For many pipe smokers, Cornell and Diehl, despite their 400+ blends, equates to strong burly blends. Haunted Bookshop, Big’N’Burley, Old Joe Krantz, and their Burley Flakes are recognized for being bold, rough and tumble, and unapologetically strong. However with 40 burley blends and counting, there is a wider range of flavors C&D offers. Among these are Pegasus and Habana Daydream.
Pegasus is a simple mixture of Virginia and Burley with just a touch of cavendish. It’s styled after the pouch burleys of old. Once an also also ran, Pegasus has had bit of surge in popularity and now is the 10th most bought burley from smokingpipes.com
Habana Daydream isn’t technically a burley blend, but cigar leaf with latakia, virginia, perique, and cavendish. However since there are so few cigar blends out of there I tend to lump them in with burley. Its old name included its number, #420, making it one of the least fortunately name pipe tobacco blends, as anything with ‘Havana’ or ‘Cuba’ in its name tends to be suspect as does anything with High Times level stoner culture. But I’m always intrigued by having a pipe that’s evocative of cigars, so I gave it a gamble.
OVERVIEW
BULK or TIN:Â Â Â Bulk and Tin
SIZE:Â Â Bulk by the ounce, 2 oz tins
ORIGIN:Â Â USA
AGE WHEN SMOKED:Â Â Uh, 6 years. Forgot about these.
BLENDING HOUSE/PRODUCER:Â Â C&D
BLENDING COMPONENTS:Â Â
Pegasus: Burley, Virginia, Cavendish
Habana Daydream: Cigar leaf, Virginia, Latakia, Perique, Cavendish
STRENGTH:Â Â
Pegasus: Solid 4/7
Habana Daydream 4 pushing 5/7
SOURCE:Â Â smokingpipes.com
ENVIRONMENT
WHERE:Â Â
Central PA
WHEN:Â Â
Summer 2023
WEATHER:Â Â
Warm, a little sticky
WHAT’S ON:Â Â
The ice cream truck’s jingle on repeat
PRODUCTION
RELEASE TYPEÂ Â available
SPECIAL RELEASE Â N
AVAILABILITY BREAKDOWN
o Bulk Â
o Tin
RESEARCH & BACKGROUND INFO
- Pegasus boasts having 3 different burleys and 2 different Virginias
- Pegasus is purportedly patterned after Phillip Morris’s Bond Street blend
- Habana Daydream is one of nine cigar leaf blends from C&D
PRE-LIGHT OBSERVATIONS
LOOK & FEEL OF THE LEAF
Looking at these two blends you’ll find that visually they are nearly identical, with a generic medium brown leaf. Touch them and you’ll find Pegasus has a very sticky feeling, but Habana Daydream is quite dry.
TIN AROMA
Pegasus smells heavily of earth and cocoa, underpinned by raisins figs, and dates, with a whiff of barnyard.
Habana Daydream is surprisingly smoky – that Latakia is up front. Behind that is earth, seawater, must, old books, and a sharp vinegar.
SMOKING EXPERIENCE
LIGHT & DRAW
Packing Style:Â I started Pegasus with a codger scoop, but after several smokes I found this stuff needs to be packed pretty firmly, either with a multi pinch, or a heavy Frank.
I could tell just by the dryness of Habana Daydream it needed a heavy pack, I did the standard 3 step pinch and it felt right.
Fire:Â Pickle Bic
SMOKE & ROOM NOTE
Pegasus gives off a very wispy smoke that smells um, I already was nice and said barnyard once. The side stream is straight horse manure. It’s weird.
Habana Daydream is more pleasant on both counts, it’s creamy, with a toast and cocoa aroma.
PEGASUS
>>Â 3 hour dry, Frank Method pack, MM Dwarf Cobbit
Starts with cocoa and must. This is sugary. There’s a hint of mesquite with some lemon peel. Oily walnuts. Sweet cocoas, walnuts, lemon, and salt for good while. Then the umami picks up, the mesquite strengthens and some black pepper comes through. Something green, pine needles is the closest thing I can name. Strong lemon oil, salt, must, and sugary sweet. There’s lots of Virginia hear. Sulphur, mesquite, and very spicy. Lemon, sweet hay, nutty. Light earth, cocoa finish, and sour cream.
This was much more Virginia heavy than I expected. I suspect that my unintentional aging might have changed the balance of the burley and VA.Â
HABANA DAYDREAM
>> No dry time, 3 Pinch Pack, Briarworks Buckeye
Earth, leather, and red fruit to start. And quite a bit of pepper. It’s very oily already. It’s sweet. Cumin, a touch of salt, crushed red pepper flakes, fruit, cocoa, and coffee. Well this is something. After just a bit more the pepper recedes mostly, letting a strong must and hay pop through. It’s sugar and wheat – not unlike one of my favorite breakfast cereals. The finish is long with cocoa-coffee flavors and a lingering oil on the tongue. Musty cumin takes the lead, with raspberry, cocoa, and a sweet peppery finish.Â
At the halfway mark a mild vinegar appears and then grows exponentially, bringing with it more of the raspberry taste. Earth, nuts, and a hint of sour cream – maybe that’s why they called it Habana. The cumin swings back again. The pepper holds at a medium spice level. Becomes more cigar like in the final phase, with earth, leather, and nuts being prominent, but still with the vinegar-hay-sugar combo holding back the cigar like experience.
Letting Habana Daydream rest for a long while in my cellar likely also let the Virginia presence grow, but the other condiments still all made their presence well known. The heavy pepper I suspect is also a byproduct of aging. I notice the C&D blends with perique tend to be pretty peppery after a couple years, so expect more balance if you are smoking new make.
RATING & FINAL THOUGHTS
FLAVOR PROGRESSION
While the flavors certainly changed, Pegasus didn’t ever develop a distinct progression. It began and ended with sugar, lemon, and nutty flavors. The mid section showed mesquite and pine needles. But there was never a clear through line.
Habana Daydream was a clear two halves burn. The first half was sugar, wheat, spice, earth, and cumin. The 2nd half is marked by a strong white Vinegar, raspberry, earth, nuts, and that cubanesque sour cream flavor.
Â
BURN EXPERIENCE
I’ve smoked 30 or so C&D blends, and another dozen GL Pease Blends made at the same factory and none of them have given me any trouble when it comes to burn performance. Until now that is. Pegasus, even with long drying times was loathe to catch fire and unwilling to stay lit. The only thing that made it halfway manageable was to dry it, pack it tight, and crush the bowl with your tamper on a regular basis.
Habana Daydream burned quite easily, maybe even too easy for some. Its better to pack it tightly so make sure it doesn’t burn too fast or hot.
SIMILAR BLENDS
Pegasus is most reminiscent of C&D Innismouth, a lemony-musty Virginia-Oriental Blend. The sweet-sour-fruit-cocoa notes are similar to lighter bulk burleys like Peter Stokkebye 702 and Sutliff 212, but spiked with plenty of pepper. Also quite like C&D Burley Flake #5, which I suspect is patterned after this Pegasus. However that piney note in a burley blend is something new to me.
Habana Daydream sounds like it would be similar to its stablemate C&D Billy Budd, but despite the similar component list, Habana Daydream is distinct and well integrated while BIlly Budd is a confusing mess. Instead Habana Daydream is closer to Dreams of Kadath, but is far better, without the weird menthol-glue-old carpet taste.
RATING BREAKDOWN
Pegasus/Habana Daydream
0.25 /0.25Â / 0.50 … Craft & Aesthetic
0.20 /0.30Â / 0.50 … Tin Aroma
0.05 /0.50Â / 0.50 …Â Lighting Process
5.50 /6.50Â / 8.00 … Smoking Experience
0.10 /0.35Â / 0.50 …Â Personal Enjoyment
COMPLIMENTS & CRITIQUES
- Pegasus has a unique pine needle flavor
- Habana Daydream is wonderfully complex
- Pegasus does not burn well at all
WAKE UP CUZ.
Despite it’s ludicrous name, Habana Daydream #420 is one of the better cigar blends I’ve had, though it’s maybe also the most nuanced. Age has amplified the Virginia and Perique presence, but that doesn’t do much to take away a pretty good impression of a solid medium Cuban cigar, with funky cumin and sour cream notes. It won’t replace your grey market Bolivars Belicosos and H. Upmann Half Coronas, but also it’s $3 for for about 10 smokes, not $300.
Pegasus has in the last few years gone from a forgotten entry in C&D’s burley offerings after the big hitters Haunted Bookshop and Old Joe Krantz, to a cult hit. Unlike those bastions, Pegasus is more balanced. It’s moderate in the nicotine department and has more than just base burley flavors. After a few years in the jar, it’s almost unrecognizable as a burley, being dominated with light lemon-hay sweet flavors, with the burley coming through as walnut and mesquite. It’s a different and refreshing take, and well worth looking into if you are either easing your way into burley blends, or trying to find something that’s less like taking a blackjack to the head.
