Oak Alley revisited

[daimyo]

I had a second go at this tobacco and felt I owed C&D a posting on the matter.
The first time I smoked it, I let it dry but not substantially. Last night I cut and rubbed a bowl's worth of it out and let it sit to dry. I wanted it to be drier than my previous attempt but it was about the same as the first time after two hours, so I loaded the bowl of my Ligne Bretagne straight bulldog with horn stem and left the pipe to sit till this morning. I lit it up after breakfast with a coffee in hand and had a much more pleasant smoking experience. I think the extra dry time was the main factor. Full disclosure, I am not usually a burley forward fan. I know burley can be all sorts of things in a blend and all that, but generally, it's not my favorite to be such a key player. In this blend, as smoked now, the fresh VA and Burley are pretty forward and a bit on the rough side with just a touch of bite. In this respect I might challenge the idea that the blend is ready to smoke. Others who prefer cigar notes/burley in their blends might be fine with it now. I got some good flavor out of the bowl, even if it wasn't quite up my alley. Earthy with some spice, definite cigar/cigarette notes with a bit of the old sweet and sour creeping through in places. Despite being labeled as "the coolest smoke imaginable" it does not, at this time live up to goal. With aging, that may very well change. It stayed well lit and smoked down to a nice white/grey ash.
Over all, I knew I was taking a gamble on the blend considering my tastes but I am now curious to see how it ages. I will likely focus on the other two blends in this line but might pick up another tin of this to see how I like it after a year or two and will definitely age the one I have. If you like a VA/Burley blend with some nice flavor and are into aging, I think this one will be well worth a try. Moreover, I am happy to report my first experience with the blend was indeed a fluke and I think I simply smoked it when it was still a bit too damp and perhaps in a pipe that did not agree with it.

 

[settersbrace]

A good and fair review for a blend that I'd bet few would pop and smoke. I'd love to see where this tobacco ends up years from now and can envision sugar crystals and all that sweet yummy Virginia smoothing out. We have tins of all three of these C&D cellar blends on the shelf and I guess the only way I'm going to find out is to squirrel some away. I doubt that I could more than 5 years though. Lol.

 

[mso489]

It sounds appealing. I think subsequent bowls will prove even better. I think many more complex blends

take some learning. The first bowls can be too damp, too harsh, get smoked too fast, etc. I would say,

most blends that I end up enjoying take several bowls to unfold. Likewise, sometimes when I say "wow"

with the first bowl, the blend may not hold my interest or may not remain quite as good.

 

[cortezattic]

Thomas says

sometimes when I say "wow" with the first bowl, the blend may not hold my interest or may not remain quite as good

This happens to me all the time! Fortunately, I eventually adapt (inure?) to the vast majority of such blends,

so rashly stockpiling them isn't a total disaster.

 

[daimyo]

I completely agree with smoking more than two bowl before deciding the fate of a blend and also that staying power isn't always linked to first impressions. That said, I will not be smoking anymore of this now. I really only wanted to get a baseline and know what it tasted like now. I do think this blend will improve with some age, based on my limited knowledge of aging and the samples I smoked. I can see the disparate flavors melding together and the edge mellowing out. In the past, if people suggested a blend needed age to taste its best, I usually shied away but since I an experimenting with aging and cellaring anyways, I thought i would give C&D a shot with the three new blends. I am guessing that with it's more English makeup, the Joie de vivre is likely ready right out of the tin but not sure about the Chenet's Cake but being a VaPer I can see it needing some age to mellow the VA. I will report back in a year on Oak Alley.