Cornell & Diehl Mad Fiddler Flake Pipe Tobacco

I bought a tin of this years ago, and its sat in my cellar for years. I never wanted to smoke it until it had some age. Which happens with a lot of the tins I bought. In my latest compare and share purchase. Tobacco and cigars , I added a tin of this. I popped the new tin and immediately smelled chocolate. This has immediately gone into my rotation and will be buying more. It’s so good. I wish I wouldn’t have wasted years without trying it. I’m not ready to pop my cellared tin, but fresh out of the tin it’s incredible.. it ranks up there with Stonehenge.. great smoke , I highly recommend it!

I've been wanting to try this, and I'm glad I did. The Katsuri is a new tobacco for me. It's a nice addition to this blend. The Perique is well behaved if you're worried about it. I'll be buying this again for sure. Just wish it came in 8oz cans or bulk. This blend lives up to all the other reviews I've read about it. Good stuff!

To keep up with the Hemingway's, I shall first share a poem; Roses are Red Garlic Bread. Now, roses nor garlic have anything to do with this tobacco. The smell when you open it is quite pleasant; tobacco, freshly tanned leather and fermented stone fruit. The texture between my fingers feels; well pressed, adequately moist with a rigid edge. I prefer to actually use one palm in rubbing in, other loading techniques result in an incomplete burn and lack the full flavor it can provide. Flavors! There's plenty going on but nothing to detract from it being tobacco. My personal observation is that it does taste like fire cured and fermented tobacco while smoking it. It has a nice but moderate bite when exhaling through the sinus, no burning sensation to mention. The after taste truly provides the fermentation, toastyness, cured leather with a hint of toasted hazelnut and almond, you may expect from the blend. I wear dentures, dentures can mute flavors. Take this piece of information as you will.

If you think that PIL is a better band than the sex pistols, you'll probably like this tobacco. It isn't for everyone. When I first opened the tin I was revolted. It smelled like a rotten fermented mess and nothing else. Literally, with every passing hour of airing out it got better, rot turned to a cloying sweetness, like roadkill. I walked by the closet I cellar in, and grimaced. Another 2 hours I came back. Apples? Cinnamon? Dark pralines or roasted dates? I'm not much for poncey descriptors and subtle tasting notes. I don't own a fedora, and you probably shouldn't either. What was once a blend that made me shudder at the thought of smoking it, within hours, became one of my favorites. The only other bowl I have had that has subtly morphed and changed shapes before my eyes like this when sipped is quiet nights, though the flavors are completely different. Warming. Periquey? There's virginia for sure. The apples are real. A ghost of almost bitter dark fudge, earth. Back to figs. A complex treat. A full on theatrical production, where each member of the cast gets a (deserved) opportunity to solo just long enough to be appreciated, quickly shuffling out of sight to be replaced by a new actor, never in front of you long enough to leave you doing anything but wanting more. I must have. More. The CELLAR DEMANDS A SACRIFICE.

It was in the autumn that I first purchased this blend. I stood on the sidewalk outside the tobacconist shop, windswept fall leaves rustling at my feet as the setting sun stained the sky a blood red and the darkness of twilight crept in. I felt a nameless dread as I pondered the opening of this tin, and alas, I named myself a coward when I flung this accursed thing to the back of my cellar. There it sat for months untold; whispering to me, tempting me. My mind became a twisted, hollow echo of what it once was...consumed with the thought of the Mad Fiddler, biding its time in the back of the cellar. Finally, I could take no more...the glass jars I had ordered all the way from the lands of the Amazon (with prime shipping, a most fiendish ploy) arrived and I knew they would be strong enough to contain the essence of this flake. Finally, with maniacal delight, I lit up a bowl and found myself whisked away. First I was in an exotic bazaar filled with incense and unnameable things lurking just out of sight. Then with a note of cinnamon, I was in a place of bonfires and hay bales, silhouetted forms swaying round and round in ecstatic dance. Visions of Victorian opium dens and non-Euclidean vaults of uncharted worlds. Spicy and savory, maddeningly delicious with a taste that will haunt the unwary piper for the rest of their days. In other words, it's good stuff!