Welcome to another episode of Tasting Notes. Today I was excited to finally get my hands on a handful of samples for a new series called the Legacy Collection by Per Georg Jensen. This is an exciting and first-time collaboration between one of modern day's most prolific and most influential tobacco blenders, Per Georg Jensen, and our own Jeremy Reeves of Cornell & Diehl.

These guys have known each other for a long time. I've known Per for a long time, and Jeremy and I came up in the pipe world really admiring the work that Per had done for Mac Baren and creating the HH line. Seeing these guys be able to finally collaborate on something is just amazing. I am going to smoke my way through all of the blends in the Legacy Collection and I decided to start with Harbour Dreams.

An Homage to Old-School Burleys

Harbour Dreams is an homage to an old-school American Burley, and this is a form of tobacco that is not super common on the market today. I think Cornell & Diehl has been known over the years for some of the really interesting Burley blends, and definitely some that fit right into the rotation of somebody that was an Edgeworth smoker, or somebody that appreciated the old-school, American-made Burleys.

Harbour Dreams is also a special homage, like all of the blends in the Legacy Collection, to Per's father who operated a pipe factory; He was a tobacco man, a pipe man, and also a maritime man who had a lot of interesting occupations surrounding Copenhagen's port, the Royal Navy, and all that good stuff.

Harbour Dreams is inspired by one of Per's father's favorite blends, which is a Burley-based blend. It has these really typical chocolatey and nutty kind of notes that we associate with Burleys, particularly the American style of blending them, and that's also a little bit of a throwback to Per in his youth, waiting for his father to get out of work and getting a chocolate ice cream nearby from the local ice shop.

I love the story of all of the Legacy blends, and I decided to start with Harbour Dreams, even though there's a couple of other blends that I will come back to later that are more up my alley on a regular basis. On paper, I was really fascinated with this blend and when I opened the tin and started to make my way and delve into it, it really did strike a chord with me how much it scratched that itch that I can only get from smoking a handful of Burley blends that are still on the market, but more importantly some of the stuff that I cellared years ago.

Comforting & Approachable Tin Note

Harbour Dreams is a ready-rubbed blend of mature Burleys and Virginia tobaccos, with notes of chocolate and roasted almond. The moment that I opened this, I was really struck with a super comforting, old-school Burley note. It's chocolatey, creamy, nutty, and earthy. Burley tobaccos inherently have a little bit of a cocoa vibe. There's definitely some spice on the retrohale, and a decent bit of nicotine, but it all comes together in this very approachable and comforting flavor profile. It has those rustic flavors and creamy nuttiness that's inherent to the Burley, and then a little bit of that chocolatey flavor. It's amazing.

It's pretty much exactly what you would expect. It smells like a baked goods shop, or an ice cream shop. There's also a hint of something zesty. There is some Virginia leaf in here so that does track.

I love the cut. It's ready-rubbed, with gorgeous, mostly light to medium brown leaves. It's at the perfect moisture content right out of the tin. I would pack this one straight away. I may have aerated it a little bit, but since it wasn't a flake that you rubbed out, I think it's pretty good to go in a variety of chamber sizes straight from the tin. It packs and lights beautifully, and takes to the flame very easily.

Nostalgic, American-Style Burley Flavors

From the first puff, this is really an incredibly nostalgic flavor profile for me, and I think it will be for many pipe smokers as well. If you've been in this game long enough, you've probably tried all kinds of stuff, including some of these old-school Burleys, and you might still enjoy them. I feel Burleys are a very common place for many of us to have either started or explored at some point earlier on in our pipe-smoking journey, particularly if you grew up with a pipe smoker in your family; There's a decent chance if you were American or in America and you grew up with a pipe smoker in the family that one of their favorite blends was probably an American-style Burley blend. There's so many of them that have stood the test of time, and there's a handful that are sadly no longer with us, but that were extremely popular.

When people say that the aroma of a pipe tobacco is nostalgic for them, it usually reminds them of their father or of their grandfather. They're either talking about a typical vanilla type of Aromatic, or in many cases, this is exactly what they're talking about: rich Burleys, chocolatey, slightly sweet. Like I said, it's extremely nostalgic for me, right off the bat.

I'm not exactly sure, off the top of my head, what age the mature Burleys are here, pre-production, but you can definitely feel it. The edges are rounded. It's slightly sweet on the front of the palate, but with a dry finish. There's an earthiness and a rustic quality to it, and definitely a little bit of a nutty quality, as well as that creamy chocolate flavor carrying through onto the palate, and especially through the retrohale.

I find this retrohale to be exceedingly pleasant, even though it's deceptively simple. Again, you're talking about just a classic American flavor profile that goes so well together. Through the nose, you do get a little bit of spice, and a little more nuance, but it just ties together all of those rustic and slightly sweet, chocolatey, cocoa, and nutty kind of flavors.

The smoke is nice and dense on the palate. It throws off a lot of smoke. You can really back off on this one and get some nuance. When you do push it, it is still extremely smooth, and I do not use that descriptor a lot, whether I'm tasting alcoholic beverages or tobacco, because I find it to be a relatively useless term, but it's a really good way to describe this tobacco and this style of tobacco. It's easy to enjoy, approachable, and it's classic for a reason.

More Sweetness & An Excellent Room Note

As the bowl progresses, I do get a little bit more sweetness. I feel like that sweetness is coming from the Virginia component here, and what it does is it balances out that dry finish, those earthy notes, and the cocoa and nuttiness, and it even gives the perception of something fruity. Maybe like a chocolate-covered cherry a little bit.

I do tend to get that with Perique, but with some Burleys and Virginia combinations, I tend to pick that up as well. There's definitely some marzipan, like a Turkish Delight kind of a vibe. I'm getting various nutty confections. It's a no-nonsense and no-frills tobacco that I think is equally enjoyed by the purists out there, those who are mostly English smokers or Virginia smokers, and even a crossover mixture if you do prefer a little bit of an aromatic quality, but you really want to also have the influence of the natural tobacco flavors.

The room note is excellent. It's like a bake shop. Whether you're smoking outside, or you're in mixed companies indoors, this is something that everybody around you is gonna say, oh, that smells so good. It's this classic combination, and like I said, I can't overuse the word nostalgic here.

A Dynamic Collaboration

This blend does have a little more body and complexity than I'm used to for this type of a blend. That's the beauty of two master blenders like Per and Jeremy being able to work together to give us something that is nostalgic and is a return to tobacco blending's heyday, but similarly is a modern approach, with super high-quality components, and something that you can just reach for and smoke over and over again.

Today I am smoking Per Georg Jensen Legacy Collection Harbour Dreams in a Smokingpipes 20th Anniversary by Tom Eltang. It has a little bit of a bigger chamber, maybe like a Group Three or Four for me, and for a cut like this and a tobacco like this, I really wanted to take my time and see how it evolved throughout the bowl.

I'm very excited about this collaboration between C&D's Jeremy and Per Georg Jensen. We have three more blends in the Legacy Series and I intend to smoke through all of them and let you know what I think. These blends really speak to what they themselves as blenders have achieved over the last many years of combined experience. It's a return to their roots in terms of the types of tobaccos that got them into this, and the type of tobaccos that you just don't really find too much more on the market these days. I really appreciate the work that these two guys have done over the last many years and I can't be the only one that's thrilled about this collaboration. Make sure you check out these blends.