Surprise surprise! This week I actually have two blend of the week reviews to share! Up first is...
Blend of the Week #12: Cornell & Diehl Pegasus
If someone was to ask me, "What blend should I try if I want to find out what Burley tastes like?" the first blend I would point them to is Cornell & Diehl's Pegasus. To me Pegasus is the absolute Platonic ideal of a Burley blend, which lets the natural flavors of the Burley tobacco shine through with no added toppings whatsoever.
The tin note is a simply marvelous nutty, cocoa'y, musty Burley aroma with just a touch of sweetness, and when smoked it gives you everything you'd expect flavor wise from a top notch Burley blend. There's the dark, earthy, slightly sour walnut nuttiness, the occasional hint of unsweetened cocoa, some black coffee, a little bit of that distinctive Cornell & Diehl magical barnyard Burley funk (which is much more enjoyable than it sounds, I promise), with a touch of grassy hay-like Virginias supporting it to keep the flavors from becoming flat and every now and then a very slight amount of mild sweetness from the unsweetened Black Cavendish; which smooths out the rougher blend and adds density to the smoke.
Speaking of rougher edges, the retrohale on Pegasus can be pretty hit or miss. Some puffs it's silky smooth but in others it can sting your sinuses something fierce, so the retrohale on this one is a bit of a dice roll as to whether you're going to get a better taste of the blend or watery eyes and a burnt schnozz. Otherwise it's quite well behaved, lighting easily and burning cool and clean with little moisture left in the pipe after smoking. The room note is rather cigarette'y though and anyone who smells it is going to have no doubts in their mind that someone is smoking tobacco, so bear that in mind when smoking Pegasus around company. The nicotine content is a solid middle of the road medium and satisfying, but still plenty approachable for those with a lower nicotine tolerance.
Overall I really like Pegasus, which isn't surprisingly since it's basically just Haunted Bookshop with the Perique removed and swapped out for unsweetened Black Cavendish, and if I had to pick an all time favorite pipe blend based on flavor alone it would most certainly be Haunted Bookshop. Sadly though flavor isn't the only determining factor when it comes to my choice of blends to smoke, which leads me to the one and only problem (sinus scorching retrohale aside) with both Pegasus and Haunted Bookshop as well as a great many other Burley blends.
It's an unfortunate fact of life for me that if there's Burley in a blend, and the Burley hasn't been fire cured, steam pressed, or drowned in a sugary sweet topping to heavily soften it's rough edges, I'm going to spend the rest of the day and possibly the next couple days after enjoying a pipe of that blend with a sore inflamed throat and a froggy sounding voice.
For some reason I'll probably never fully understand my throat just hates Burley and won't tolerate it, so as much as I love the flavor of Pegasus and it's sister blends and Haunted Bookshop and Briar Fox (the latter of which is essentially Pegasus with more Virginia added and pressed into a cake) I just can't smoke them without getting a sore throat; so Pegasus sadly is not a keeper for me. I sure wish it was though, and would wholeheartedly recommend Pegasus to anyone who doesn't have my strange intolerance to Burley. It's a wonderfully natural, simple, authentic, and just downright perfect Burley blend in my book!
Blend of the Week #13: War Horse Bar
I'm starting to get to the point that I don't feel frightened of these incredibly strong blends with whackadoodle flavorings anymore, and while I'm not entirely sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, I do know that fortune favors the bold and this blend certainly seems plenty bold enough so I'll give it a try! Let us see what horrors/delights the tin note of this one yields...
Apple, licorice, dark fruity red Virginias, orchids (though which particular variety I couldn't say), and a little bit of dark fired smokiness far in the background. This is my kind of weird! The tobacco itself comes in the form of a very dense cake, which seems to be about halfway between a crumble cake and a plug, in that it's about as dense as it could possibly be while still remaining easy to pinch off a bit with your fingers and rub it out; no knife required. It rubs out quite agreeably into a rough ribbon cut that's nicely dry and ready to smoke straight off the cake.
War Horse Bar takes to the flame with ease, and the melange of flavors that greets you are much more mellow and gentle than the tin note would lead you to believe. The predominant flavors that come through are a relatively equal portion of softly barbeque pit smokey dark fired Kentucky and dark savory leaf littery red Virginias with a little tang, then just a bit of chocolatey nutty Burley and a teeny tiny touch of grassy lemony bright Virginia lingering far in the background to brighten up the experience. The aftertaste is when the fairly powerful assortment of toppings make themselves known, with the expected bit of licorice and floral note that really does remind me of orchids. Not grandma's underwear drawer or any sort of perfume, just the sweet natural aroma of orchids blooming in the garden on a summer's eve.
There's a ton of different flavors going on here and it's easy to get so caught up in tasting and pondering them all that you forget just how strong this blend is, at least until about 20 minutes into the smoke when the nicotine comes in and bashes you over the noggin with a two-by-four. War Horse Bar is most definitely an "extra strong" blend, right up there with others I've reviewed like 1792 Flake and HH Bold Kentucky, but you really wouldn't know based on the flavor or the mouth feel of the smoke. It's a comfortable smoking blend full of subtle complexities, far more so than any sledgehammer strength blend I've smoked before, with a prominent sweetness that lingers on your lips which I'm guessing comes from the licorice topping. Really the only thing at all that gives it away as a strong blend before the nicotine hits is the retrohale, which produces a powerful zing through the sinuses in a way that tells you this is no ordinary easygoing aromatic.
The room note is an odd yet rather appealing dense and heavy combination of that floral orchid aroma, fresh baking bread, and some sort of men's cologne with a little bit of fireplace smokiness from the Kentucky. It's a very strange combination of smells but the other members of my household did find it agreeable, so perhaps yours will too! It's quite a heavy and strong assortment of scents, but not an unpleasant one.
Being that War Horse Bar is a Dark Fired Kentucky, Virginia, and Burley blend I sadly had the same problem with this one that I did with Pegasus; though to a slightly lesser extent due to the lower portion of Burley in the blend. Still, as much as I enjoyed every other aspect of War Horse Bar it did leave me with quite a sore throat every time I smoked it so it wasn't a keeper for me. Maybe that's for the best though, since as of this week production of both War Horse Bar and War Horse Green has ceased and unless STG decides to bring it back at some point it's now a dead blend and what's still available in stores right now is the last of it.
Fare thee well War Horse, you were a good one and will be sincerely missed.
Next week is Christmas, so for my blend of the week next week I'll be trying out one with a very wintery feel. It might not be a blend you'd typically associate with Christmas time, but it does have flavors that mirror the aroma of cedar chips and pine trees so I think it's very seasonally appropriate! Next week's blend of the week is...
Gawith Hoggarth & Co. Dark Flake Aromatic
