Cornell & Diehl Pennington Gap

A very interesting tobacco, when you pop the tin it's as though you twisted open the bottle of your favorite bourbon. Right out of the tin you can taste the bourbon coming out. The Perique is there but not over powering this has a nice side stream aroma and very pleasant aroma in general. For some reason it does dry my mouth out a little, I'm guessing it's the flavoring however it has a good flavor that stays through the entire bowl. It packs well and smokes dry producing a nice soft gray ash with minimal re-lights. The flavor seems to get richer and sweeter as you get to the mid bowl and beyond. I feel that this is the Burley and Black Cavendish taking over. Overall a very good smoke!

I found this tin at the back of a shelf at the local tobacconist where it had been for 4 years and one month. Shelf aged tobaccos are always a good find, so I snatched it up. I wasn't sure if it's aromatic qualities would be a turn off for me, but I bought it anyway. Upon opening the tin, the aroma was pungent and alluring. This cube cut blend was lightly topped and was anything but cloying. The Perique was evident and it just smelled inviting. It packs easy and the flavor was that of tobacco with just a hint of whiskey. I don't know if the smoothness can be attributed to age, but this blend was really smooth. It burned cool and was a genuine pleasure to smoke. No goopiness, just a combination of quality tobaccos that really came together well. I can confidently say that I'll purchase it again.

Opening the tin I expected to smell that usual "whisky" flavor standing way above the rest.I did not. What I smelled was IMO,smelled like....(don't laugh)...Banana Pudding. I just happen to love Banana pudding though,so thats a good thing. I pulled the paper cover off the tin(which was before the blessed 8oz tin), and had a peek at the weed. RICH DEEP BURLEY CUBED THE BEST I EVER DID SAY I SAID, and PERIQUE,lawdy mercy,that good ol tobacco from down the road,so good and so right. Beautiful chunks with BLACK CAVENDISH mixed in. This is one of the most premium tobaccos of the whole damn wide world. It packed well and surprized me when it lit so well and stayed that way. The taste is again one of those lucious burley nutty warm/cool smokes. The bourbon is just right and plays softly in the background,disapearing and high-lighting the wonderful rich leaf. The Louisanna leaf has that stewed fruit taste,and it all goes together so well. True tobacco taste. An excellent tobacco blend from an excellent tobacco blender,Brother Craig Tarler. A+++++

update; Hey listen up here,you ever been to the fair? You know how ever thing cooking smells so nice and you wanna eat everything but the wife says you gonna get so damn fat and you eat it anyway? Well,thats how this tobacco is,it tastes like a dedgum carnival! TRAVEL east down to the carnival and taste this delicious tobacco.

This blend was a nice change of pace for me. It burned well with very little drying out, the flavor of tobacco and the backdrop of bourbon consistently called me back for another bowl, and the aroma was very pleasant. I tend to drink ale or bourbon with my smokes, so this worked well. Also matches well with a dark coffee. I liked it slightly above Barbary Coast, but not by much.

what a lovely piece of work craig tarler has done on this one! the bourbon topdressing can definitely be detected in the pouch aroma, with some minor fruit overtones in the background. the blend is mostly dark brown and black in coloration, with both cube cut burley and black cavendish in abundance. the real treat begins when match is touched to weed. the first flavor is a sweetness similar to a fine red Virginia, even though none is listed in the ingredients. apparently it's the bourbon working with the burley to create a different and delicious treat for the taste buds. perique is also listed, although i really don't seem to be able to detect it. maybe it's also working its' magic in concert with the bourbon. like any burley, the real key to enjoyment is to smoke slowly at moments of relaxation and contemplation. i wouldn't pick this as a tobacco to puff while mowing the yard; it would be too easy to rush the burn and ruin the experience. i'm a big fan of smoking burley blends in cob pipes. as i write this, some morley's best (another great C&D tobac) is tickling my tastebuds in a medium sized cob. speaking of which, sometimes i think we in the pipe community can get a bit too hung up on high grade pipes and expensive tinned blends. i've had many a good smoke with cobs and prince albert or half and half. sorry to get off the subject a bit; back to Pennington Gap. this is an EXCELLENT blend with a good room note. if you are any kind of burley fan, you MUST try it. will i be buying more tins? probably not; craig has been courteous enough to make it (and his other tinned blends) available in bulk. if i make it to the KC pipe show, at least one bag will be coming home with me, to be squirreled away in the cellar. can't wait to see what this one is like with some aging! bravo, craig!!

I tried Penningtoan Gap gap based on the review and recommendation of a friend (here and on a message board). He was right on the money.

When I first opened the tin and took a big whif I thought "Am I supposed to put this in a glass with ice, or in my pipe?" The bourbon smell was really strong. I wondered if I would taste anything else in the tobacco. I needn't have worried. It's a nice looking blend too. Mostly darker browns with some light brown and a bit of black. Felt a bit damp, but that proved to be no problem.

The cube cut made this an easy load. Just gravity feed it in, using the tamper once a while to even it out across the bowl.

The charring light tasted like a sip of bourbon. On the re-light, things got going well. I expected the bourbon flavor to disappear pretty fast, but it didn't. I suspect the topping combined with the Perique to keep a nice toned-down bourbon flavor going to the mid-bowl point.

After mid-bowl the bourbon flavor faded and the Perique came out a bit more. Then the burley started to show up with a slightly nutty flavor. It combined well with the Perique. There was a bit of an underlying sweetness that made an interesting combination with the burley. Must be the Black Cavendish.

Toward the bottom of the bowl, the Perique became pronounced, but not too strong.

Overall, a good smoke. Left a nice fine ash, and the pipe was nice and dry. Required minimal re-lights.

If you like Barbary Coast, Pennington Gap will be a good choice. Not as complex, but a nice change of pace.

Huh. Seems odd that this is only offered in 2 ounce tins (indicative of not being a top seller). After trying a number of new blends this year, I've decided I really like the combination of Burley, Cavendish, and a big whack of Perique. That said, I was still a little hesitant going into this one. I'm always a bit leery of heavily topped blends, I'd never smoked a cube-cut, and the reviews for this are all over the place. I needn't have worried; I think this may become a regular member of my cellar. The tin note is... Odd. The first thought I had was my dad's banana bread pudding, studded with raisins and sweetened with blackstrap molasses (his actual recipe). Ouch, right in the childhood. While a little bit more damp than I would normally smoke, it didn't look to be problematic. I disregarded all the admonishments about how to pack a cube-cut and bulldozed ahead. Took just a little extra fire to start, but behaved well after. The flavor is surprisingly close to the tin note; dessert-like without being cloying. About mid-bowl, the sweeter notes start to recede, leaving you with a nice nutty Burley and some Perique fruit and pepper. Didn't bite me, despite the topping. Burns very slowly, but can get hot if pushed too hard. Room note is a pleasant sweet tobacco note. Seems to smoke best in wider bowls. Another C&D winner, and a new fave for me. Now if only it came in bulk...

"What a lovely piece of work Craig Tarler has done on this one!" "Pennington Gap taught me a lesson. Don't judge a blend strictly by its ingredients." "Pennington Gap is just great." "I normally don't care for aromatics, but I have to say this is some nice stuff."

With the above comments as a guide I bought two tins of this blend - I'll be buying my next installment in bulk. My normal Astley's, Dunhill's, Pease's, Gawith's, etc. are still my cherished friends...but bowl after bowl in pipe after pipe I really enjoyed this. The term "fun" has been often used in reviews (Fun? Hmm-m-m-m. We'll see about THAT.) Well, I can only say that I agree wholeheartedly. I sipped, I sidestreamed, I puffed like a steam engine going out of the station. It all worked, though severe puffing brought out the gurgle. I didn't care, pipe cleaners are cheap...I was having FUN! The aroma is OK, the burn is easy and complete, the taste is excellent, the SMOKE is sublime. With a nice satellite photo I'm sure you could pick out my smoke stream from 200 miles up! Clouds of the stuff! What a delight! Layers - no. Subtlety - no. Development - no. Back slapping, knee whacking, by gosh I like this stuff fun - you betcha! Buy it. Enjoy it. You'll be glad you did.

Update: I tend not to smoke many non flake blends, finding they smoke to fast, but this seems great in a smaller bent pipe, as I have recieved bite from prolonged bowl-fulls of this, my small bent cured this & allowed constant waves of the very nice sidestream smoke!

THis one was craned straight to the top of my favourite " other than VA's" -smoke list, this is a premium burley/perique blend with an aromatic bent. Some may think this too heavily topped, but I think the perique & cube cut balance the whole thing out very nicely. The rich woodsy/cherryish/spicy-sweet tin aroma is very appealing to me, both in the tin & bowl. Fairly intense this is , The C & D fellas Don't hold back with the perique! So if your like me & you like the intensity of a perique-heavy blend you will enjoy. Now this & McC's 2015 are my 2 favorite smokes to sit back & sink roots with a bottle of mash with. ( in moderation)