Milk & Honey (Halav U'Duash) by Cornell & Diehl
About the series as a whole: I enjoy the Hebraica series by Cornell & Diehl. I like the whole lot immensely and believe these to be some of the most overlooked and underrated blends. These are all "full" blends with some assertive characteristics and subtle nuances; all a bit similar, obviously belonging together, yet each distinctive and possessing its own personality. The series comes from a collaboration between the late Craig Tarler and his long time friend William Serad. In collaboration, the two have created a number of C&D classics. William Serad was also a friend of Rabbi Ira Stone who asked Serad to put some blends together for him based on his favorites: Burley, Oriental and Perique. Thus the foundation of the series. I also like the themed tin art - I like the way the series has a particular tin aesthetic.
From the tin: Starting with a complementary base of black and red Virginia Cavendish, rough cut burley and dark-fired Kentucky are then mixed with exotic middle eastern orientals and a touch of perique to create this smooth, fragrant blend.
Upon opening the tin one is greeted with a slightly sour or musty smell with mostly darker ribbon cut tobaccos with a fleck of beige here and there. More black flecks than beige, the overall color is a dark brown. Amidst that musty smell is something else... a little hard to detect, but a bit of spice that wakes up the nose - just a bit.
Packing and lighting seems easy due to the finer ribbon cut. The tobacco rises to the flame and offers familiar flavors: very few sweet, some full bodied tobacco and some spicy or exotic. However this blend is strongly characterized, to me, by three things: Soft, Creamy and Cool. The flavors blend together pretty quickly into a solid blend with just a hint of sweet and then a hint of spice poking out every now and then, but overall the flavors meld to the softest in the Hebraica series. The perique is there to offer a bit of raisin and fig but it's very subtle; not a perique bomb by any means.
The overall flavor takes me back a bit to my last smoke of Presbyterian Mixture, but I know I like this better, and this one is softer.
The smoke offers a very creamy mouth feel which harkens to GLP Fillmore's mouth feel but this blend is a much gentler smoke.
The coolness of this blend is quite striking. I haven't "tried" to make it smoke hot yet, but I think it would actually take some effort. I'm using it recently to break in a new Savinelli belge. This is a great blend for breaking in a pipe.
EDIT/Addition: This blend is mostly "high notes". Everything: Virginias, Perique and Orientals all seem to bring mostly higher notes to the mixture. Burley and Dark-Fired are there but their presence is not forefront making this blend the most "top note" heavy blend in the series. That's not negative at all, just something that sets it apart from the others.
The most subdued of the Hebraica series, Milk & Honey won't dissapoint me on those days I'm looking for something comfortable with a bit of interest but easy to smoke.