CAO Cherry Bomb

Vanilla splashed with Maraschino Cherry

This tobacco gets an unfair shake because of it's misleading name: it's not a cherry-flavored tobacco in the main, rather, it's vanilla with a hint of cherry.

If you're after a nice vanilla, this one should definitely be on your list to sample. It's a rich tasting top-shelf dark Cavendish tobacco blend, first and foremost, with the occasional hint of unsweetened vanilla sweet maraschino appearing in the background. I think the cherry note gives it a little more dimension than other, more straight-ahead vanilla blends. A fun, good-time tobacco to have on hand for those who enjoy the flavor of good tobacco unencumbered by heavy flavored casings but packing a solid, rich room note. Hopefully for you a very pleasant departure from the usual vanilla blends. Thank you for your time.

New and right out of the tin the tobacco lit easy and smoked down to a white ash. I was surprised. Maybe two relights and I finished a bowl. Taste is sweet but not overbearing and the room note is great. Go easy with this or it will bite you. Overall it's a good cherry blend to smoke now and then not every day for me.

I have been searching for a good cherry blend, and I came upon this one at my local b&m and thought I would give it a shot. After all, CAO makes an excellent cigar. I was actually pretty disappointed with this blend. The tin smelled pretty good, a bit of cherry, but I got a lot of vanilla aroma from it. It was a bit on the dry side. First smoke was rather un-enjoyable. The only flavor I got was vanilla and I had a hard time keeping it lit. I thought I would try it in a different briar, but I ended up getting similar results. Not sure if I'll slowly smoke my way through the remainder of the tin, or just give it away. I'm sure there's people out there that like this, but I won't be buying it again.

A friend of mine generosity gave me a sample of this a few months back. This is the first CAO blend that I’ve tried.

The name pretty deceiving. It’s not a cherry bomb at all. It’s way more vanilla forward, with some light cherry notes in the background. Its pretty tasteless, but I found drawing the smoke under my tongue, and the retrohale to help. The aftertaste isn’t very pleasant, but it’s not far off from other aromatics I’ve tried. It reminds me a little bit of wet musty paper towels. It smoked on the warm side, but didn’t get hot. Bite seemed to be an issue with some other reviewers, but I had no issues. I’d recommend this to someone looking for a cherry blend.

Unlike Blood Red Moon, CAO Cherry Bomb doubles down on its cherry casing in an all-cavendish blend. As is titular, the blenders aimed to infuse this tobacco with as much cherry flavor as possible, and so its strong casing and topping will deter those who prefer a more natural tobacco flavor. As such, it presents with a strong "chemical" quality.

However, if that doesn't bother you, then Cherry Bomb is a perfectly competent blend in its genre. Sweet black cavendish, which looks devilish in the tin, provides a nice and sweet foundation for thick cherry syrup. I found the casing to be so thick that I could literally feel it on my tongue, sort of like the maple in Autumn Evening. Similarly, in order to experience the full flavor, this blend needs to be smoked very slowly and deliberately. Sip extremely slowly and allow it to sit on your tongue for a few seconds.

Overall, the impression is somewhat like vanilla Dr. Pepper. Intense cherry is rounded out by vanilla syrup, on top of a bed of aromatic cavendish that gives it a more complex quality. This is an enjoyable tin and worth trying out if you're a fan of cherries.

I was pretty excited to try this tobacco. I've been looking for a cherry thats good or at least tolerable. Sadly this one isn't it. This one smelled really good in the tin and the room note was pretty nice. It wasn't too wet, and it burned really well. If those qualities are what matter most to you, then I would recommend you give it a try. I honestly felt like I owed my pipe an apology after smoking it though. It was very soapy in my opinion with hints of cherry that were not really good at all. It just didn't taste very good to me.

Out of the tin, this blend smelled amazing and I was really looking forward to trying this. This blend was chemical tasting and no cherry at all. It burned well and stayed lit. But I would not buy this again.

This is another one I remembered smoking during my first round of pipe smoking years ago and recently decided to try again when some tins were on sale.

Opening the tin gave a pretty harsh chemical smell and cherry. It seemed much different than I remembered. It was also pretty moist and required drying.

I put it into a new cob pipe. The taste was similar to cherry cough syrup or a strong cherry coke from a soda fountain. Luckily, the initial hit died down and it became a little more enjoyable. The room note is nice, my wife complimented it.

After two bowls I scraped the rest in a Quart jar and filled the rest with 1Q. This made a decent cherry/vanilla blend and helped me smoke up the rest.

Initial smell reminds me of Cherry SKOL chew-tobacco, which is not a good thing. Burns a bit hot. Cherry taste is fairly mild but oddly synthetic. Apparently there's vanilla in there but it's distant. I'd recommend Blood Red Moon by Cult or Cherry BonBon by Sutliff.