Comoy's of London Cask #1 Double English

The Virginias have a little grass, some earth and citrus. Here and there I got a hint of darker fruit. They form the base for the constituent tobaccos. The Orientals are woody sweet with some spice, and a bare touch of sour that you’ll notice only once a while. The wood and spice from the Orientals shine in every puff without ever dominating the experience. The Cyprian latakia is smoky, woody sweet, and is a team player. This blend is not “loaded” with latakia as the description states. The tobaccos combine for a very consistent, mildly sweet and a little smooth, cool and clean flavor with a moderate richness. Has no harsh spots, but you will feel a slight tingle from the spice in the last quarter of the smoke. Burns well, and requires few relights. Leaves almost no moisture in the bowl. The nic-hit is mild. Has a pleasant after taste and a woody, campfire room note. I rate it as a middle strength English; a step up for those who prefer a milder entry in this genre, and a lighter change of pace for those who smoke the heavy duty lat-bombs.

-JimInks

The Virginias are front and center in this English blend. In the tin note and in the flavor. It's a top notch smoke with quality tobaccos. I recommend it to those who like their English sweet. I prefer mine with the Orientals out front so I probably won't buy any more of this blend but I will enjoy the rest of the 2 ozs I have.

UPDATE: 10/25/2013 This is better balanced between the Virginias and Orientals than I first thought. It's not just sweet, it's sweet and spicy. Much more to my liking. Upgrading from 3 stars to 4. You should try this one.

When my bulk pouch of Cask #1 arrived I was pleased to see what appeared to be a good looking blend. The appearance of Cask #1 is that of a typical medium English blend. However my experience with #1 was similar to #11. All the right components are there, but I find #1 lacking verses the large number of other blends in this class of tobacco. On the up side, #1 is not lacking in flavor, but on the down side #1 is rough around the edges, too rough. I seldom get bit by a tobacco and almost never by an English blend, but this blend can burn hot if pushed. All in all, it’s not a bad blend but Cask #1 seems to be in need of some aging to smooth out the edges. So for now, this goes into the cellar for a revisit next year.

Comoy's of London Cask No. 1: Double English, made in Denmark, is created with great care and an exquisite recipe. It is, indeed, as the package reads, "the quintessential English blend, loaded with Latakia" and mixed with Virginias and Oriental. For fans of this variety, as I am, Cask 1 should prove a delight in its remarkable sweetness and fresh, distinct taste of Latakia. This is now my favorite English blend, and that is saying something considering I had never even heard of Comoy's tobaccos before and therefore had no expectations (although I owned a very nice Compy's London made pipe once that I cleaned up and gave to a cigar-smoking friend who still has it and attends our meetings), and I have smoked enough English blends to know a good one when I taste it. I owe tremendous thanks to the friend in my pipe club who works for my local tobacconist and let alll of those present for a recent meeting have samples from a distributor. Alas, all of mine are already smoked!

This is a very good blend overall. The Lat. is there at times at the front good and smokey overall. However, there are places where it has a burnt taste like perhaps it was over cured? This is not all the time just whiffs here and there. The orientals are good with a musky and floral flavor the is complemented by the sweetness of the VA's. A better than average straightforward English blend that deserves revisiting. I have kept back a couple of oz. to age and see how it does. With a little age it could be very good.

A note about the room note. Most of the time when I smoke a blend I don't notice it. This I did and even outside it was strong. I can sit on the porch and smoke leave and come back later and still smell this blend. Not to be smoked near the wife.

I don't like to be the first user to rate a blend as I like to kind of get a sense of how other reviewers feel about the tobacco, but here goes. Like reviewer Pioletpuffer in his review of Cask #11, I was delighted to find that my local shop had received sample pouches of the Comoy's Cask Series. Being an english smoker I selected both Cask #1 and Cask #11, which I will review later.

So, I undid the pouch and stuck my nose down in it and took a good snort and - nothing. I thought that I had done something wrong, so, I repeated with a couple of good snorts this time and-still nothing. Next I opened a pint mason jar that has a mixture of one-half Lane Leo and one-half Rattray's Marlin Flake and took a snort-ah, beautiful! Now I knew that my nose was working, so I repeated with the sample bag-very, very little to savor. My conclusion - this sample of Comoy's Cask #1 has, for all intents and purpose, no pouch aroma. Next I dumped it out on a sheet on white paper and took a good look at it. It looked relatively normal and, in agreement with reviewer Gentleman Zombie in his review of C&D's Crooked Lane, it did resemble Crooked Lane in outward appearance.

So, the only thing left to do was to load up my Bonacquisti 2010 NASPC pipe and have at. And I did-right down to the end of the bowl. In the middle of this my wife called me to lunch and I put the pipe down and went to eat. When I came back to my downstairs smoking den after lunch- there was no detectable room aroma! Very unusual as my smoking den always has a nice toasty english smoking aroma in this type of situation.

So, I went back and examined every word on the Comoy pouch about this blend: "double english", strength 3 of 5, taste 3 of 5, room note 4 of 5 (?), "quintessential english blend" and "loaded with Latakia". I want somebody else to review this tobacco blend and report on it on this site, please. I don't understand any of this - did I get an inferior, atypical and subpar sample? I found this blend to be thin, bland and characterless with neither a pouch nor a room aroma. I won't give it a one-star review because I reserve that ranking for a blend that is actually offensive, some how. With respect toward the old and honored Comoy name - two stars.

postscript (2/23/14): When I posted my review earlier today, I was unaware that there were reviews of this blend under the heading "Comoy". I read them and was taken aback at how positive they were. Reviewers talked about the good pouch aroma and the good room aroma of this blend. They liked Cask #1 and stated that it was one of the best englishes they had ever smoked. All of this is in stark contrast to the properties of the dealer sample I smoked and reviewed. I am a fifty-year plus english smoker who has consumed a very large number of english blends, including most of the "classics" in their early iterations. I know what a good english blend is, and the sample I smoked was not one of them. I repeat here and now that there was no leaf in my sample that I could identify as latakia, no noticeable pouch aroma, no noticeable room aroma and very little taste in the smoke. All of this only reinforces my feeling that something was wrong - very wrong - with the dealer sample I smoked.

Yes - perfectly good blend. Well behaved smoke with the 'orientals' well in the background (where they should be) and enough Latakia to let you know it's there without swamping everything else. Good quality VA giving that creamy fullness to the smoke, and no additives to offend. ETA: some tobaccos really tend to shine when smoked in a decent meerschaum - this is one of those! - really brings out the best qualities of the Latakia.

Comoy's of London Cask No. 1: Double English to me is a perfect balace between Latakia, Virginia, Oriental and Turkish. It is an easy smoke English blend, but if you take a minute to taste it you won't be disappointed. The complexity of this blend is present since the beginning until the end of your bowl, making each one a unique flavorful experience...smoke made memories

Opening the bag you could easily detect the English character, as well as a sour Oriental and some other mild nutty notes. It wasn't particularly exciting and had that bland almost cardboard sensibility.

The batch that I had was quite dry and sparked up almost instantly. Any distinction instantly burned away and faded into a boring unremarkable smoke.

Perhaps I lean towards bold, husky chest-hair-growing, or sharp blends, but this one landed so much in the middle of the flavor compass, I was instantly bored before getting halfway through the bowl. It wasn't bad, I just have no desire to spend the time finishing the bag.

I liked it! I bought this tobacco one year ago and when new it seemed very hot and it bit really hard. So I jarred it up and today I tried it again, one year later, and it was a different smoke all together. I found it to have a subtle sweetness with a little spicy note. The Latakia is present, but in the background. I would not say it is loaded, but you do taste its smokiness. No longer was I placing a blowtorch in my mouth, but a cool pleasant surprise instead. I recommend this blend be aged prior to using because it improves so much the better in taste and smoking pleasure. (May/2017) Just smoked a bowl with another six months on it. It just gets better!