Hearth & Home Classic Burley Kake

Now that Lane Limited has revived Edgeworth Ready Rubbed, I can compare my old favorite, Edgeworth, with my new favorite, Classic Burley Kake. They're pretty close, have the same virtues--but I'm hard-pressed to decide which I like more. The Ready Rubbed has just a little more...let's say, "edge." The Burley Kake is a little more mellow, and is a little more aromatic. They're both beautifully smokeable. Mixing them, or packing the pipe parfait-style with alternating layers seems an experiment bound to have a pleasurable result.

I really enjoyed this blend. The cut is so fine that rubbed out it is really a fine granular cut. A light pack is all this blend requires, pack it too tight and it smokes hot.

The flavors I get are pretty much what it says on the tin. Cocoa, nuts, and a lightly creamed coffee. The liquor comes through a little more towards the end, but never becomes unpleasant.

My only consideration for this blend is that it smokes SLOW. I got nearly an hour and a half out of a pretty standard sized bowl, even in a light breeze.

A solid aromatic burley that I may get again.

Update6/8/20 I need to update this to 4 Stars as I keep finding myself reaching for this more and more. This is certainly going to make the rotation. Also. The red Virginia ages beautifully in this pressed format yielding additional sweetness. Highly recommended.

This firmly pressed crumble cake initially smelled oddly like vaguely fruity play-doh. I'm not kidding, fruity play-doh. Over time the 'doh fades and a more traditionally sweet burley tobacco aroma emerges. This stuff crumbles easily and fills the pipe without effort. There are several different shades of red-brown evident in the blend. After rubbing out, there is reliably a fine dust left over. While strange, this dust makes perfect kindling to crown your bowl. This blend gives simple, consistent burley flavor that is clearly enhanced by the cocoa and anise. Each of the aforementioned toppings ebbs and flows to the forefront, while always complementing the quality burleys. The red Virginia does lend some sweetness which truly became notable once or twice each bowl. This is the ultimate "anytime tobacco."

There's a really strange apprehension when I get a new tobacco that's been well reviewed. I often wonder if I won't like it and if that means I have an unsophisticated palette or poor packing/smoking technique. In this case, I ordered Classic Burley Kake because it seemed to be a decent, all-around tobacco. I was kind of let down by it and won't be buying any more. Maybe I got a bad batch or something different from everyone else?

This tobacco comes in dry, flat chunks that have a sort of...smell to them. You get tobacco and the casing together and it's not offputting, but there's no real distinct scent I can detect. I packed this by rubbing it out then stuffing three charges into a mid-sized generic 9mm filter briar I use for trying new tobaccos. I did NOT use a filter for this test, as I expected the burley to not bite.

First Third: Good draw, easy to light and keep lit. I get a sort of lightly mentholated or sweetened cigarette flavor, here. There was also a strong hint of candela wrapper from cigars...The smoke is fairly cool, but I can't detect the rum, anise or cocoa flavors advertised on the tin. Tobacco flavor is OK and the room note isn't so bad.

Second Third: Cigarette flavor intensifies, as does the casing. I can detect faint liquor or rum notes, but it's mostly like Camels with casing. As the casing got stronger, this got hotter on me, but I was able to manage it well enough to keep the temp down. Strong kick on the tongue present at this stage. No pepper in the throat. Room note still OK.

Last Third: I got about halfway through this then quit. There just wasn't much more to be had other than more intense cigarette flavor. The ash was coarse and dry, with no fouling. No goop in the pipe, afterwards.

Verdict: If you are a cigarette smoker, you'll like this blend. IT's got good nicotine and plenty of burley flavor with just a hint of casing that makes it sort of like expensive cigs from fancy places. As a pipe tobacco, though, I can't really see how this is better than any other burley blend, especially without any Latakia or definitive casing to at least make it stand out. Kind of a disappointment, but not in any way an inferior tobacco. Just not to my taste.

2 stars.

Smoked same batch a number of times over the course of 3 years. When fresh, it was sweeter and really more of an aromatic. Now that it has aged, the aro sweetness is still there, but it seems to take more of a back seat, allowing the burleys to emerge a bit more from the faded casing with their own bold statement. A welcome development in my opinion. Stays lit, good mouth, thick smoke, good body, no burley bite, complex and interesting due to mix of different types of burleys and the punch of the burley backbone. Mild-medium nicotine. The listed flavorings make sense to me, but my blindfold test of the aged tobacco yielded a burley dominant mustiness that included a faded nutty-scorched-windmill-almond-cookie undertone. The body and boldness reminds me of why I love good burley tobacco. Smoked in corn cob, which I recommend for this particular blend (and most burleys). 3 stars fresh, 4 stars aged.

If you love heavily syrup laden, chemical drenched aromatics you will not enjoy this blend. This is of the old school aromatic persuasion, ever so subtle. I do catch the rum and cocoa, anise not so much, but then again that's not the point of this tobacco. The flavorings are just to make it a little interesting. Burley is naturally nutty (and a little bitter) but the small amount of VA sweetens it up just a little and the flavorings cancel out the bitterness and add a little something extra. Really a nice tobacco. In my opinion what an aromatic should be.

*edit* With so many blends on the market, it's difficult to wade through them all and build a profile of different tobaccos to try and find your true "keepers." I guess a lot of us gravitate towards the blends that are a bit more sensationalized, which is fine by me as it leaves some others forgotten and readily available. This has become my comfort food tobacco. One of the few that I crave. Weeding through my reviews will leave you bewildered as I tend to hit all over the map, but I can honestly say I love this stuff. It has one of the most unique smells in a tin or bag of all the tobaccos I've tried. It's different. It runs a wide range of flavors from nutty to cocoa and sweet but not overly so. I primarily smoke in the mornings with coffee and for that it's a perfect companion.

Classic Burley Kake was on the market for a while before I ordered a sample. This is unusual for me as I am a confirmed burley-phile and would normally ordered soome a lot sooner but I had several other blends to try and had to smoke them first. I finally ordered my 4 oz. after it had been on the market about a year and these are my opinions.

CBK is a good looking tobacco in the pouch with a nice medium brown color and comes as a broken flake, although it is advertised as a flake. It has a very nice aroma in the jar, too. As with most broken flakes, I gave it a quick one second spin in my old coffee grinder that is reserved for this purpose. For most of this test I used an old favorite burley pipe, a Savinelli Bing's Favorite that seems to love burley blends

CBK lights easily and often doesn't need a charring light. It burns slow and cool, which is really nice because Bing's Favorites tend to burn hot because their walls are thin. CBK also needs a minimum of relights. The taste is that of chocolate mixed with a very mild burley nuttiness. I love the taste and my wife loves the room aroma, which she says reminds her of chocolate (she is a chocoholic). I REALLY like this tobacco!!

Scores for CBK?: flavor- 18 of 20, lighting and burn- 9 of 10, value- 9 of 10. That gives Classic Burley Kake an outstanding score of 36, for a high **** review. This is the highest score I've ever given a tobacco and a lb. of CBK will always be in my cellar.

First let me say that I love Russ Ouellette's blends and have several in my rotation, but Classic Burley Kake simply is all of the things I don't like about some aromatic tobaccos. I do enjoy one on occassion, but CBK is simply too overpowering and I find it difficult to get a sense of the tobacco flavor. CBK is a very moist krumble Kake with a very sweet pouch scent. I found it sticky when rubbing it out and it will ghost a pipe. If you are a fan of Russ's tobacco's I suggest it's worth a try, it just isn't for me.

Addendum 4/30/2015 I've been horrible the past couple of years and relapsed into smoking cigarettes but I'm rediscovering the pipe now. One tin I had on hand was a half tin of classic burley kake. It had dried out quite considerably but was far from mummy dust or dry leaves, as a matter of fact it was perfect and smoked with no gurgle whatsoever, a problem the newly opened tins have sometimes. It is my opinion this is not Edgeworth, nor was it ever ment to be, it's something else, a fine burley that you wish you could buy in the corner store.

Original Review 3/10/2011 From the moment I opened this bag I knew I had a winner. Got it as part of a sampler from pipesandcigars.com as I was looking for something more cost effective than Wessex Burley Slices.

The bag aroma is a nutty high quality burley smell with cocoa and a hint of something else in the background. This is not low quality cocoa but more like Ghiardelli Cocoa. Very rich and full on the nose.

Packing was easy as my kakes had broken into a ready rubbed in the bag. Took a char and light immediately and decended into smoking bliss. The flavouring is not overpowering but lingers on the nose and in the room note. Definately cocoa with perhaps anise and unmistakable good quality burley. The bowl burned down with little tamping and only 1 relight and the flavour remained consistant until the final 1/3 when the burley dominated.

Room Note was like freshly ground coffee... even hours later it left a faint coffee/cocoa smell.

Overall this is a winner, far better than what Wessex is offering at a fraction of the price. Is it Egdgeworth? I think the flavour is close, but I can't say for sure since it's been years that I tasted Egdgeworth.