Hearth & Home Classic Burley Kake

Another one of my go to blends. If you get this stuff fresh the anise is extremely overpowering. If you let this stuff breathe for a week or so it mellows way out and becomes a excellent smoke. This is not your typical goupy aromatic. The flavor is tobacco forward with hints of cocoa and anise to complement the quality leaf. Burns very cool with consistent flavor from top to bottom with no goupy residue at all. CBK also pairs excellent with a strong cup of coffee.

Great job on this one Russ!!!

This is a unique burley aromatic that although described as a kake, I found it to be loose and "rubbed out" by the time it made it to my door step. The anise flavoring is quite apparent and perhaps a bit too overpowering when fresh. Some age and air tends to mellow that a bit as with most aromatics. Burns clean and has a pleasant, sweet taste. Best smoked after about a year in the humidor to calm it down. The Virginia in the blend does add a bit of an unnecessary bite to it.

I am admittedly averse to Burley blends, and often shy away unless the leaf serves as a minor component, as in, for instance, many of the Lakeland tobaccos that are primarily Virginia based, with a bit of Burley to extend the blend's body. But I do like to sample tobaccos of every genre, it just seems that my cabinet of smokes is full of those optimistic Burley purchases that went nowhere but upon a shelf, waiting for their day.

And today I decided for a break from the Virginias and the Englishes that populate my pipes and palate...and so pulled a pouch of the old Carter Hall for a rare resampling. The past few weeks I've forced myself to cease my monthly tobacco restocking, simply to finish off a few the many blends that I push off to the side in neglect. I chose to smoke my rare Burley sampling in a very small pipe to limit my discontent, as the leaf tends to wear on me in larger pipes.

I got that "nutty" flavor of which so many remark, though I only call it "nutty" for lack of a better vocabulary. It is that characteristic taste that grates on me over time, endemic to most of the lower end OTC blends, but seemingly lacking in the higher end blends like Solani's Aged Burely Flake, which I admire most of all.

The smoke was decent, and I put together a pipe to immediately follow my most recent Carter Hall experience, filling her with Russ's Classic Burley Cake. My sample is nearly a year old at this point, and has a peculiar rubbed out consistency. Either the press failed or was forgone entirely, of which I'm not certain. This has happened before from Russ's blending house, as in my purchase of Plum Pudding, also conspicuously absent of the press--though not that it would matter much in the smoke. The blend itself smells sweet out of the mason jar, and quite inviting. The moisture content is quite high, and the tobacco itself is very soft but not at all sticky to the touch.

Upon light, the casing is more muted than what I have read from the reviews here. It is indeed evident, but never detracts from that nutty flavor of the Burley. I do see some darker leaf in the jar, which I suspect might be the Kentucky referenced in the description, though it appears to be minimal, perhaps less than five percent of the blend. At no time could I detect the Virginia, though its inclusion might explain a limited profile of that characteristic Burley nuttiness.

Classic Burley Cake is a mild blend, more so than the Carter Hall, and never builds an intensity that I find objectionable. It will be admittedly difficult to finish off the remainder of these 2 ounces, but that is of no fault of the blend. I can't speak for other reviewers, but I don't suspect the flavoring will repel the more hardened Burley admirers out there--toward the end I could pick up light chocolate notes, but the primary character of the topping seems to me a an added sweetness that compliments the leaf. Or maybe that's just my sample, as perhaps I got an odd batch? To be fair, I wouldn't have picked this up had I known the tobacco wouldn't have been caked as promised.

Regardless, this is a decent blend, but not one for the Burley connoisseur. It's simply a light, sweet Burley blend with no pretensions, very fitting for those times one would enjoy a kind, mindless smoke.

This is my everyday all the time tobacco. The room note reminds me of somewhere warm and pleasant, very comforting.

The tin note is Plum, Prune, Raisin, and chocolate (very subtle) and lights up like a dream! The tobacco comes fairly moist, but smokes cool, and like a well dried and aged tobacco! The crumble cake is like a moist brownie ready to eat....(tried it, not very tasty)

Smoking this blend has put all other blends on hold for me, nothing in my collection quite stands up to this one! I have smoked it every day 3-4x a day now for about a week and have yet to desire something else. Balkan blends taste strange to me now, and VAPER doesnt cut it for me either.

Burley Kake is here to stay, and my god I LOVE IT!

The discription on the website left off any mention of added flavorings. I am not a fan of aromatics, so I was initially disappointed with this blend. I used to love Edgeworth Sliced and I was hoping for a substitute less pricey than Solani's wonderful aged burley flake. This is nothing like Edgeworth at all. That said, I do appreciate this blend for what it is - - a rich, smooth, cool-smoking aromatic with respectable nicotine strength and no bite. The flavorings do tend to steamroll over the burley flavor, but they are pleasing nonetheless and the virginia does express itself fairly well. For me, this blend is a diversion that reminds me that not all aromatics are atrocious.

I consider this one of the best aromatics in the market. I purchased 2oz of this over a year ago and I've smoked it off and on in various pipes. Initially, I was very pleased with this tobacco and smoked it in a large Winslow tomato and a meer. In retrospect, the Winslow presented a good but somewhat muted flavor and the meer was, of course, very bright but also "dried out" the flavor in a manner of speaking. I recently picked up an estate Ser Jacopo Hawksbill and just last night tried CBK in that. SHAZAM! What a huge difference the right pipe can make. Where the meer was bright and kinda dry the Ser Jacopo brought out the multiple deep rich flavors this tobacco offers, the low basso profundo notes, if you will. One of the earlier reviewers commented that briar caused the flavors to vanish. It just goes to show how briar pipes present such varied results--a crap shoot really. If a new tobacco doesn't impress me in a particular pipe I've learned to rotate it through several of my better pipes to give it a fair shake. I've made some wonderful discoveries in doing this and I've rediscoved Russ's CBK with a new pipe. I'd also like to point out the longevity of this aromatic tobacco as mine is over a year old and has held its flavor thus far. I can't say this about all the flavored tobaccos I've come accross and it points to quality natural ingrediants in the blend. Last night my wife said it smelled like brownies or cookies were baking in the oven. Not a bad comment.

A great aromatic with a rich burley base flavor. I recently purchased an 8 oz. tin and have worked my way through most of it. Will definitely order more for the winter as it makes a great cooler weather smoke. Refuses to bite even when pushed very hard outside. A winner and a must try for burley fans.

I really enjoy this blend. I ordered a couple of ounces of it along with a new pipe from pipesandcigars.com. I used it to break in the new pipe, & I grew very fond of it quickly.

Later on, I found a bag of this I'd stashed away, & tried it in my 1948 peterson dublin. WOW, huge difference! I immediately tasted flavors MUCH more pronounced than when I'd previously smoked it. Lots of sweet vanilla, almost a caramel, a subdued almost savory prune, very nice. It had a tendancy to bite if pushed too hard, but when barely sipped, it behaves wonderfully, & smokes like a champ.

I have had MANY compliments from co-workers & passerby when smoking this, many remarking that it smelled like a desert in the oven.

When smoked with a slow cadence, the flavor of the burley really shines through, like a good old school OTC blend.

I highly recommend this smoke. And for those with the negative reviews, I suggest trying a different pipe, it made a world of difference for me.

Terrible stuff. wouldn't call this tobacco. Sickening Vanilla cased burley. Threw this out after biting me bad. Oh , wife likes the smell , wouldn't you know!