Cornell & Diehl to Merge with Laudisi Enterprises Effective January 1, 2014
-
Kevin Godbee - Dec 5, 2013
- 4 min read
Blend Recipes to Remain Unchanged, Marketing & Website Beefed-Up
It was announced today that Cornell & Diehl, the well-known boutique pipe tobacco manufacturer based in Morganton, North Carolina will be merged with Laudisi Distribution Group (LDG). LDG is a subsidiary of Laudisi Enterprises, run by Sykes Wilford. Laudisi Enterprises is the U.S. distributor for Savinelli products and also runs Smokingpipes.com. The merger of LDG and C&D will be effective January 1, 2014.
The two founders of the companies, the late Craig Tarler of C&D and Sykes Wilford of LDG had done business together for over ten years, and in the process became friends and confidants. Mr. Tarler approached Mr. Wilford with the idea of taking over Cornell & Diehl years ago, but as Wilford puts it; “It wasn’t something we were ready for then.” Tarler, advancing in years and with an eye towards a succession plan, in 2008, brought in his son Chris to help run the business.
Gradually, Chris Tarler took over most of the management responsibilities from his father, and then all of them when the elder Tarler passed in September 2012.
After LDG took over the distribution of Savinelli products in October 2012, they instituted new processes and procedures which created efficiencies that afforded the opportunity for improved customer service, marketing and product development. While Wilford and Chris Tarler were in the process of working together on special tobacco projects, they became friends and Wilford told Tarler of his success with the Savinelli arrangement.
In an exclusive interview, Sykes Wilford told PipesMagazine.com:
"Since Chris and I are friends, we spent a good bit of time discussing the sorts of things we were doing with Savinelli distribution in our distribution division, Laudisi Distribution Group. As we got talking, it became clear that while Cornell & Diehl were clearly making great tobacco (I’m smoking some right now), there were a number of areas peripheral to their core business (i.e. important things that don’t have anything to do with the actual making of tobacco) that we could help with. Laudisi has a lot of experience with business processes, software, logistics and marketing. Further, we think that with the help of Laudisi Distribution Group, perhaps Cornell & Diehl–along with the other brands they manufacture, such as G. L. Pease and Captain Earle’s–could be more widely distributed into smaller shops across the country. We decided to start exploring the possibility of Cornell & Diehl joining the Laudisi family of companies."
"Ultimately, we worked out a deal where Chris Tarler and Patty Tarler, the owners of Cornell & Diehl, would become part owners in Laudisi Enterprises. Chris will join Laudisi as VP for Manufacturing and the entire C&D staff will become Laudisi team members. Keith Toney will move from C&D to LDG as we shift the distribution for C&D to LDG for the US market. Manufacturing will continue in Morganton, NC at the current C&D facilities."
Wilford stressed that there will be no changes to the tobacco blend recipes. Some of the tin art will change, and the C&D website will get a much-needed makeover. Direct-to-consumer sales will cease, but special orders can still be placed through any retailer interested in doing so.
Cornell & Diehl will maintain the same phone number and facilities so they can still be reached just as before.
Wilford summed-up by saying; "I’ve long been a fan of Cornell & Diehl’s tobacco and good friends with the Tarlers. Working on all of this with Chris and Patty has been really rewarding, learning about their business and about making tobacco (at a level of detail that I didn’t know existed) has been a ton of fun. Helping them with technology and marketing has also been a lot of fun. I’ve known for years that they were great people; I’m excited that Chris and I will be working closely to make Cornell & Diehl even better than it already is."
We asked Chris Tarler what excited him most about the new arrangement and he said; "The fact that the day-to-day administration of the business is lifted from my shoulders and I can concentrate solely on being creative with new blends and production has me extremely enthused. The company has been growing so fast that the management duties have grown to take up too much of my time. Now we can concentrate on manufacturing. This will reinvigorate the company for new blend development and increased manufacturing. Orders will be speeded up, customer service improved… this is better for the customer all around."
"It was a dream for my father to secure the future of Cornell & Diehl and this gives us a way to do that. We have such a great relationship with Sykes that this was the next logical step."
We also spoke to Gregory Pease, Blendmeister at G.L. Pease Tobaccos, which are produced by Cornell & Diehl.
Pease asserts; "This is really exciting for me, opening the door for some wonderful new opportunities. Not only will it help expand distribution, making my blends more accessible to a wider audience, but it will also make possible some ideas that I’ve been thinking about for a long time, but just haven’t had the business resources to accomplish. I plan on creating more limited edition blends, and have some top secret new projects that I wasn’t able to do before the merger. Additionally, just having more marketing muscle behind the product is going to be good for the G. L. Pease brand overall."
Related Articles:
Savinelli USA Closes, Laudisi Dist. Takes Over (October 8, 2012)
Cornell & Diehl Looks to the Future (September 12, 2012)
Broken Pipe: Craig Tarler (September 5, 2012)
Written by Kevin Godbee
13 Responses
Recent Posts
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 635. Our featured interview on tonightâs show is with James Ravenwood. James is the boutique tobacco blender of Ravenwood Blends. His blending started out as a fun hobby, and he now has professionally packaged commercially available products with some great tin art. Part of his interest in pipe smoking goes back to fond memories of a retired Navy Veteran that lived on his street while he was growing up that would sit in his driveway smoking a pipe all day. Later, in 2011 he began smoking pipes and soon after started experimenting with mixing different tobaccos. His other hobby, that he has been doing for 30 years, is photography. He takes wonderful photos of outdoor spaces, and still life pictures of pipes and tobacco. You can see them on his Instagram @thebriarfellowship. At the top of the show we’ll have an Ask the Pipemaker segment with renowned pipe artisan Jeff Gracik.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonightâs show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, letâs just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. Thatâs better, isnât it? Whatâs got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big oneâChristmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. Itâs in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. Itâs aromatic! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedomâs philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, âI believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.â Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Punditâs way of summing it up. You just donât go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. âI am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,â said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ainât easy to turn on the lights in Punditâs rock pit head. Now itâs time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love itâShelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. Thatâs one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. Weâll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
Well thereâs nothing like a touch of the plague to usher in the changing season. Leaving the airport just when the first advertisements for all things pumpkin spice began to appearâlattes, muffins, shampoos, trash bags, and myriad other concoctionsâso, too, my ability to breathe freely disappeared. The unfortunate side effect of losing oneâs sense of taste and smell for weeks is the utter inability to enjoy tobacco. Not that I consider myself an expert on anything but my own tastes, but be forewarned that this review was made with mildly impugned sensory equipment. Just when a comforting pipe was most needed, its comfort was denied. Be that as it may, the road to recovery found me limping along on one lung this past month, trying to wrest the particulars of two blends on offer from Sutliff: the latest 175th Anniversary blend, Silver Quarter, as well as their spooky seasonal Maple Shadows II. Silver Quarter is a new style on offer from Sutliff, their first coin-cut blend. Naturally a Virginia-Perique, it is enhanced with a traditional core of black Cavendish. In the tin it holds much promise, with a lightly bready and very woody, if ever-so-slightly sour, aroma. After some time acclimating to air, the bouquet softens further and offers hints of the burley with some chocolaty notes wafting through the more dominant dry grassy aspect. The tin art is of a coin-style bas-relief bust, presumably of a founding Sutliff brother, Ă la The Old Boss On the reverse of the tin we find the blendâs description: Reflecting on Sutliffs 175 years of tobacco excellence, we came across a brand that embodies true value, SILVER QUARTER. This name pays homage to Sutliffs roots, the legacy of two brothers who popularized pipe smoking in the burgeoning mining society of San Francisco. We celebrate this heritage with a coin cut composed of the finest African Virginias, complemented by a core of Perique and Black Cavendish. The tin notes are, forgive the pun, on the nose for a good VaPer blend: mild tart sweetness peeking out from behind dried hay and slight chocolate undertones, with a lightly tannic finish of weathered oak. It is always a joy to prepare a coin cut, my preference being to put a few in my palm and vigorously warm my hands together to fully break them apart. These well-formed discs pack and light easily, and smoke with little prodding to the end of the bowl. For technical points it scores wellâit smokes light, and itâs easy to tend the ember. While it gets sharp after a few quick bowls, pacing should be heeded to easily smoke down to the heel without inviting bite. Of the flavor, though, I am left a bit wanting. There are tart and high notes aplenty, but very little of the lemony citrus I would anticipate, as well as scant midtones; they tend more toward the red wine-vinegary and sour. The flavors are muted, also, lacking the sweetness and piquancy of other marquesâthe small measure of Perique tickles the nose now and again with peppery hints, and there is a smidge of a deeper sweetness to be found in the Cavendish from puff to puff, but overall it lacks some dynamism. The Virginias, to my palate, come off a bit on the dry side, and here they dominate the blend. The aftertaste and mouthfeel are neutral, again evincing more of the dry, woody, tartly tannic end of the spectrum. The blend has plenty of polish, but not enough depth or richness (*yet) to make it a standout. Here, comparisons are inevitable: Luxury Bullseye Flake has more sweetness, both from its Virginia as well as its Cavendish, and a better finish; Davidoff is similar but with a pronounced umami that is absent here; as for Escudo, I havenât had any fresh tins lately so it would be unfair to compare. While it rates as a solid, fairly mild smoke, particularly to lovers of the genre, it does not surprise with any exceptional flavors. To be fair, all the boxes have been checked for the blend to benefit from some real aging, and it would be worth checking in on this after a couple of years sealed away. Iâve set half my tin aside to sample again in a month or two, in case Iâm merely suffering from the lingering effects of parosmia, and will amend this review in that case. Maple Shadows II, on the other hand, made up for the weeks of sniffling and sneezing Iâd endured. Offered in a full 8 ounce tin with delightfully spooky Halloween art, itâs (hopefully) enough to last through the season. Somehow I had missed this last year, so itâs a real pleasure to get some in my candy bucket this year. As the chilling winds of autumn draw eerie prattle from contorted, deciduous limbs, we find ourselves possessed by the spirit of the season. Bewitched by a dissonant charm, weâve created Maple Shadows. In a season that is defined by the unlikely harmony of treats and frights, weâve joined the enchanting sweetness of maple with the earthy spice of Dark Fired Kentucky for a smoking experience that captures the senses with an otherworldly fusion of flavor. This may be the best aromatic blend Sutliffâs ever madeâand they make a ton of them. First off, itâs not overbearing in the leastâquite the opposite, it is also one of the more restrained aromatics theyâve ever made, with a clear but very light topping that melds oh-so-well with their choice Kentucky added to the mix. Opening the tin, the sweet maple is up front and center, but so too is the must of fallen leaves, bready pie crusts, and a crackling fire in the hearthâa perfect invocation of HerbstdĂźfte in a can. Packing best in an open and capacious bowl, the flavoring is subtle, and recedes to the background while puffing. With a sweet coffee or tea to accompany, the aftertaste of the maple is reinvigorated on the palate […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 632. Our featured guest on tonightâs show is the host of the Pipe & Tamper Podcast, Mike Murphy. Brian and Mike will have an extended chat revolving around the days before, during and after the Las Vegas International Pipe Show. We will hear about their travels to the show and the anxiety of Hurricane Milton bearing down on Florida at the same time while running a show and not knowing if your house is going to be there when you get home. In the end, the show went great and our homes survived, although many others in Florida were not so lucky. We’ll have clips from the show, and shoutouts to other podcasts and vlogs that were broadcasting from the pipe show.
Great news.Cornell and Diehl are the best.Smoking Pipes.com is great.Should be a great thing.Making C&D bigger and better(If thats possible)Chris,Keith and the whole C&D crew are awesome.GOOD LUCK!Cant wait to see you in St Louis.
This will be just a great marriage. I am glad to see that Chris and Patty will be with LDG. And, my friend Keith Toney will also remain with the company. This is going to be a wonderful new outlet for pipe smokers.
I am looking forward to this merger, and the possibilities it affords all parties involved. It sounds like a new day dawning for the pipe smoking community.
Hi all,
I hope and think this is great news! Speaking of a wider audience – perhaps C&D/GLP blends might be available in Germany again in some years? đ
I’m glad to hear that the recipies and the production “stay the same”.
Great news!
Smokingpipes.com, Savenelli, and Cornell and Diehl are three of my favorite names in pipe smoking,
so this merger, on a most amicable basis, looks great to me. A good team of administrative and
accounting folks can tend to that business, and let the pipe sales people and the tobacco blenders do
what they know best. I think it will keep the customers happy and keep these great names in pipes
in business.
This is a win, win, WIN for LDG, C&D, and most importantly the pipe community customers out there! Best of luck to everyone with the merger and keep up the great work!
Thanks Kevin for keeping us informed.
Nothing like breaking news!! I hope this works out for all parties. These are all good people and we wish them nothing but the best.
While I am excited by this merger, I am saddened that C & D will no longer do direct-to-customer sales and custom blends for those same customers will cease. One of the great things that C & D had going for them was the customer service and that they were happy to talk to you about tobacco and would even suggest blends based on your preferences. If any part of this stellar customer service can continue with Laudisi, that will be a feather in their cap. Too often, though, mergers lose something ” human” about the company being folded into the other.
I am hopeful, but cautious.
I exactly share the sentiments of lordnoble. Before stores like 4noggins came into being many Europeans bought their first American tobaccos directly from Cornell & Diehl because they were customer-friendly enough to take the risk for shipping across the Atlantic.
This sounds like a match made in pipe heaven, honestly, and I’m happy for all parties involved. I would add my voice to the chorus of those who enjoy the comical and wistful tin art on many of their blends–DON”T CHANGE IT! Many of the C&D blends have only that generic tobacco plant and blend name art, however, so I won’t mind those being revamped. And like many I’m excited to see what new concoctions Chris comes up with.
Sounds like a great plan. Having been a customer of Smokingpipes for 14 years now and seeing how they care about their customers, I am confident that all of C&D’s customers will enjoy what SP brings to the table.