Comoy's of London Cask #1 Double English

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.

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.

Very good. Kind of stuck somewhere in the middle though. Its not a WOW English or a masterpiece, and its not a good sleeper either, its in that middle ground with Hartwell's Chesdin or even for my money Butera Pelican.

Everything is here to really enjoy. Well packaged, nice big Lat hit, good supporting blends, I just wonder how many will call it a favourite.

Still, you can do a LOT worse, this has a lot going for it.

I do like ribbon/shag cuts as I like to ball then stuff during packing. This tobacco is a slightly sweet English with plenty of Oriental flavor and spice, I wouldn't say "it's LOADED with latakia ", as the description says. If I had to pick a similar tobacco I would say Dunhill's Early Morning Pipe. I'd love to see how this ages for a year.

Revised 6/30/2014- I've had this cellared for about 7 months and it has not improved. It lacks body, burns hot and ashy and is not for me.

Comoy's of London - Cask #1.

It smells a bit 'different', the only descriptive word to come to mind upon my initial sniff was Dusty! Bizarre. The ribbons are just below medium in build, and as this is from bulk I can't comment on a tins moisture. However, the hydration of my pouch/baggie couldn't be any better.

Cask #1 takes to the flame easily, and burns well. Although the mechanics are good, it's not my sort of blend, really. At the start of a bowl my first quibble is with the Latakia...... where is it?! The description says 'loaded' with Latakia, but for the beginning all I get is a smoke that's heavy with Oriental leaf. The Virginia gives a fairly conspicuous sweetness; not so grassy, but pretty sweet. After a third I begin to identify more of the Latakia, but there's no chance of this being called a Lat-Bomb; it's a very gentle, woody, cedar-esc, type of flavour, not smoky, at all. I'm unsure as to whether the amount of Oriental may vary from pouch/tin to pouch/tin, but this has far too much, for me; aound the same time the Latakia strengthens in flavour, the smoke takes on too much of a bitter/sour quality from the Oriental leaf.

The room-note's only tolerable, and the nicotine's medium.

To me, this is worth no more than two stars.

Somewhat recommended.