Cornell & Diehl Cellar Series - Blends For the Eternal Optomist

ghostsofpompeii

Here I sit nearing 67 years old wondering what the next few years has in store for me and I flip through the pages of my latest Pipes And Cigars catalog and what do I find- Cornell & Diehl Cellar Series. And the caption brought a smile to my face ..."Blends For The Long-Haul". And I immediately thought - tobacco for the eternal optimist. 

From the catalog: Cornell & Diehl's Cellar Series is a collection of seven singular blends. All of these blends are created to reach the pinnacle of flavor after 10 to 15 years of aging. They are fine blends to enjoy right now, but if you have the patients to wait, you'll be rewarded. Even better, buy a few to try at different ages.

Four of the blends suggested aging time is 10 years: Vieux Carre, Old Grove, King Cake, and Joie Vivre - the other three require 15 years to achieve suggested aging perfection: Chennet's Cake, Bourbon Bleu and Oak Alley. Thankfully the description implies the blends are perfectly acceptable to be smoked immediately should you choose, because in my case it's not a matter of having enough patients to wait the 10 or 15 years ... with the current state of world events I just hope to be around long enough for the package to arrive. And thankfully Pipes And Cigars seems to have corrected their delivery SNAFU or that might have been a serious consideration.

Sounds like a great opportunity for pipe smokers new to the hobby to pick-up a few tins of each (current price $9.77) and see for themselves how the aging process affects the flavor of tobacco. The younger the buyer the better. As for me ... I'd pop them tins and enjoy the moment.

I have a feeling the impending FDA Deeming Regulations have actually turned all blends into something of a Cellar Series for us as we all stockpile our favorite blends for the uncertain future that lies ahead. 

daveinlax

Hopefully they finally got the the mold issues with these worked out. They really had a bad rollout with these last year.

JosiahWN

I love this idea and was excited to see cellaring advertised in this latest catalog. For the few years of my pipe smoking journey I knew nothing about cellaring. I wasn't on any forums and didn't have any experienced smokers helping me out I just sort of learned as I went. For that reason I learned a lot of things late, including cellaring which has become one of my favorite things to do, especially with blends that I'm not in love with after a few test bowls.

ghostsofpompeii

Just curious ... I have an unopened can of Velvet that is well over 15 years old and I was wondering if a cheaper quality OTC blend like Velvet can also improve with age?

PappyJoe

@ghostsofpompeii - the biggest difference would probably be the taste since the recipe has probably changed in the past 15 years as some crops of tobacco have changed.

Woodsman

The tobaccos that age best are Virginias, Latakia gets weaker with age, Burleys get slightly stronger. All this is subject to change IMHO.