Cornell & Diehl Morning Drive

As I have said in other reviews this Working Man's Series has changed my life. On a good day this is my mid-morning pipe tobacco. It has a gentle flavor and I really enjoy the taste and aroma in the mid-morning time. The good news is that when your run out of time and finish the pipe in the afternoon it has enough flavor to make the afternoon complete. Definitely try this tobacco a time or two. It is just pleasant with that nutty Burley and the other components just make it pleasant.

Cornell & Diehl - Morning Drive (Working Man Series).

A very well rubbed ribbon that's mostly brown pieces, there's only a few specks of black in there. Mine was too dry, causing it to burn fast.

Although it's not the best mechanically it tastes quite nice. To me it seems a milder tasting English. The smoke isn't awash with smoky Latakia. Throughout a bowl I find the Perique the lesser of the ingredients, I get more of the rugged Burley and woody Latakia.The nicotine seems to just hit medium, but I find myself quite sensitive to N so it's probably less. The room-note? Not exactly nice! As I mentioned, it burns quickly but I bet that's just this tin because of the dryness.

Although it arrived dry the flavour makes it worth three stars:

Recommended.

Morning Drive took a little while to grow on me but it has become an enjoyable blend to add into my smoking rotation. This site claims this is a mixture of Burley, Latakia, & Perique though C&D's website and the tin description claim there is red & bright Virginia and Izmir as well. I certainly taste the VA/Turkish leaf though they seem to be used as condiments.

The smoke is a complex combo of sweet/smoky Latakia, nutty Burley, and some very peppery Perique. The Latakia is always notable but not overpowering. In the background the Izmir is sour and woody. I taste some minor sweetness and hay which has to come from red & bright Virginia. If you are looking for a complex untopped American English blend this should be on your radar!

Newish pipe smoker here, posting a review of the second of 8 blends I got in a recent order to try.

I guess I'll tackle this review by comparison with a couple of other blends. Mind you, there's a lot of blends out there and what I've tried so far is pretty limited, so if you think my comparisons are out of whack, well they probably are.

My first review was C&D Plantation Evening, which was sweet and subdued, with the Latakia just sort of lurking in the background. I guess I expected this to be pretty similar, just from reading reviews. The tin note was similar as well, with a nice Latakia smokiness, though Morning Drive had a bit more fruitiness and sourness to it, I'd guess it has more Perique.

On the light, I pick up sweetness and a grassy or hay-like note. So it starts off pretty similar to the Plantation Evening as well. Once it's lit and settled in though, the Latakia starts to come through more, with a smoky and incense-like quality. Not Dunhill Nightcap by any means, but it's definitely more forward in this blend than the Plantation Evening. I start to think, Plantation Evening may not be the best comparison here. It's more reminiscent to me of Dunhill Early Morning Pipe. Latakia incense with some fruity notes are what I get from this blend. It still has a natural sweetness to it, more than Early Morning Pipe has, but not to the level of Plantation Evening.

All in all, this falls somewhere in between the two blends I've mentioned, but much closer to Early Morning Pipe. This wouldn't be an all-day smoke for me, or even an everyday smoke, but it will be nice to have around as a change of pace.

Very good morning blend as stated. Kind of a Va/Per but with a light English flavor as well. Enjoyable with coffee and in a nice cob.

It so happened that I had two Cornell & Diehl blends on my shelf almost simultaneously with a similar name - Morning Drive Time and Morning Drive. The production date, packaging and labels were different, and I was a little confused - was it the same tobacco or different? I decided to open both cans at once and confront them.

First, I opened a 100-gram tin of tobacco called Morning Drive Time, which didn't yet have a production date on it, but circumstantial evidence said the tobacco was created around 2013.

The appearance was a roughly chopped sliver of a monochromatic color of dried oak wood. The blend is fairly uniform, but uncut leaves and cuttings from them are found among the ribbon. The tobacco has dried out quite a bit during the time in the tin, and clearly needs moistening.

Flavor - latakia is pretty weathered, but somewhat preserved its notes in the overall flavor. Along with it, there is the smell of chamois and woody tones, in the background you can hear walnut, a faint citrus note, some cream, and a slight scent of mixed peppers. All smells are quite muted, partly due to the age, partly due to the dryness of the tobacco.

Taste - muted sweet smoky latakia note added to the sweetness of Virginia, also have some acidity, a slight spice from the orientals and a very small amount of perique. As you smoke, the woody, earthy notes of burley appear and grow, and the acidity almost disappears. The tobacco, which initially had some roughness, becomes smoother and softer.

I then opened a relatively fresh 57 gram tin, which is already named Morning Drive, and the date on it indicates April 7, 2020. After examining the contents of the can for appearance and smell, I realized that the blend in front of me was, for all intents and purposes, the same blend - but, of course, fresher.

The appearance of the tobacco is pretty much the same, but the cut is a little finer and neater. In the bulk of the tobacco, you can see some darker flecks of latakia. Individual small uncut leaves are also found, but no cuttings.

The flavor is much brighter, but shifted to the acidity, which is much stronger, as well as the earthy woody notes. On top of that, a Virginia bread note appeared, not too pronounced, but palpable. The smokiness of the latakia is also more pronounced, but the overall flavor of the blend makes it clear that there is not as much of it here as it seemed in the case of the old blend. The smell of suede stands in the distance, faintly discernible.

The taste of fresh tobacco turned out to be a little different as well. It is much brighter, in every way: the sweet and peaty taste of the latakia is felt more confident, there is the astringent nutty taste of burley with a woody, earthy flavor, and Virginia is somewhat muted by these two flavors, but there are its hay and bread notes, not just a light sweetness. Orientals and perique give a little more spiciness and spice, and the sour note in the flavor is more pronounced, but does not stand out from the general background, although it does not disappear as you smoke. The tobacco itself is more harmonious and mild in flavor. Overall, the blend feels more like an English blend than an oriental like its older version.

The strength of the tobacco from both cans is medium, a slight nicotine kick is possible in the large pipe. The blend burns medium-hot, burning into a fine, dry, light gray ash. There is little moisture in the pipe, but it is there. The aftertaste is understated, woody and nutty with a bitterness.

The smoke from the blend has a nutty, woody flavor with a hint of peat, stays in the room for a long time.

The bottom line will be expansive.

First, I became convinced that Morning Drive Time and Morning Drive are pretty much the same blend. Given this fact, I will boldly mix an aged blend with a fresh one after the review and try to elevate and refresh its flavor and aroma.

Second, in the years since it was first introduced, the quality of the blend's components has not declined, but rather has increased.

Third, this blend is not one to be taken for storage - it loses significantly in flavor and taste, turning from a fairly striking representative of English (in the American sense) blends into something closer, in taste, to poor-tasted Oriental.

Fourth, if Cornell & Diehl wanted to present their vision of Dunhill Early Morning Pipe with this blend, they succeeded much worse than G.L. Pease with his Chelsea Morning or Robert McConnell with his Boutique Blend. Even the blends above vary considerably in composition, not to mention taste and flavor. The closest to the original, in my opinion, was Robert McConnell, but I liked the mix from G.L. Pease. However, Morning Drive somehow reminded me another discontinued blend, Nat Sherman 536 Empire English.

Nevertheless, I can't help but note that Morning Drive is a pretty good quality morning blend, although it has quite a lot of burley in it, and I don't like that variety. It will definitely find its buyer and it will not stay on the shelf.

On the plus side, I can add a rich, multifaceted flavor and a relatively small amount of latakia, which will probably excuse you to the people you'll walk past while smoking this tobacco on your morning walk.

This was one of the first non-aromatic tins I purchased. I did so based on very little information because Morning Drive seems to be an underappreciated gem. It was also the first blend I re-ordered, and it remains an all-time favorite.

It's basically a "mild English" (though this is probably more correctly classified as a non-aro American, but whatever.) There is a bunch of C&D Burley floating in there, which seems to take the lead. At least to my neophyte palate. The Turkish and latakia are present, playing a support role. Perique is in there somewhere, but mostly seem present in the tin note. It's truly used as a condiment in this mixture.

Apparently there are virginias in here, but they're overshadowed by the burley and orientals. All in all, this makes this blend very savory, rather than a sweet, grassy virginia.

This is a nutty, earthy, smokey, leathery, and spicy smoke. It needs very little (if any) drying and burns somewhat quickly and coolly, but it will absolutely bite back if smoked carelessly.

Interestingly, of the many blends I've sampled, Morning Drive's room, clothing, and beard note are universally despised by the non-smokers in my life. You'll definitely smell like tobacco after this bowl. Despite this, I certainly do not limit my use of this mixture to only the morning hours.

A little age really smooths out the rough spots, in my opinion.