Cornell & Diehl Crooner

Rumor has it a smoke shop in Philadelphia made this for Bing. Rumor also has it that the original Tinder Box in Santa Monica blended it as well. I had the pleasure of talking to Ed Kolpin who is the founder of the Tinder Box and we talked about Bing a bit. Ed carved over -14- pipes for Bing. Ed claimed that Bing also liked Ed's "Special" blend. Bing lived close to the store and frequented it oten. The Santa Monica store still has the original recipes. The Tinder Box chain does not. I am not hating on the Tinder Box chain but I live 20 minutes from the original store and I will take their word for it. Back to Crooner. Nice cube cut burley mixed with deer tongue. That's it. Nothing more nothing less. I smoke it in my Savinelli Bings favorite pipes, Wilmer Bel Air and an original pipe carved by Ed that was carved for Bing, but Bing passed on in 1977 and never picked the pipe up. Smokes cool in the Crosby shape pipe with the longer stem. Sometimes I mix with BCA for a sweeter taste in my Meerschaums. I am a proud member of the ICC ( International Crosby Circle ), so I am a little biased to this blend. On the other hand I have always enjoyed rough cut burley. Keep in mind when you smoke this blend it is a pant burner!! Smoke slow and enjoy. A little Bing Crosby music in the background helps out as well!

I finally ordered some Crooner after hearing so much about it from the folks saying that it was Bing Crosby's favorite to the fact that it has Deer Tongue in it. Being curious as to what Deer Tongue was I searched through the mighty Wikipedia and found that was a sort of lettuce that was commonly sought for it's vanilla-like flavor, especially for old timey sorts of tobacco blends. I also saw that it had been banned in several places due to its coumarin content. For those of us who enjoy things like traditional Bison Grass vodka or Zubrowka as it's called in Poland and traditional Absinthe, we know all too well the US policy on policing things like coumarin that are more that safe for the average consumer.

Anyways to the meat of the review. When I first opened my bag of Crooner I immediately noticed the wonderful nutty aroma of a good Burley Blend, but this one has a bit more, there is a herbal, vanilla sweetness which must be coming from the deertongue. The cut is a nice cube cut and it loads very easily into the pipe, I don't even use a tamper half of the time. It lights really well and tends to be slow burning. In fact, it keeps it's light so well, that I have smoked a whole bowl in my MacArthur cobb without relighting once and it burned down to a fine white ash.

The smoke comes off in thick white clouds, and is very ample. I taste a very well rounded burley, very nutty, woodsy, and slightly herbal. The deertongue isn't as strong of a flavor as I thought it would be, but it's definitely there. It adds a sweetness, and a light vanilla aroma which is very pleasant. It smells very much like a burley when lit with the added sweetness. I find the taste a solid medium, and your vitamin N is not overpowering, but it's also a fair medium.

This might make a good introduction to burleys, but I do warn that it should be smoked in a cob or a pipe that doesn't ghost easily. All in all a good smoke and I wouldn't be against getting some more for my shelf.

Yep, watched White Christmas, treated myself to this blend and a Savinelli Bing.

First, let's baseline: I tried Crooner in a brand-new "bargain" bent briar (not the Savinelli). I am an occasional/pastime aromatic pipe smoker. Once in a great while I also enjoy Full Virginia Flake in the bowl but always go back to the aromatics, probably due to my infrequency with the briar overall. More frequently I enjoy medium-full premium cigars (unflavored) and imbibe in these more frequently than the pipe.

I have to enjoy a few more bowls of this blend and intend to update this review, but wanted to give some initial impressions now, since it is T'is the season and I hope this review might help others to decide.

Firstly, I did not find this blend to be "out of bounds" as it may pertain to the spectrum of aromatic blends in general. So despite some of the emphatic reviews for and against, don't let those scare you off. The 8 oz (bulk-bagged) I ordered and received did strike me as "Grape Nuts" like in texture as others have noted. My initial thought was that the tobacco seemed drier that it should be. Loaded the bowl via dipping the briar into the blend and then tamping to 3/4 full. I had no issue keeping the bowl lit through the first 2/3 or more of the bowl. In fact, after tamping down the char-light, it remained lit. The tabac burned nicely and evenly requiring more tending in the last 1/3 of the bowl. Ash is black.

Room Note: Significant other and son rate the room note pleasant and very similar to blends they have smelled before, nothing exotic or different yet at the same time they paused and mentioned that they found it interesting. Room note was warm and rich, honey-like, very nice.

Taste: I did not feel the deertongue produced any significant taste (or room note), but would have to compare a similar blend of burleys that does not have it in order to indicate what it adds/detracts from the taste, enjoyment or room note. Those keeping cadence with their briar and routine blends will no doubt be able to elaborate on this nuance. Having been away for a while, I will not opine on herbal/vanilla/flora/spice notes. I found the flavor to be pleasant, enjoyable, nothing especially remarkable either in favor or against. I could sense the nicotine kicking in during the last 1/3 of the bowl, but this could of been due to smoking it a touch too fast at the end as I was outside and the temperature was dropping from the 20's to the teens! Still, I don't remember an aromatic doing this to me before, even if I had to "hurry it along" (rather than stop and empty).

Until further update: Don't let the ranging love-hate reviews dissuade you from trying a few ounces. My bet is if you are an aromatic blend smoker, you will not dislike this. The question is, how much will you like it.

What an odd blend this is! It's very straightforward: Just little nuggets of burley with flecks of green leaf (the Deertongue) scattered throughout. Very simple in appearance. The smell of the mixture is lovely, with the very clean burley aroma mixing nicely with the vanilla-like scent of the deertongue. I doubt very highly there is any topping on this blend and if there is any sweetness added to the burley, I don't detect it. A very pure, "natural" blend.

Crooner packs easily--almost too easily, in fact, as I've found that any compression might be sufficient to make it too dense to burn well. Just pour it into the pipe and give it the slightest press to make sure everything is seated. Even so, it burns very slowly and can go out easily, which I have found makes it a bit of a frustration to smoke.

But the ultimate test is the smoke itself. And the smoke of Crooner is delicious and complex, but odd. Certainly the burley is at the fore of the flavor--nutty and a bit bitter, the classic burley flavor. Intermixed with this is the herbal, slightly sweet flavor of the deertongue which is definitely _not_ vanilla but certainly is reminiscent of vanilla. The deertongue flavor plays with the burley flavor in a way that is unlike any other blend I have tried. I believe that a big component of this is that the flavor of the smoke keeps changing as larger or smaller bits of deertongu burn. The flavors are not "wedded" as they would be with other types of "seasonings." I think this is not something that aging would change. So the smoking experience changes from puff to puff. The smoke is cool with no risk of bite (doubtless due to the low sugar content as well as to the slow burning inherent with the cubed burley). I find Crooner to be a pleasant smoker, overall, but I find myself wanting more "mouthy" smoke. This isn't a blend that fills the mouth. The smoke is flavorful but "wispy."

Crooner is some potent stuff. That burley doesn't hold back on the nicotine! Also, deertongue is a medicinal herb (trilisa odoratissima) that contains coumarin, a chemical used as an anticoagulant as well as for several other applications. Whether there is enough coumarin in a pipeful of Crooner to have any physiological impact I do not know. When smoking Crooner, I've often wondered if some of the effects I've felt are due to the coumarin, but this is sheer speculation--there's a thesis topic in there for some grad student, I'm sure! But, whether due to plain ol' nicotine or something else, it is a fact that Crooner packs a bit of a punch.

All in all, crooner is an interesting and worthwhile blend to try. I wouldn't regard this as a go-to, for me, by any means. But I like keeping some in-hand and go through a couple of ounces each year. Give it a shot.

I bought this on whim and enjoyed but I don't think it will ever be a favorite, more of a pleasent novelty. The flavor that the deer tongue imparts is quite fresh and rather 'grassy', but definitely not a tobacco flavor. Packing and lighting the cube cute is a learning experience. How you like it will depend on how you approach pipe smoking in general. If it is an adventure that you want to explore thoroughly, by all means get ahold of a couple of ounces. Are you searching for a certain something in tobacco and are on a constent quest for the finest of that something, I would say borrow a bowlful from that other guy.

I very much enjoyed this one, again only had a small sample of it, but it was a fascinating blend none the less. I love the herbal flavors imparted from the deer tongue, I've never smoked anything like it and the smell wafting from the small baggy I had was just fascinating to behold from a tobacco, it kind of beckons you to try it. I'll definitely be purchasing a tin at some point.

Good stuff. Not a daily blend but it's good enough to keep around. The cube cut is new to me and I have trouble packing it properly and keeping it lit but I think that's more my inexperience than the tobacco.

I love old time radio and the like, so I had to try this. The cut is cubed and reminds me of Grape Nuts Cereal. There is a slight mint smell when first opened, but that soon goes away. The stuff packs easily, but you do have to know how to pack this kind of tobacco. I recommend light on the bottom and tamped more heavily on top. The light must be thorough and some time must be taken to get it to burn properly. All of us cube cut fans soon learn to work with this style. The flavor is of a medium Burley with just a hint of Virginia. Then, as you might guess, there is the taste of Deer Tongue. Deer Tongue provides the "mint" flavor. This is mint not menthol. And, that flavor stays pretty well balanced with the Burley. The mint flavor puts me more in mind of the mint plant that you might grow near your outdoor water hydrant. That's the overall smell and taste in the pipe. It is kind of grassy and with the deeper wood of Burley goodness. The flavor stays the same down to the last puff. This tobacco is perfect for a Summer day. I am reminded a lot of Carter Hall. Well, if Carter Hall wasn't so fruity and had more taste, it would be real close. This stuff is not an every day smoke, but it is interesting without being complex and goes really well with iced tea rather than coffee. I think that Bing would have been pleased to see his favorite blend still making the rounds. For me, my choice is still Prince Albert for a nice general smoke.

There are pros and cons to this tobacco.First the pros,good tasting due to the deer tongue and the aroma brought me compliments.Now the cons,smoking this is rather tricky,it's difficult to keep lit unless you take more frequent drags off of, therefore making the pipe rather hot.I asked my local tobacconist and he thinks it's the way it is cut that is making it a tough smoke.This tobacco can attack the tongue if not smoked easy.I still like this stuff and hope to get better at smoking it.