Cornell & Diehl Golden Ash

Golden Ash is a light American English that smells in the pouch mainly of Burley and Virginia. In the pipe, the Latakia is present, but it is only condimental. My complaint with many C&D blends is the roughness of some of their Virginias and the desire to use Burley in so many of their English blends. In this case, the Virginias were smooth, and the Burley added some nutty and earthy quality to the blend. There is no bite and it burns cool. The Burley doesn’t turn bitter in the later stages of the bowl either. As mentioned, the Latakia is lightly used, but it is noticeable. I smoked a total of one ounce of this and didn’t see any Virginia flake in mine, although it could have been ground down. All in all, a decent blend for fans of lighter, American style English blends.

Certainly an American English, Golden Ash is aptly named as the appearance is that of golden crushed ash as the cube burley is about as fine a cube cut as I have found. In fact, I do not recommend this blend in pipes with open air chambers as the leaf can get sucked up into the shank and stem right along with the smoke. Similar in taste to the old HOW Barking Dog, but with a little more Latakia flavor and less bitter.

Cornell & Diehl has a rather solid line-up of tobaccos with burley, orientals, perique, and just a dash of latakia, and this particular blend falls quite nicely into this category. In this case, no perique or orientals are to be found in the formula, but the spirit is the same. The burley leaf adds a roast and meaty dimension, the virginia brings zesty and sweet notes, and the latakia a slightly spicy note that will leave you wondering. I had a few bowls so far, and it seems to evolve quite nicely as well, which is to be expected all things considered. It seems to perform best when used in a corncob pipe, but it likes briars as well. I cannot complain because no perique or orientals are added as CD has other blends at hand that contain this leaf, so this tobacco should be taken for what it is. The good thing about these components is how you can tweak them, adding and subtracting as you like. In its simplicity, I am finding this blend quite rewarding for a medium blend. The room note is a bit off, but I personally do not mind because what really matters is the smoking experience. I cannot detect any tongue bite and it can be smoked all day. My only complaint is I cannot find any comparable advantage to choose it over other similar blends, so 3 stars and a half.

This is my first review, so I thought it only appropriate to start with a glowing review of my current favortie tobacco. I have only been smoking a pipe for about five months so far and have yet to attain the expertise as many of my forebearers here, but I must give thanks to all of you. For if it wasn't for this site and the many insightful reviews and accompanying gems about technique, I would have abandoned this hobby within the first few months of burning money on garbage tobaccos and pipes.

My adventure in pipe smoking started with the local B & Ms of which, in my area, are nothing but roll your own and cigar pleasers with but a smattering of lousy tobacco for pipe smokers. This coupled with blank looks when I would ask about pipe smoking led me to the internet. Knowing really nothing upon entering TR, I merely clicked on 4 star ratings read the reviews on this one, All 4 Stars, and just called up C & D and ordered a pound.

The folks at C & D are great, as has been repeatedly mentioned on this site. As I told them this was my first order with them, they welcomed me to the family and included 2 complimentary samples of which I will leave for their respective reviews later.

My first puff of GA was heavenly. At this point I had read several reviews and realized, with my little experience, I should wait to review. I have now tried several other tobaccos and I find myself continually going back to this as a kind of comfort.

This tobacco was also my first experience with Latakia and I find I love it although blends with too much I find hard to pallet more than a bowl a day.

I should probably end this review now as I have likely already made you read more than you intended, but I must say that if you are looking for a transition from sweet tobaccos, I highly recommend this pure unadulterated tobacco bliss, but puff slowly or you will fail to appreciate its glory. Yes, this mantra has served me well with all tobaccos I have smoked.

8/26/14 EDIT

Well 2 1/2 years have passed since I reviewed this one and what changes have happened over that time. Tobacco Reviews has a much different (and Improved IMO) appearance and you can no longer call C & D up and talk to the owners as the owners are now in partnership with SmokingPipes (probably another improvement for C & D, but certainly less homey.)

With the latter change, many of their blends have fallen the way of the dodo bird and no longer exist. This one, fortunately, has survived the cut. It is no longer my favorite blend, but I still do enjoy it from time to time. My tastes now favor more the Perique laden blends and I still enjoy a lat blend from time to time.

I am removing a star from this one, but will leave it at three stars and recommend the blend for those who want to try something a little different in a burley. So with that three stars and If you want an example of something different in a burley that I would consider a four star, try John Patton's Storm Front.

Golden Ash is an American style English that I would recommend to lovers of burley and mild to medium English blends.

This mix of ribbon and cube cut is something of a sleeper that gets little fanfare despite its place as one of the oldest blends C&D produces. Pre C&D in fact. There is a nice sweet/smoky barbecue pouch note. The tobacco comes fairly dry, and indeed burns clean, dry, and easily. Quite notably, very few relights were needed with this blend.

Golden Ash yields a clean, natural tobacco experience/taste. The burleys are earthy and nutty. While this is a burley dominated blend, the Latakia asserts itself. It appears to contain 3-5% Latakia, and while this seems like a truly condimental amount, the smoke tastes as if it contained double the amount. I cannot say that I noticed the VA much, per my experience it was nearly undetectable. This reminded me of a much milder take on C&D’s big n burley. Having sampled morleys best recently, I can also say that GA and MB have quite a bit in common.

This is another one of those blends that could be a burleyphile’s EMP equivalent. While there is much less Lat, and no oriental to speak of, this fills the same sort of “first pipe of the day with black coffee” role.