Cornell & Diehl Or L'yom - Daylight

A superb chunky cut blend that presents a milder, more delicate interplay of Virginias, Oriental and perique. The tin note is sharp, pungent and a bit sour, the cut is very course. Right away Daylight smokes with plenty of flavor and a bit of attitude. It finishes with a sweet, spicy tang from the perique that's made even sweeter by the mellow Red Virginias and the delicate touch of unflavored Cavendish. The burley adds strength and a splash of bitterness and helps to firm up the flavor, especially further down the bowl.

The smoke is smooth but peppery and tingles the senses much in the same way C&D's Oriental Silk does, only with less perique. The Oriental component, which I would assume is Turkish Izmir, stands out in the mix with its mildly astringent flavor. To me, this mixture tastes muddled and choked off in smaller bowls. However, put it in something wider and it really shines. The slower and cooler burn of the wide surface area enhances Daylight’s wonderful meshing of taste sensations, which are sweet, tangy, spicy, floral, woodsy, bitter, barn-yardy and a bit nutty. Perfect fodder for one of my favorite pot shaped pipes.

This is my kind of tobacco mixture, and definitely one to sit down and savor.

My impressions of this are similar to Or Olam. This smoke is a slightly milder flavor, and it does not have the slightly sweet taste. It has burley listed in the blend and that may be the only difference. It is a very good smoke that will not amaze you with complexity. It is a soft smoke - easy on the tongue, and the signature is the light orientals. It smoked very cool for me. I did not taste much in the way of perique, but maybe a touch of it complements the oriental signature. If you are curious about an light oriental that is not a flavor bomb or come with too much of something to mask the subtle flavor, give this a try. I am glad I bought it. It is a very good smoke.

I tried "Or Olam" as well (the names are similar, so I hope I'm not getting them mixed up). Actually, neither seemed to have a lot of perique, and I found them similar in taste as well. I had to give them both three stars, because I recognize the quality, but they are not for me. Bland to my palate, though some of my good fellow smokers might be knocked out, for all I know.

Right off the bat, I’ll say it took a month’s rest and finding “the right pipe” for Or L’Yom before I enjoyed smoking it. Though it never seemed to me that it burned especially hot, yet the right pipe in this case is an old, dense, bone dry chunk that wicks heat like a nuclear cooling tower, and it’s definitely helped OLY to bloom. So, I guess, rest plus cooler equals better here. It also seems to me that OLY would benefit from sealed tin aging. In the tin (dated 02-10-21), C&D’s Or L’Yom is loosely packed, springy ribbons ranging from tan to medium brown, and black. Tin note is musty, damp dried hay, with a breath of cocoa, and late spring in the corral. It handles OK, but it wants some attention loading, to poke out voids and get even loads. It lights with application straight from the tin, and it lights better and better with more and more rest. At the same time, tastes suffer if it’s dried out too much before smoking it, so I just take the rested tobacco straight from the jar and deal with it. It burns down at a clip unless conscious attention is applied to slow it down. Quick burn notwithstanding, I much prefer this with a somewhat looser pack. The best scents and tastes I’ve gotten from OLY are more floral and fragrant versions of the tin notes, along with savory roasting and baking spices that begin to include brighter and more pungent cayenne and hot-ish paprika and cumin as it burns down. The VAs are hay-ish and sourdough bready, but their sweetness is fairly subsumed by bitterness and woody, fragrantly dusty scents from the Burley, and more so the sourness from the Orientals and the Perique. The Perique is the type that reminds me it started out as Burley, being musty and even woody in that way, along with white raisins and spices. The Turkish is woody and goat pen-ish, along with typical Turkish savory roasting and baking spices. As for the toasted Cavendish, it was also Burley once, and now it contributes a whiff of vanilla, as well. Through it all, the barnyard never departs, and “woody” is an operative descriptor. The VA base makes a nice, fairly smooth continuo for a dazzle of spices in a higher register. Strength is medium, with the nicotine trailing. Tastes are a tick over medium by the end of a bowl. Room note is Turkish. Aftertaste is the best of the smoke.

I have been careful here not to downgrade Or L’Yom for the trouble I had figuring it out. It’s a decent enough blend, and it might be an everyday smoke for experienced Burley/Kitchen Sink blend smokers who like it spicy; but IMO it’s not among the best of this genre. IMO, it’s exceeded by its stablemate, Or Olam. 3 Stars.