Cornell & Diehl Crooner

Most of the previous reviews have covered the various aspects of Crooner. I've had my best luck with it by gravity filling the pipe half full, packing lightly, then gravity filling the pipe full and packing firmly. It can still be a chore to get going, often requiring several relights at the start. Once you do finally get it lit, it burns pretty well. This may be because this is the largest cubed burley I've ever seen.

Crooner has the classic burley nuttiness, with an added bonus of the vanilla notes coming from the deer tongue. Some like it, some don't, I personally find the vanilla flavor adds to the pleasure of the smoke. It is a little more assertive than in blends like Hearth and Home's Old Tartan and Capitol Stairs, and I will say that I prefer the latter two to this blend. If you've read the other reviews, you know that opinions vary widely on this blend, so I would recommend getting a sampler before making a final decision to order a pound.

Scores for Crooner; flavor-13 of 20; packing and burn-7 of 10; value-7 of 10. Crooner gets 27 points and a *** rating.

Update 10/07- After smoking more of this tobacco, I find I am not as fond of the taste as I was at first. I am downgrading it to two stars.

I purchased 4oz. of Crooner about 10 months ago, and I still have an ounce left. Its not too bad, Im sure some guys like it. Not somthing I grab for very often and probably wont re-purchase it. It does have a slight stinging property to it that I believe is the added herb. One good point is the tin aroma. It reminds me of a jar of oatmeal cookies.

Smokey hit the nail on this one .My pouch was pleasant the packing was good and the lighting was horrible after a few lights fighting with it. some say its like old tartan, but I differ, but they are both good smokes.

Good in small doses. I cannot see myself lighting this up more then once a month. Here is my experiance.

Really enjoyed the aroma of the tobacco, a light semi-aromatic (only because of the DT). Usually a Virginian lover but hey, It's Bing! I let this bled sit for about 3 months before I acutally got around to smoking it. I hear it packs nicley, but I decide to break it down a little bit. I Loded up a small bowel grabbed John Eldridge's "Wild at Heart" and as per my wifes request headed outside to the rainy Jacksonville morn. Pre lite was nice and smokey real dence gray smoke. Which I really like. The taste was nice a little flat but not bad. I set er down and grabbed a pipe cleaner and proceeded to begin my session.

About 30 minutes int the bowel, It started to change, hot and wet. SO I let it sit threw a cleaner through it and dried it out. It was still good, but started to grow board with it. I fineshed it off with this conclusion

6.5 out of 10

Nice but a little bland twords the end. Got wet fast. Nice room note. I cant see smokeing a large bowel. Stick with a small one. Good in small doses. Definitaly unique. Somewhat of a novelty.

Weird stuff... The cubed burley is clearly high-quality, nutty and very reminiscent of the one used for Barbary Coast (obviously!), but the hot topic clearly lies in the green specks you see littering the blend... Deer Tongue! They provide a lightly vanilla-like taste, but not excessively sweet... more herbal and slightly astringent, I can say. It's not nauseating or too intense, it just provides a musky flavor like taking the one you can feel in the air during a walk in the woods in autumn. This blend burns slowly and even, producing a strong, penetrating and characteristic room note: whether you like this smell or not depends on your personal bias (the same applies to the taste, of course). It's actually a nice tobacco, although the deer tongue taste can grow tiresome after a while... Myself, I would smoke it more frequently if I didn't fear about the taste lingering in my pipes.

The other reviews give a pretty good idea about this blend. I liked the deer tongue flavoring and did not find it smelling in the pouch or after being lit as odd. Was this flavoring used in other blends? I wonder because it seems to me not that out of place. It as well as C&D #45 Trinidad burns with little effort. I felt that Trinidad was a better blend and liked it more then this... might be a better blend to try if one wated to experiment with deer tongue.

I was given a generous bag of this by a friend in the pipe club. It's very different from the blends I usually smoke, is this a particularly American style of tobacco? I've smoked it all in a corncob: not a style of pipe I usually use but it was sitting around waiting for a purpose and here it is! American tobacco, American pipe, a pot of coffee to wash it down. I feel I should be on a steamboat on the Mississipi!

The cut is very different from anything I've had before. Apparently it's "cube" cut, but there's nothing cubular about it - it's cut into little squares, and doesn't seem to have been pressed. This makes it very easy to fill a pipe, easy to light, but also seems to facilitate burning quite quickly. It has a mild tobacco aroma with an overlay of Coumarin - Deers Tongue is I take it another additive like Tonquin.

The flavour is nutty and dry, and the coumarin tickles the tongue as I smoke it. It goes very nicely with coffee, I can't say there's much development of the flavour as it's smoked but it's low maintenance and good while I'm engaged on other tasks. It's also got a good dose of nicotine, which combined with the coffee is keeping me very alert!

All in all, very nice and feels like a cultural experience for me!