends have a massive amount of Perique. Bayou Morning Flake has 25% Perique and some have said that Bayou Night has 50%. So it's a bit of a unique experience.

The tin is rather plain, but that's okay as long as the tobacco is good. When I opened up my tin I found a nice consistent ribbon cut that is light and dark brown in colour. When I open the jar I put it into I smell mushroomy, fruity Perique, light Latakia smokiness and Virginia hay. In short it smells like a barnyard. It comes at a smokable dryness. It's very easy to pack and light.

According to Cornell and Diehl this is made in the style of a Scottish Mixture and I would say that it is. Up front I taste sweet and bready Virginias followed closely by Perique. The Perique adds spice and a lot of dark fruit like it does in BMF. The Orientals are hiding in the background and every now and again I get a hint of herbal tang. I am very sensitive to Latakia and I can usually pick it out of any blend. It's very hidden in this blend, but it is there at the back of every puff. I don't inhale when smoking my pipes, but be vigilant not to inhale with this particular blend. The Perique content makes this very spicy and I've spent five minutes coughing every puff of air I've breathed since I was five.

The taste is a medium, even with such strong flavors I don't find it to be too much. The strength is medium-strong. The Perique makes this a nice nightcap tobacco. The room note may not win any friends over to the briar. It's a unique blend that will easily satisfy any Perique lover.

Not many blends have managed to puzzle me as much as this. The first difficulty is finding the right pipe to smoke it in. Smoked in a Latakia-dedicated pipe, you might be led to think it's just an English gone feral. Smoked in a VaPer pipe, it feels like a VaPer with inferior Virginias. However, if smoked in a new briar, clay, or meerschaum, it shows it's truest colors as something neither fish nor fowl, but a delectable creature all it's own. Rather like a wild duck. One of these reviews calls the Latakia "Flinty". I wasn't quite sure what to make of that; in my experience, there is no "Hiding" Latakia. However, after a few smokes, I can agree with that assessment. It gives it an interesting baseline; like a good VaPerOr grounded with freshly cracked stone. The Perique is astonishingly well-behaved, given it's astronomical 50% composition. At concentrations this high, it really does take on a pronounced dark chocolate quality. That said, it surprisingly doesn't run the show. The burley contributes nuttiness, molasses, and body, and the orientals provide a slight lactic creaminess. The Virginias may be the softest voice (there can't be much room left to shoehorn them in), but they do provide some grass and citrus. My one gripe with this is purely semantic; I wouldn't call this a Scottish blend in my wildest fever dreams. A Scottish blend (to me) is something like Black Mallory or Nightcap. This is something else entirely. I like this. Enough to buy again, but not enough to cellar en masse for daily smoking. I have another tin set aside for aging; I'm curious to see what happens. Addendum 12/02/21: Although I normally like to let my reserve tins age for at least a year, boredom and poverty led me to crack my second tin at just over five months of age. One of two things has happened: either there are some serious quality control issues at C&D (which I doubt) or this blend ages exceptionally quickly. The Latakia has receded even further into the background and the Virginias have blossomed to show more sweetness and fruity depth. Given the fermenting qualities of Perique (and its hefty proportion in this blend), I'm leaning towards the latter. The Burleys have stepped up as well, lending more butter-nutty notes. I can see why this is such a huge seller for C&D.

They will judge you for smoking straight perique. Oh, they may not say anything but you can see it in their eyes, in the way they try to nonchalantly edge away from you.

But Bayou Night, why, it's really just a sort of Rocky Road version of Old Joe Krantz. A noticable notch up in strength, to be sure, but it's got Turkish in there! How uncivilized can it be? Perhaps just a touch more mechanically temperamental. But even the Latakia content is vanishingly mild compared to a proper English. It's like you're saying, "Oh nooo THANK you, that Pirate Kake is CRAZY! I'll just stick with my nice little smoke here, I garontee."

But you know, inside, all the while, that you are merely a puff away from entering the Æon of Horus.

This is in no way similar to Bayou Morning (not that there are any claims to that effect). I've given it a go several times, after aging it in a jar, and using a few different pipes. Seems like the perique overpowers the other tobaccos. Edit: after a couple more years of pipe smoking, it’s much more than a one star smoke.

Very cool smoking; wanted it to last forever... and then I stood up. A bit of a N hit. Wow.

Great blend of flavors. It doesn't change too much throughout. It melds towards the end. Duh. The flavor profile has been very well described by others better than myself.

A prior review mentioned the effects of Perique on the PH and the effects this has on nicotine absorption. Fascinating! This inspired a tweak...

I don't typically alter my tobacco. So, flying by britches-seat, and not going as far as testing the PH (rum appx 4)...

I took the remaining ounce (after I'd ordered an additional lb) of Bayou Night and allowed it to dry out. Crunchy would be an adequate descriptor for its state. I then gave it a spritz of Belizean dark rum. A light misting left it a bit moist. Sealed it up for the night. The next morning it was just about right.

The "tin note" didn't suffer. Even better, in my humble opinion.

It notably altered the nicotine hit; I now don't have to use the smaller-bowled pipes. Nice!

The taste is great. The longer it sat, the better it developed. When I repeat this, I'll leave it alone for a minimum of three days.

Great blend.

Alone or with rum, try it.

My initial trying of this blend did not give me good results. I put the 4oz I had in my cellar and came back to it 6 months later. What a difference! I find this blend can be finnicky in the pipe smoked. It smokes best for me in a tall narrow bowl. I now have a Stanwell Hans Christian Andersen fitted with the small stem dedicated to this blend. The taste is very full in this blend and it packs a hard nic hit. It smoke cool and dry and the flavors run in the darker range and at times leans towards cigarish like tones. The perique in this blend is the key player and I find the latakia very subdued. The burley and perique realy shine through. If you are a perique lover such as myself this is a must try. Highly recommended!

Brutally nicotine-loaded. I can hardly smoke this stuff, it?s so powerful! Also, that dry nose-twitcher in there. And the chemically-cigarette-y bad-mouth smoke taste. C.

A Spicy & Potent English/American Blend

The perique and Latakia provide a spicy and smokey foundation to this blend. The red Virginias adds some tanginess and only a slight sweetness to the smoke. The nuttiness of the burley is easily noticeable. Overall, Bayou Evening is enjoyable but a little unbalanced in its flavor profile.