Cornell & Diehl Cordial

At first I didn?t rave about this mixture. It reminded me of a watered down Valley Crucis. It?s a lovely large cut of what appears to be Virginia, Latakia and some type of black Cavendish. Perhaps some Perique as well? It has a light, buttery aroma of pepper and ember and behaves very nicely when smoked. Midway down the bowl, an autumnal charm takes hold and the very subtlest nose of fruits and leaves begins to hypnotize. It leaves the room smelling grand for up to 30 minutes. I?m appreciating C & D more and more for its masterful blending and experimentation. This is one I will turn to every now and again. This is really a late fall, outdoorsy smoke. Mmmm Mmmm, Gooooooooood!

Three and a half of five stars

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9/10 update: make that five of five stars. it took a few pipefuls to truly appreciate it. too bad it's available only in large 8 oz tins. though i believe i will break down and get one. cordial really is pipe smoking perfection. one of my new favorites & one of c & d's grandest accomplishments!

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4/10/07 update: If there?s one thing I do not readily accept, it is change for no damned good reason. A masterpiece of architectural design doesn?t need to be torn down for a towering monolith, when that eyesore can be built elsewhere with no loss of profit. Gentrification and neighborhood revitalization need not result in soulless urban playgrounds. Not all of nature should be paved over to make way for endless suburban sprawl. Or how about wars fought without an exit strategy so that certain members of government can pass out economic windfalls to pal oil barons and Texas cronies? What?s the analogy of my ramblings to pipe tobaccos, you ask? Well, for one thing, change has been taking place among too many of them, and for no good reason. Pipe smoking is like harpsichord making or woodcut illustration. There are few folks these days engaged in manufacturing and not many more consuming these time honored arts. Let?s face it, pipe smokers are an odd lot and there are not a lot of us left. Just walk down the street with a pipe in your face and you will be looked or laughed at as a relic. Thus, would you buy a badly voiced musical instrument or a cheap oil on canvas that looked as if the artist had painted by numbers? I should hope not! One of my all time favorites, Cordial has not changed ala European blends, taking an element out here and replacing it with something different there. This is wholesale alteration and misrepresentation of the product. All the light speckled tobacco components have been completely removed. The luscious latakia has been overpowered by a ton of hot, smoky Orientals and Balkans. There?s none of that gingery topping left nor any unsweetened signature black Cavendish. This is an over the top Balkan blend with an aroma that will surely offend everyone around you, and this is hardly the first time ol? cracker Craig T has been playing games with his tobaccos. You can read my other C & D reviews to see what he?s done to Pennington Gap (hit and miss depending upon the tin you buy), Strathspey (from magnificent to totally horrid), DaVinci (powerful to overbearing), all of Serad?s discontinued blends (sublime to ridiculous), Pirate Kake (hot, hotter, hottest), the overrated Peases (all marketing) and a host of others. Buying a C & D tin is now a crapshoot, as you never know what Tarler is going to do with his creations, altering some beyond the point of recognition. He must think pipe smokers can be hoodwinked and won?t know the difference from one tin to the next. Is he trying to cut costs? Is he taking too many trips to the still behind the curing shed? There are few things one can rely on in our fickle, ?now you see it, now you don?t? culture. The least one can expect is some regularity in a tin of pipe tobacco! I mean, how hard can it be? Unlike most other blenders, there?s absolutely no consistency with C & D nor is there a common thread that makes its products readily identifiable. Even drugstore blends such as Sir Walter Raleigh or Captain Black have a perennial consistency to them. And lately, C & D exhibits a total lack of any form of quality control. At 8 to 15 dollars a pop, these are becoming expensive mistakes that are really (sorry) pissing me off. I?ve resolved to end my journey with C & D and stick with a host of other great tobaccos made by blenders that are consistent and reliable: McClelland, Peretti, Fader?s, etc. With the Chicago Pipe Show only weeks away, I can assuredly tell you that when I see Craig and Pam I won?t be stopping, though I?ll try to smile as I go by.

One of five aggravated stars