Cornell & Diehl Bourbon Bleu

My friend Michael was kind enough to send me two tins of Bourbon Bleu to taste test and give feed back. I spent a week and smoked half of the first tin. I understand this is ment to be cellared but right out I could only smell a old summer hay smell. I broke off a corner chunk and rubbed it into nice soft rough cut. Then I just dropped it into the pipe lightly using my thumbs to finish the fill. The tin description states the blend is bright and red Viriginias mixed with dark-fired Kentucky and Perique, and a visual inspection of the stuff, predominantly gold, speckled with flecks of dark red and black, suggests the red VAs, dark-fired Kentucky, and Perique are present mostly as condimental ingredients, that the star of the show is the golden Virginia leaf. It took several tries to light before I could get it going good. The grass smell comes out right at char. For me it tasted salty and more like Amaretto than bourbon. With short sweet puffs this try to open up. It really has to be smoked slow and the sweetness of the blend comes out. In the end it left little dottle and a very nice gray ash. After a little thought I ordered 10 tins and will add a few more each month. In all it was a very good smoke and the age will I hope make it better.

I bought a couple of tins of each of the cellar series blends around the same time they were released and have had to fight every instinct to open them as I am hoping to attain a little age on them beforehand. Well, I can't tell you how happy I was when Smokingpipes.com offered a free .5 oz sample of this with an order I placed. Finally, I would get a chance to try one out fresh.

The immediate impression of the blend is how golden the little crumble kake is. C&D does a great job on crumble kakes, btw. And my little .5 oz. sample look just as good as a 2 oz cake of briar fox. Tightly packed, but easily crumbled.

The blend is heavily Virginia. This is something I expected as Virginia is highly regarded to be the most benefitted from any appreciable aging. The perique content is nice to my palate which might make it a little heavy to the average palate. Nice sweet and spice. I don't think the Kentucky plays a strong role in this blend, perhaps it is there to mellow the perique a bit, I don't know.

Finally, the bourbon. I don't think I directly tasted anything that tasted like bourbon in this. It was, to my tastes, more of a VaBurPer reminiscent of Old Gowrie. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed this blend fresh and look forward to trying some of the tins after they have aged a bit. I am putting three stars down on this now and will revisit.

I recently smoked through two half-ounce samples of this and I enjoyed every moment of it.

Bourbon Bleu is a densely pressed krumble kake of Virginia, perique and dark fired Kentucky. The pouch note is very similar to Briar Fox, only kissed with a bit of bourbon. The flavor is on the brighter side of the spectrum. The Virginias are sweet and grassy, the perique and dark fired add depth and a bit of spice but they are minor players in the overall taste. The bourbon works wonderfully, providing a delicate sweet whisky flavor to the outer edge of the finish.

I can’t help but comparing this just a bit to GLP's Virginia Cream. They have similar flavor profiles, only Bourbon Bleu is milder, sweeter and smoother. Virginia Cream has a bit more body and perhaps more personality, but I like this better and I have to admit that I found myself wondering what Virginia Cream would be like as a krumble kake. Anyhow, I am sure this was mulled over by Mr. Pease at some point.

Cellar Series? A novel marketing concept but I prefer tobacco that’s good to smoke now. Thankfully this blend is.

A good Virginia/Périque blend, with some Kentucky and a bit of bourbon whiskey that doesn't really spoil the natural tobaccos' taste. It is quite dry (krumble kake) and it has a sweet/sour denoument. It is very smooth but for my palate a tad monochromatic and predictable. Nothing exciting, but a good, reliable smoke of a very traditional kind.

(The following are my impressions and opinions. I don't care if you agree or not.)

I smelled the hay.

I smelled something reminiscent of a vinegary BBQ sauce. (This was the Perique component)

I fell in love with the smell when I opened the half ounce sample pack and stuck my nose into it.

Next step was to light it. Light it. Light it. Light it. For a tobacco that felt fairly dry the Bourbon Bleu just didn’t want to stay lit at first. After the fourth attempt it caught on and rewarded me with a steady cloud of smoke.

And I smelled the hay. It took me back to fresh cut hay fields and early fall hayrides. Bourbon? I’ve read that it is supposed to have bourbon in it but tobaccoreviews.com says it has no flavoring. If there is it is so subtle that the only time I tasted bourbon was when I sipped the Knobb Creek that was in my glass. There was some sweetness but I attributed this more to the Virginia than anything else.

Anyway, I found it to be a slow burning, cool smoke. Every once in a while I would pick up a hint of pepper which I attributed to the small amount of Perique in the blend. Then when I got down to about a half of bowl, I started noticing less hay and more of that Perique aroma I remember from a tour of the L.A. Poche Perique in October. It was a rich, sweet fruity aroma that slowly gave way to the hay smell of the Virginia.

Other reviews I’ve read has the Bourbon Bleu as a mild-to-medium strength smoke. It may have been because I smoked it on an empty stomach, but I feel it’s more of medium-to-strong. As I got closer to the bottom of the bowl, I could feel the nicotine hit building. I recommend not smoking this on an empty stomach but after a good meal.

All this being said, my personal opinion is that this is a good Virginia based blend that I enjoyed but it probably won’t find its way into my daily rotation. I will buy a tin or two and tuck them away in my cellar though.

Another update: This has gotten much better after a longer wait. The over the top grass/hay that I first noted is absent. It is now a real nice Virginia blend. The bourbon is absent as well, however, the base Virginia makes up for it. Still not the best, or my favorite Virginia as it is on the mild side. Worth adding to my rotation and buying more to age for a year or so.

3.3 stars.

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UPDATE:

It got better as it got older/not so moist. However, it still lacks the bourbon note it advertised. As a basic, straight Virginia, it's not bad, but I've had much better. This is not a horrible blend, but it's not great either.

I may update this as I smoke more of it.

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The tin aroma is grass, hay and a sharp, tangy alcohol. It is one block of pressed tobacco with a mottled color of light gold and dark brown.

After pulling some off the cake and drying over night, I anxiously packed a bowl. It was difficult to light and keep lit. Because of that, I got some hot, grassy flavor and slight tongue bite. After several re-lights, I gave up and went to bed. The next day, I tried again. This time with fewer re-lights, but the same hot grassy flavor and tongue bite.

Rather one dimensional in flavor of grass/hay. Not much natural sweetness or perique. I would not guess there was any bourbon had it not said so on the label, and of course the tin note.

I'll keep at this. I may to come to enjoy it, but for now, I have many other blends that please me.

It has been a couple of years since I've posted any C&D blend reviews and I have smoked nearly 100 tins of their various offerings in that time. So, it may be awhile before I get to all of them. I absolutely loved Bourbon Blue. I thought the quality of the leaf was very good and the flavoring was misted on with care. And, unlike a lot of aromatics of this nature, it did not burn hot and thanks to the Kentucky, actually had a little kick.

Bourbon Bleu is an absolutely wonderful Virginia and Perique blend, with a few other special ingredients that have been added, such as a smattering of Dark Fired Kentucky, and of course the lovely bourbon topping. Popping the lid off of a fresh tin dated 4/15, I am greeted with a wonderfully sweet, yet strong smell of bourbon, and a nice compact 2 oz cake of tobacco. It is obvious while looking at the cake, that the tobacco is of high quality and due to the presentation, there will be no twiggy or woody bits mixed in the tobacco. The tin note is rather enticing, with aromas of sweet honey and vanilla coming from the bourbon, and I can detect a sweet grassy or hay like note coming from the Virginias. As for the Perique and Dark Fired Kentucky, I have a hard time finding the nuttiness or smokiness usually associated with them, but the bourbon is rather strong, making it difficult to detect much else. The moisture level of this particular tin is much drier than any of the other tobaccos that I have smoked from the cellar series, however, it is still on the damp side, and will require a short drying time before being smoked fresh out of the tin. I imagine that this moisture level is intentional, as the tobaccos in this series are intended to be aged, and at their best in ten to fifteen years. In order to help with the drying process, I took my cake and cut thin strips off of one end and then rubbed this out into a thin ribbon, setting it aside for thirty minutes to dry. After allowing the tobacco to set out for a spell, I packed the pipe easily enough with the thin ribbons, and lit the pipe. The first flavors that I notice are those from the Virginias, the sweet straw like or hay like tastes, but they are followed rather quickly by the sweetness from the bourbon with mild hints of honey and vanilla. The Perique is definitely in the mixture, but it is more in mouth feel than in flavor, at least in my opinion. As for the Dark Fired Kentucky, there does seem to be a slight nuttiness that I am able to detect, but it is rather thin and I only taste this by mid bowl or beyond. As for burn characteristics, I have had to tend this blend quite frequently with relights and I can only assume that this is again due to the moisture content. Maybe, one should let this dry overnight before having it as a morning smoke, if relights and constant tamping bother you. When finished, the tobacco did burn down to a fine white powdery ash which made cleaning the pipe rather simple, only requiring that I run a pipe cleaner through the stem and around the inside of the bowl to remove any remaining moisture. As for the room note, those around me made mention that the tobacco smelled rather sweet, so I take that to mean that it is tolerable. Overall, I have been very satisfied with Bourbon Bleu, and can only imagine what it will become with ten years or more of age. My best guess is that the Virginias will continue to sweeten, becoming more fig like as time goes on which will marry well with the bourbon, which I imagine will mellow out to some degree itself. Hopefully the nuttiness and smokiness that I associate with Dark Fired Kentucky and Perique will deepen and begin to show themselves a bit more, and if the bourbon does mellow out with age, I am sure they will become easier to detect. With this in mind, I purchased several tins so that I could smoke a tin now, and cellar several, comparing my notes later on down the road. I would recommend this blend to anyone who enjoys a good Virginia and Perique blend but also likes to spice it up a bit.

This is a really good smoke. Led by the Bright Virginias and ably backed up by the Reds, it's nicely sweet and tangy with some hay and fruit. The DFK adds a little earth and depth. The Perique adds just a touch of spice and little else. I can just barely detect the topping and can't tell that it's bourbon, it's just a sweet note with some depth to it. All in all, a nice pleasant smoke.

Mild to medium in body and taste. Flavoring is extremely mild. Burns very well.