Cornell & Diehl Epiphany

When opening the tin I get a strong fermented fruit smell. I like the thick ribbon cut and the moisture level is good to smoke right away. Unfortunately this American/English is very disappointing. The tobacco is more cased than it's topped, I get this annoying cherry and honey taste way more than the tobaccos. A boring mixture for pipers who prefer their smoke as uncased as possible. A possible hit for aromatic smokers. It's a good thing that I can pass those mixtures around to fellow pipe smokers, who knows sometimes they find a keeper.

Virginia lover

This was the second of three tins I got at the end of our NASPC show this year; half empty but smokeable. I'm going to be blunt - I didn't enjoy this blend. It's tin aroma was somewhat weak and the smoking aroma was the same. I found it to be a dull and boring experience. There was nothing to make it stand out, among all of the stronger blends available to us, in the upper two thirds of the bowl. The bottom third of the bowl was, basically, tasteless and somewhat hot and ashy. Then it dawned on me; this was very much like how I remembered Revelation to be back in that dimly lit past of the early sixties. It was one of the OTC blends that I purchased from my main supplier at that time - my local Rexall Drug Store. I didn't care for it then and, similarly, I don't care for its current C&D emulation which, by the way, is rather accurate in it's formulation. Be careful what you wish for - two stars.

This is probably my favorite English style blend. It does not have a very complex flavor to meditate on, the smell is tolerable, the spice from the latakia and perique don't really interfere with the smoke and act more as condiments. It tends to smoke a little hot, but stays dry pretty well. I can smoke it for about an hour, then I'm done with it.

Tin note: typical English, campfire smell

Room note: same as tin note

Taste: pretty mild for an English, but tastes just like every English ever made.

Overall: I like it. The can was pretty cheap, the smell isn't overpowering, and it tastes like an English. It's really just not a complex flavor.

My first experience with this blend was a bit disappointing, I was just coming down off of a run of stronger English and Balkan blends and so this one came off to me as bland and rather tasteless to my charred pallet at the time. With that said, I put it away and came back to it later. My second go at this blend was rather different, I had been smoking more mild Va, burley, perique blends and my pallet at this point had come back to being able to taste more mild flavors not being so charred from heavy Latakia. I found this blend to be a good English for those who don't smoke much Latakia or those looking for an all day English smoke. It has a soft and rather smooth flavor with a light latakia, va, burley sort of taste. I may have picked up hints of vanilla although I'm not really sure. This is definitely not a smoke for the Latakia bomb lovers, but it is nice none the less with a rather enjoyable room note for an English blend.

I tried to like this in the worst way.Pouch smell is nice---a little fruit a little Latakia,so far so good.Takes the match well,burn down to ash,pretty dry.I guess where it takes a wrong turn for me,is where it strikes a chord with so many others.It has a lot going on and for me---maybe just me---too much.Its both fish and fowl,and instead of balancing each other,for my tastes,too much competing to the point of being boring.I'm not against American/English blends,just not so much for this one.To me its OK,and I guess I just wanted more.More fruit,more Latakia,more Perique...more something.If this truly is what The Professor would puff away on,I can see why he was able to think deep thoughts so clearly---he was not destracted by his pipe.

Some who remember the original Phillip Morris Revelation say that this blend is a spot on copy. I cannot make the comparison myself, but I can compare it to the House of Windsor reincarnation of Albert Einstein's favorite blend.

Epiphany tastes pretty close to the HoW version of Revelation. However, there are distinct differences between the two blends. First of HoW Revelation contained a good amount of cube cut burley. Epiphany does not. The burley in this blend is rough cut for slow burning. Personally, I like the HoW version of Revelation better, but since it's gone the way of the dinosaur, this will be a suitable replacement.

The topping seems to be present throughout the smoke. Some describe it as a fruity topping, but I detect at least some amount of anise within it. The latakia remains muted in this blend for the most part.

This is a very good blend that brought no bite with it. Being that I really enjoyed the late HoW Revelation, I'm glad I can find this stuff with ease and at a decent price.

I did notice that allowing this blend to air out awhile prior to smoking will somewhat lessen the flavor of the topping, which could stand to be a bit less.

Warning…This is a long (winded)awaited review 11 years in the making. I fell in love with Epiphany back in 2011, finding it to be unique in its judicious use of Latakia and fruity mysterious topping. I had actually liked this one so much that I dedicated a pipe to it. When I first bought a tin, Chuck at Iwan Ries had this IRC Blackruf meerschaum lined billiard laying around. The store had it custom made by Genod back in the sixties. This specimen was imperfect and remained unsold. It was unsmoked but had a minor ding around the rim. Sold. Many tins of Epiphany were run through that pipe. I had cellared a tin and moved onto other blends. Years later in 2018, I purchased some bulk that went into canning jars.

I recently decided to dip into the 2018 vintage. This reminded me so little of what I loved about epiphany back in 2011. The tobacco blend itself may not have changed appreciably, but the topping, which was once plummy floral vanilla, was nearly nonexistent. I chalked this up to evaporation of volatiles over time and decided to buy some fresh supply. The 2022 fresh bulk is quite similar in appearance to the 2018. Both vintages have a mix of cube cut, broken flake, and ribbon cut. Neither of these samples had the clownishly wide ribbon that pre-Laudisi C&D was known for. The flake in the 2018 was mahogany and quite firmly pressed. The newer iteration is unsurprisingly lighter in color, but the flakes are much more loosely pressed.

There is a small scent of topping evident on the fresh bulk I’ve just purchased. This seems to be anise, possibly some vanilla. There is no topping detectable in the 2018 jar aroma, just the lightly smoky Latakia and some mustiness from the burleys. This is a burley centric blend and the Latakia is used in perfect condimental harmony. The Latakia adds some bass to the burley yielding some smoky and meaty undertones. In both the 4 year and the fresh tobacco, I only noted the topping lightly on the sidestream and rarely in the snork. There was more peppery Perique noted in the 4 year old blend.

So, while I do enjoy this tobacco, and think it is a solid all day burley blend, I cannot give it more than two stars given the incredible heights this one has fallen from per my tastes. What I really enjoyed about Tarler era Epiphany was the interaction between topping and tobacco. Both were phenomenal and quite synergistic to create a very special unified blend. While this is good, it ain’t what it used to be. The topping is nearly non existent, and a quick survey of previous reviews demonstrates a weak relationship of decreased perceived flavoring over time. Hell, look at the above bar graph for “flavoring” , it’s all over the board.

The fresh and 4 year aged bulk are solid burley blends that are nothing to write home about. I cannot say I noted much improvement with aging either.

Opening the tin/jar... there is a sort of a strange creamy fruity topping scent. It's nice, but it does have a bit of what whisky drinkers call "baby sick" scent. Basically, it's referring to baby vomit, and it's technically the scent of butyric acid. It sounds terrible, but it's a fairly commonly used "tasting note". Hershey's chocolate bars have butyric acid in them as well. It can be best described as a faintly sour milk scent, but with a tiny bit of sweet fruit edge to it. I get that from Epiphany's tin note.

First few puffs... an interesting blend. The Virginia's are up front, tangy and sweet. But after that, it's fairly complex. It's at a crossroad between Va/Per, Va/Bur, and Virginia/Latakia blends. The Burley's work nicely to temper the tart Virginia's adding a smoother, more even earthiness. And the Perique adds a bit of dry fruit or figgy flavor with very little pepper/spice. And it also helps even out the Virginia tang. The Latakia is quite scarce, adding only a slight mustiness. The fruit (or is it rum?) topping is there too, adding a subtle creaminess throughout. If puffed too fast, the creamy/fruity note can pass over into a slightly "baby sick" flavor again. There's no bite, and it burns smoothly.

This is blend that is on the 2/3 star boundary for me. And if I can't decide between 2 or 3... then it's a 2.

Bottom line: A complex blend that isn't an English, or a Va/Per, or a Va/Bur... but somewhere in the middle. It has an ok, creamy fruit topping. It's meh. Somewhat recommended.

Presentation: A plethora of different tobaccos jumping around. Some slightly rubbed out flakes, dark perique, light burleys and a few strands of latakia mixed in.

Palate: A mix of different flavors that had my tongue guessing what I was tasting. At times you get the nice sweetness of the Virginias, the nutty and semi-sweet chocolate burleys or the white peppery perique with a touch of prune. For most of my smokes, I tasted mainly perique and burley and occasionally the gently applied top note, which I believe to be a rum or plum wine. I detect no Latakia even though it being present in the blend. I feel like if more latakia was added it might add a star to this. It's not a terrible tasting blend, but Epiphany is something to be appreciated over time with multiple bowls over the years.

Performance: The burn quality of this is great, actually. The cut of the blend makes it easy to stick your pipe bowl into your pouch or jar/tin and load it up codger style. Some of the the slightly rubbed out flakes may need a helping hand, but for the most part it doesn't prevent you from having a good smoke. The burn rate is a little fast for me but overall not bad. Nicotine hit is mild and can be an all day smoke.

Conclusion: I was in search for an all day blend that I could throw into my Erik Stokkebye Zipper Pouch for my EDC pipe kit. I bought 1oz in bulk to try it out and for a reason of that it was a re-creation of A.E's blend. I wasn't overwhelmingly fascinated with this and even though it uses high quality leaf, between the flavor applied and the mostly perique and burley taste I experienced, I won't be buying this blend again. Some revere this blend and I can see why, possibly due to the homage of A.E, and others simply because they enjoy it. I know that with some blends you really have to sit and think about the components and it takes experience to figure out what the heck it is, but for that, I will choose MacBaren Scottish Mixture as an all day, which surprisingly has a very similar cut to this.