Comoy's of London Cask #11 British Strength

I was pleasantly surprised when Cask #11 arrived with my tobacco order. The pouch scent is deep and smoky with thin ribbons (not shag) and some ribbons chopped. Cask #11 is a good looking tobacco. In the pipe though, the Latakia dominates the blend. While there is nothing wrong IMO with Latakia dominated blends, Cask #11 is billed as a Balkan, one that I find to be out of balance. As a result, it seems a little rough around the edges for my taste. This is not a bad tobacco, but in a marketplace with a huge number of blends in this genre, it is very average. For lovers of heavy Latakia blends, I still find it to be average compared to some of the better Lat blends out there. If there is a topping on this blend, it is extremely light. On the plus side, a 3.5oz tin can be had for about the cost of a 50 gram tin from other makers and can be bought in bulk.

Comoy's of London - Cask #11.

This review's based on a 1oz pouch bought from bulk, as a big tin can be a bit excessive if the first bowl goes down like a ton of bricks! Plus, with bulk purchases, I'm not so worried about the blend arriving soaked. The ribbons are quite fine, and the blend looks about an even split between black and brown; some of the browns are light, others medium.

To me, for the first third the Latakia leads, giving quite a full flavour, but it isn't too coarse tasting; somewhat mellow. The Orientals join in after the first third, but still have less volume than the Latakia. The Virginia seems quiescent for the first part, but after halfway I begin to get a delicate freshness from it. Towards the end of a bowl I start to get an 'extra' flavour: not like a casing, but the taste becomes even mustier. The burn from #11 is good, albeit faster than I'd like, and it can give me a slight bite.

The nicotine's mild to medium, being closer to medium, and the room-note's a little heavy.

This is o.k., but I can't do more than somewhat recommend it. It's a little clumsy tasting.

Two stars.

I had a very unhappy experience with my sample of Cask #1 and found it a very tepid smoke not worthy of further attention. Cask #11 only fared slightly better. At least this blend had a little bit of pouch aroma - not much, but some. It also had a small amount of room note - again, some, but not much. It's physical appearance was more of a normal looking english blend than Cask#1 with some dark components including, I assume, a smattering of latakia. I loaded up my 2009 NASPC year pipe and sat back to enjoy the smoke, but was dissappointed. Once again I experienced a very tepid smoke; constantly trying to determine just what it was that I was smoking. Cask #11 purports to be a balkan english blend, but balkan english blends are known far and wide for their strength and fullness - sometimes to the point of being overwhelming to some smokers. This blend is very far away from being that. And there was another characteristic to this blend that I didn't like - tongue bite. Although not a terribly strong bite, it roughed up my tongue from beginning to end.

When one considers the vast number of good and solid balkan english blends that we have available to us today, it becomes hard to understand why any of us should prefer this weak and thin blend to any of them. Also, I have the same level of doubt abount Cask #11 that I have about Cask #1: are these sample pouches that are being distributed in our smoke shops really indicative of what's in the 100g tins? If yes, that's not good. If no, that's not good either. My advice to fellow smokers is, take a pass on these Comoy Cask blends and dive into the wonderful world of english and balkan blends that we are so lucky to have available to us today. Somewhat recommended - two stars.

The contents of the pouch was filled with very thin ribbon shreds that could be used for packing material. It gave off some spicy overtones hovering over what felt an English base.

Everything was quite dry, so the tinder lit up instantly and the Latakia instantly made its presence known with it's charcoal foot. The other Balkan I once tried (Sasieni) let the virginia come through, where as Cask #11 was far more of an oriental. Heck, my tongue is still a bit numb from the spice as I write this.

The stuff was filled with a lot of stems, which solidified my earlier feeling of it being packing material and therefore 'cheap'... caping my review at 2 stars.

I got this 10g pouch a few years ago. I finally finished it off which though a good pipe tobacco must tell me that it is not one of my favorites. There are so many blends out there and sometimes I think too many. I mean how many times can you build a better mouse trap so to speak. What is funny to me about this one is that I was smoking this outside on the porch as I never smoke inside and my girlfriend said ‘what it that smell, it stinks’. Guess that answers the room note rating. Good but for me not a repeat.

Comoy's of London - Cask # 11 British Strengthless.

A fine blend if somewhat generic of taste, nothing about it really grabbed me. An "also ran".  Two unoriginal stars.  It does seem to have price point going for it. I found this blend more oriental forward than some of my fellow reviewers seemed to, but it just wasnt a very interesting blend. For me at least, this one will go in a jar that won't be opened again for quite some time, if ever.

Another of the bombing blends I got nailed with.

I got this as a gift, and it was a bit dry so I rehydrated it. It smells English, looks English, but is definitely Balkan. The cut is easy enough to work with at the right humidity. I had to dry it a bit after I rehydrated it. The orientals are very present in this. Tastes of olives and smokey leather goodness. There is sweet element to it that makes me think it's been cased. Probably just sugar water, but maybe too much for my tastes. It burns well, if a bit hot. It gave me a bit of tongue bite first time. Gotta smoke this one slower than I normally would.

I would recommend this to someone who likes Balkans. It may not be for beginners as it can scorch the mouth if not smoked properly.