Cornell & Diehl Night Train

I'll admit upfront that I'm not a fan of high concentrations of Perique in a blend. I bought this on a whim while "working my way through C&D" burley blends fully knowing that this did not use perique as a condiment so I'll adjust my review accordingly. I really like Old Joe Krantz and that lead me to believe I could up my perique intake, Nope.

Fantastic presentation of crumble cake, smells like oatmeal cookies when inhaling from the tin. It does not overwhelm in the nicotine department, I rate it as a solid medium. Slightly spicy from the perique and also slightly sweet from the Virginia's, I could not detect any burley in this, probably due to my taste buds being overwhelmed by the perique.

To the perique lovers out there I would rate this 4 stars, for me two stars.

This blend is phenomenal. Comes in a very nice pressed cake, and the tin note is cereal, raisins, ...basically raisin bran. Easily prepared, I simply tore off some chunks, rubbed out, packed and smoked. The moisture was perfect. The smoke is creamy and smooth; nutty, notes of hay, oats, dark fruit (raisin/figs), light pepper, and a pleasant sweetness. The nic hit is just a notch above medium, and it makes a great morning blend with a cup of black coffee. This is one of the best blends I've tried from C&D, thusfar, and it's definitely going into my regular rotation. Highly recommended.

Summary: Looks like a granola bar, tastes like a granola bar, and provides a flavorful sweet smoke that has enough strength to be interesting.

"Night Train" takes a familiar mixture of Virginias, Perique and Burley and makes good use of the brighter, sweeter Virginias to create a wholesome flavor with moderate nicotine. The cake, flecked with gold and tan speckled in brown, gives off the fruity smell of Perique merged with the sweet hay scent of bright Virginia.

When lit, this smell intensifies along with a spicy, sweet and broad flavor. The guiding force behind this blend is complementary flavors, and the Virginias and Perique work together to guide this like the raisins in a granola bar. The Burley, like scattered nuts and grains, rounds out the flavor while the bright Virginia takes on a honey-like role. It is delicious and wholesome like the best of the health food turned confection that a good granola bar can be, but also, like all earth grains type foods, has a single dimension: sweet grain and fruit.

For this reason, "Night Train" -- while delicious -- serves best as an occasional smoke. It is not all that interesting because of its singular dimension, but for the pipe sipper with an all-day task, creates a wonderful background aura through its gentleness and outright deliciousness. I wish this came in flake form, as the crumbly and dusty cake seems onerous to me, where a rubbed-out flake being in leaf and not partially sawdust form lights better and burns more consistently.

As I am trying to go alot of C&Ds burley blends, I found this one lacking in Burley. I typically enjoy Latakia blends, but recently started to enjoy the earthy robust taste of Burleys...the blend just has to deliver in the Burley dept. This one unfortunately does not. This is much more a Vir/Per...and in this category, there are much better choices. If you are searching and experimenting to find why C&D is so well known for their Burleys, you might want to skip this one. I am giving it 2 stars, because it is smokeable...on the sweeter side with a mild to medium taste profile (again, I like bolder blends). Wife found the room note OK.

Excellent crumble cake, brindle and black tobaccos with a sweet earthy tin note. Could just whiff on this for a long time. Rubs out to perfection, packs easily and takes fire well after initial char. Taste is sweet, earthy, fermented fruit, nuts and a bit of leather. The tobaccos play well together but I feel the perique is the main player throughout the most of the smoke. Consistent flavor throughout. Nicotine hit is medium for me. For me I like this late in the day, but sometimes I feel bold and start the day with a bowl and several cups of Death Wish Coffee. I seem to get quite a bit done on the farm after that morning session. Solid 4 for me. Will buy more, soon. As for usual with me C&D never disappoints!

Bold Burley, very natural tasting bright Virginias, spicy and slightly fruity Perique, and a minute amount of smooth Cavendish. I find as I smoke this that I don't really pick out the individual tobaccos as much as focus on how they all come together. It tastes nutty, bready, spicy and occasionally sweet. Like all of C&D's crumble kakes it performs very well and smokes well with moisture which I prefer for blends with Perique. There are many candidates for a full-strength last smoke of the day but Night Train is amongst my favorites.

I was sent a sample of this and really loved it. It was strong, earthy and had a nice sweetness to it. The leaf was of high quality and it both lit and burned well; these are things I have come to expect from C&D. It helps that all their blends come to you at the perfect moisture level. If you like C & D blends, then I think you will like this. That said, Virginias from C & D tend to be more on the earthy side and less the grassy hay sweetness that you would get from say, Sam Gawith, Dunhill, et.al.

So if you are more into that earthy type of Virginia and like a good bit of burley backbone to go with it, then this is your blend. I want to give this one four stars, but the fact that I smoked my sample in big bowls meant I only really got 3 bowls out of this and don't think that is a good enough sample to give out four stars at this point. I will buy more of this one though and will revisit this review later.

I'm going to do my damnedest not say anything like ‘I've been working my way through Cornell and Diehls blends' though I sort of have been, it's not that methodical. I'm also going to try really hard not say which pipes I've smoked this blend in, because, seriously, in my Becker oom Paul it was effervescent and in my family era rough root five dot Sasieni billiard it was merely bubbly, we're really just name dropping our favorite pipes, and it is kind of personal preference. Sure, a hot burning Virginia flake is going to taste different in a pot than a stack, but if you're reading tobacco reviews you likely already have your preferences. You know, it's weird, I really like this but the one guy (not looking at site right at the moment, sorry one guy, I know you have a name) was right, the first charring light of the first bowl in a decidedly average Il Ceppo poker tasted just like soap. I have been through most of the Gawiths and other Lakeland tobacco companies and never understood what the hell the ‘lakeland soap taste' was all about, but yeah, this tasted just like saying the eff word to a nun. You get a little Ivory/Dial flavor on the second light and then it starts tasting like a Va/Per. I'm not quite sure what it is, but something is a bit different, in a good way, The burly and Cavendish are barely noticeable (I tend not to like much or any of either) I mean, for instance, I really like escudo and I'm pleasantly surprised when I find a Va/Per that tastes like escudo, but damn, I might as well have a shelf full of escudo you know what I mean? I'm not looking for the holy grail or chasing a dragon, I just like taking a taste of everything on the menu.

I like krumble Kakes, I like the taste of this, I'll probably get more when I go through these four ounces, but it's going to take a while to do that. I'm guessing this next statement happens with a lot of cornell and diehls blends but --- I find myself mixing this with other things. Particularly C&D Pirate Kake and Oriental Silk, I don't have a formula, I just do it by eye and feel --- the other two are kind of boring by themselves, this isn't, but still, the three together makes for an unusual and stimulating unconventional kind of English leaning towards Va/Per with Orientals depending on how you mix. I'm going to try this in a new pipe I have coming from Italy, new as in a different kind of pipe. It's a regular Radice Chubby pipe but with a large cooler chamber in it's stubby shank. I think the guy, Luca, at neatpipes designed it, Radice makes em for him. Check it out, Aerobilliard.

I bought this stuff and let it sit for a month.... Holy crap. Amazing. The taste was great, had a very nutty flavor in it, like almonds. And the smell was surprisingly sweet. I love this stuff. Night Train was strong, too. Make sure you are sitting down when you smoke this stuff. The smoke lasted a long time as well. Took 1 hour and 15 minutes to finish it. If you like blends like Billy Budd, Three Oaks Syrian, Habana Daydream and other smokey flavors and are looking for something that has a good mix of natural smokey flavor and sweet, then you should try this.

UPDATE: Just a fair warning, this tobacco is loaded with nicotine. It makes me a little bit dizzy when I have had too much. So if you get this and dont like nicotine overload, then just take it easy when you smoke it.