Comoy's Cask No. 5 - Bullet Rye Select
PappyJoe
Master
in Tobacco Talk
It is apparent that some people read too much into pipe tobacco names. In fact they actually expect and demand to taste a specific flavor based on the name printed on the tin or bag.
It is also apparent that sometimes people who name a pipe tobacco often sit down and start drinking until the either pass out or a name comes to them in a drunken stupor. Sort of like naming a tobacco naming an excellent tobacco after one of the dirtiest and nastiest smell places in a city in the northwest.
Comoy's Cask No. 5 - Bullet Rye Select is one of those blends. To be honest, if they would have just stopped at Comoy's Cask No. 5, the name wouldn't cause the confusion some smokers seem to have with this blend. People try it and get offended because they don't get drunk off the bourbon flavoring it's supposed to contain. And, apparently, some people get their panties in a bunch when the description mistakenly says Tennessee Bourbon when EVERYONE knows only whiskey made in Kentucky can be labeled as "bourbon."
Anyway, I ordered a 100g tin of #5 last month with the intention of letting it sit while I finished off some other open tobacco. Good intentions can sometime be as fleeting as the smoke curling up from a lit pipe on a cool afternoon. In other words, I opened my tin the other day and cut open the foil liner. Initially upon deeply inhaling the aroma of the tobacco I was hit with a nice, clean tobacco aroma that made be sit back and ask, "What is this?"
I swear it is a pipe tobacco I smoked back in the 70s and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I have fond memories of a lot of the pipe tobacco I smoked during the mid to late 70s even if they were mostly the OTCs that were available in the ship's store when you're floating in the ice halfway between Alaska and Russia. Even if it were OTCs that are alive in name only today (I'm talking about you Borkum Riff and Capt. Black - neither of which is as good now as they were back then.)
From the open tin of No 5, I get the burley right up front I also get the Black Cavendish and I can even smell the Virginias sneaking around in the background. What I, as someone who has been intimately familiar with good Tennessee Sour Mash and with Rye Whiskey, don't get is a sensory hit of either type of whiskey. If it's there it is so low key as to be undetectable. Sort of like the way a friend of mine likes the vermouth in his martinis - Set the unopened bottle next to the glass while he pours the Vodka. In otherwords, non-existent.
I have now smoked No. 5 in a clay, meerschaum, cob and briar and found it to be a smooth, satisfying smoke that is bite free. It has a nice mild flavor to my taste buds with just a hing of grassiness from the Virginia. I just couldn't shake the notion that I have smoked this before as a different label. Maybe it's a little like Prince Albert. Maybe it's a little like one of the old Amphora blends? I just don't know.
What I do know is that I found Comoy's Cask No. 5 to be a good smoke even if I can't find the Rye or Bourbon in it. I will buy it again because I think it is a good day-to-day tobacco.
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