Grand Croupier Bone Yard

(3.47)
It may be a luck of the draw, but the odds, at least, are in your favor: Grand Croupier's Boneyard may be composed of a random assortment of English/Latakia blends, but they are high quality English/Latakia blends, themselves composed of quality leaf to start with. Considering the results of our past blind review on Grand Croupier's all-sorts-of-all-kinds blend, expect a good smoke, at a very good price.

Details

Brand Grand Croupier
Series Grand Croupier
Blended By  
Manufactured By Cornell & Diehl
Blend Type English
Contents Burley, Latakia, Oriental/Turkish, Perique, Unknown, Virginia
Flavoring
Cut Mixture
Packaging Bulk
Country United States
Production Currently available

Profile

Strength
Medium to Strong
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Extremely Mild -> Overwhelming
Flavoring
None Detected
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
None Detected -> Extra Strong
Room Note
Tolerable
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Unnoticeable -> Overwhelming
Taste
Medium
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Extremely Mild (Flat) -> Overwhelming

Average Rating

3.47 / 4
9

5

0

1

Reviews

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Displaying 1 - 10 of 15 Reviews
Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Oct 05, 2016 Medium None Detected Medium Tolerable
I smoke a lot of English an I must say this blend has not disappointed me after three lbs. You will find chunks and I mean chunks of flakes, Latakia I suppose,Virginia,burley once in a while as well as perique. I find the flake must enjoyable, it is my favorite cut of tobacco. More than satisfying it balanced beyond compare,Smokey but not overbearing, sweetness from grassy Virginias and depth form thr burley with just a hint of spice from the perique. I have found every little difference between purchases .It's is English as it should be bite less an rewarding an at a astounding price. Get some, you won't be disappointed, same some bucks.
Pipe Used: Savinelli,Rattray,Peterson
PurchasedFrom: Smoking pipes
Age When Smoked: Fresh
7 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jan 31, 2018 Medium to Strong None Detected Mild to Medium Pleasant to Tolerable
Of the three allsorts blends from C&D's "Grand Croupier" range, Bone Yard is the absolute treasure. My batch contained (guessing by taste) around 15% Latakia, plenty of condimental tobaccos, some peppery/fruity Perique and some grassy and pleasing Virginias. It is gently sour sweet with plenty of chewy mouth feel and fabulous burn characteristics. The price leads me to believe that this is the best value in an English-style blend anywhere. Bar none.

Tongue bite? No, and I wouldn't expect any bite from an English. Mechanically, this weed behaves beautifully in the pipe; its manners are irreproachable. Chars and lights with a single match, and the bowl I just finished required not one relight to burn it down to a medium ash with just a few ticks of charcoal. As this is an allsorts blend (I prefer "allsorts" to "sweepings"), the cuts are a real mix, ranging from little shaggy bits to chuncks of broken flake. I did a bit of rubbing to get it into a uniform cut but found later that it really works best straight from the bag. Moisture in my batch was perfect; the tobacco required no drying before I packed it into a Missouri Meerschaum "Great Dane' spool with a 6 mm. balsa filter.

My batch apparently had a bit more Virginia tobacco than others have reported. Funny thing is, at times this reminded me of Early Morning Pipe...but the bowl I just smoked felt and tasted more like Nightcap. Yesterday's bowl had more Orientals in it, making it take on the aspect of Derbar. Nicotine level is pretty high for me but very manageable. I got a few wee hiccups near the bottom of the bowl from the Vitamin N

I don't care what kind of pipe or tobacco snob you might be; in a blind taste test, you'd be singing this blend's praises and swearing that it is some new boutique blend from the likes of Greg Peas. I would bet cash money that you can fool your pipe expert friends with this one, although you'll want to manicure the tobacco a bit to remove the odd stem and twig encountered here before trying to fool Dr. Pipe Know-it-All. Otherwise, this is among the best English blends I have ever tried and is well worth the bargain basement price. Is it pretty to look at? Not really. Is it a marvelous value? Yes. Should you buy a pound to have on hand, for around $16.00? Absolutely. This is my favorite of all three of the Grand Croupier offerings. I will buy it again...next time, it will be a full pound instead of the paltry four ounces I currently have on hand. .
Pipe Used: Corncobs and an old meer billiard
PurchasedFrom: smokingpipes.com
Age When Smoked: Fresh from the vendor
6 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jan 13, 2018 Medium to Strong Extremely Mild Very Full Pleasant to Tolerable
An intrepid English lover's secret treasure. To review a pot-luck blend is necessarily highly subjective, but I find Boneyard to be fairly consistent from bag to bag. It is typically a peppery, leathery, sweet smoke with a real kick. I detect a lot of different leaf there but mostly Latakia (Cyprian?), dark-fired Kentucky (Burley and/or true Kentucky), Perique, dark Virginia (not seeing or tasting a lot of bright Virginia), and even Black Cavendish. I may miss the mark on a couple of these, but that's my guess at the basic mix. It is strong in flavor and nicotine level. Very close to Dunhill Nightcap. Smoke this one on a full tummy or you'll start spinning. A great after-dinner or evening settle-in smoke. I recommend ensuring proper hydration and then sealing and cellaring a pound or two, but it is great right out of the bag. For the budget-minded: It is a total steal. Stock up before they run the popularity numbers and jack up the price!
Pipe Used: meerschaum, meerschaum lined briar, briar, cob
PurchasedFrom: SmokingPipes.com
Age When Smoked: fresh
4 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Mar 20, 2017 Mild to Medium None Detected Medium Pleasant
Okay, as I understand this it's a bit of a lucky draw....well, I have been lucky then. The contents of the bag I received had a lovely smell, cut tobacco and random larger chunks of all sorts. This made lighting a little tricky but once lit the bowl smoked nice and clean all the way to the bottom. This Boneyard is a well selected and mixed blend with a strong Latakia accent, not based on Latakia but rather a great English mixture with the right amount of Lat to spice it all up. To me this blend is pretty complex in flavours and can easily compete with other tobaccos twice the price. Ordered some more!
Pipe Used: CCs and briars
PurchasedFrom: smokingpipes
Age When Smoked: fresh
4 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Oct 31, 2020 Medium None Detected Medium Tolerable
Like several other reviewers, I am new to this blend, and am finding it to have some irregularities, but it is actually endearing to me, not a negative. I have over 100 tobaccos in my library and I like variety, although I am on a quest to pare down my collection and focus on cellaring the very best in larger quantities, rather than having smaller quantities of many blends. I tried this due to the interesting reviews. It has impressed me so far. The presentation is varied, with ribbons, chunks, flakes and yes, a few stems here and there. You could call it the hot dog of tobaccos. The lips and assholes collected from the packing plants floor and pressed into tasty meat tubes isnt for everyone. The same goes for this blend. It is not uniform. Each bowl offers a different experience, but for me they have all been satisfying. It needed minimal drying, some rubbing out, and a little bit of stem removal. After that, an easy light and smoke. I purchased 4 ounces and have tried half a dozen bowls so far, and they have all been slightly different. There is obvious latakia, perique, virginias, and some burley and then who knows what. For a purist, who is looking for absolute uniformity and repeatability, this is not your bag. But for the price, if you want to enjoy a top shelf english, that is full of surprises, by all means, try it. For the price, its a no brainer. I will definitely be buying a pound to cellar and age, as it is such a low cost option to experiment with. Like others, I hope people don't go crazy and buy massive amounts and clean them out. As a disclaimer, I am not a huge C&D fan, but I am enjoying the Captain Earles line from Hermit, which they technically own, but does not seem to be infected with some of the bulk cheap tobacco that I think a majority of the C&D line is burdened by. If you like English blends, and you are frugal, then this is a must try. 3 stars for now, but that may change with time.
Pipe Used: Meers, cobs, briars
Age When Smoked: new
3 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jan 26, 2017 Medium to Strong None Detected Medium to Full Very Pleasant
Grand Croupier - Bone Yard (Grand Croupier).

So, as this is high-end sweepings, reviews could vary! But the pouch I got smokes nicely.

Because of the nature of it the pouch comprises many different cuts: leaves, broken flakes, ribbons, and twigs. The moisture's good, and it smell's typically English.

On to the smoke: mine contains a lot of Latakia; both woody and smoky. I also get quite a nice Oriental flavour, and a notable touch of Perique; it's a fairly robust batch. I get a thick, medium temperature, bite-free, smoke, from Bone Yard.

The room-note's exactly as I'd expect from an English, and the nicotine's medium to strong.

This pouch is worth four stars, but I bet they'll all differ. With that in mind, I think three stars is fair.

Recommended.
Pipe Used: Peterson Rosslare #03
PurchasedFrom: Smokingpipes.com
Age When Smoked: New
3 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Sep 07, 2015 Medium to Strong None Detected Medium Strong
Bit of a lottery apparently but I'm well pleased with my first gamble... a very good quality latakia in with some good solid Turkish leaf . Bit peppery on the tongue due to the perique but I'll be definitely coming back for another bet.
Pipe Used: Bari (big bowl)
PurchasedFrom: Smoking Pipes
Age When Smoked: Fresh
3 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jul 19, 2019 Medium None Detected Medium to Full Tolerable
Just received a couple ounces of this. Now smoking my 2nd bowl. On the 1st bowl, I wasn't sure what to expect; consequently, I wasn't really impressed. But this morning I'm finding it to be quite interesting. It is quite peppery/spicy and bright. The retrohale has a nice tingle to it. As it stands, I can see me getting more of this in future. I expect it will remain in the general profile of an English blend, which appeals to me. Heck, if you got a batch you didn't like, I expect if you got another batch later on, you might find blending them could yield an improvement.

I have also bought (in bulk) Peter Stockkebye Bulls-eye and Lancer's Slices. All three are tasty and relatively inexpensive goto smokes.

Rating 3 due to possible inconsistencies batch to batch.

Edit next day. The retrohale was a little too peppery so I mixed in about 1 part Lancer's Slices with 2 parts this. Much better IMHO.
Pipe Used: Falcon, small bowl
PurchasedFrom: Smoking Pipes
Age When Smoked: new from bag
2 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Oct 10, 2023 Mild to Medium None Detected Medium to Full Tolerable to Strong
I purchased a couple ounces of each of these three offerings of floor sweepings. This was my least favorite of the three. I actually enjoyed the double down and was pleasantly surprised by the aromatic as it exceeded my expectations. This one however, is a different story.

This was like a noxious tire fire to my senses. I realize that, by its nature, these blends will vary and some batches may present more to my liking than the one I tried. I prefer my balkan/latakia blends to be mostly virginia with touches of latakia and orientals. My gut feeling is that no batches of boneyard could possibly be enjoyable to me as I think the bulk of what gets thrown into the pile is latakia and oriental scraps.

Another thing to note with these blends is that the cut is all over the place with large chunks of leaf requiring rub out placed here and there throughout. I found this more pleasant with the other two than I did with this one as most chunks were straight latakia, at least it seemed that way to me.
Pipe Used: Mostly Meerschaum
Age When Smoked: 7yrs 6mths
1 person found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jan 15, 2023 Medium None Detected Medium to Full Tolerable to Strong
Comprised of bag endings and possibly even floor sweepings, this unreasonably good tobacco blend is a hodge podge of various English leftovers. While it's never the same blend twice, it seems to be consistently great. What I received was a mix of every component listed in the ingredients as well as a relatively heavy dose of Latakia. The result is pure deliciousness and at $20 per pound.
Pipe Used: Cob
PurchasedFrom: Smokingpipes.com
Age When Smoked: Unknown
1 person found this review helpful.
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