Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) Sail Regular

The Virginia is grassy with some citrus, and forms the base of the blend. In an important support role is the toasty, nutty, woody, earthy burleys. The woody, dry, earthy, herbal, floral, vegetative, almost incense-like rather spicy Orientals are a continual presence in every puff as a secondary star. The Virginia cavendish provides a light undercurrent of honey, citrus and bread as a condiment. Has a light honey top note. The strength is a couple of steps past the center of mild to medium, while the taste is medium. The nic-hit is a slot behind the strength level. The one drawback is that if you are a constant, heavy puffer, you may find it biting your tongue just a mite, chiefly due the effect of the spice from the Orientals. Smoke slowly, and you'll avoid that. Burns clean at slightly more than a moderate pace with a very consistent, sweet and savory, spicy flavor from start to finish. Leaves little moisture in the bowl, and requires few relights. Has a pleasant, lightly lingering after taste. The room note is tad stronger. Can be an all day smoke. Three stars for the flavor, two for the bite potential which can be avoided without much difficulty.

Edit 10-22-14: I'm smoking from a fresh pouch, and noticed that the spice hit is less noticeable. Was the formula changed? This is much smoother and creamier than what I had smoked before, but less nuanced. The honey topping is a tad more obvious now. Less chance of bite, too. In fact, no bite. A little milder, too. Maybe they reduced the amount of the spicy Oriental a mite? Three stars for the latest version.

-JimInks

For a blend that I never see on the shelf in the local stores I'm suprised by the number of reviews. Recently purchased three 1.5 oz pouches from P&C. A lot different in taste then what I remember. It seems the 7 oz tin has a far better flavor. Speaking of which why is it that the 7 oz tin of SAIL is no longer available? But I digress. SY I find to be best suited for the more seasoned pipe smoker, especially if you enjoy a more earthy, natural cavendish. In a cob, the blend tends to get watery, almost sour (problem seems to be with the pouch it's stored in but not the tin). If you let SY dry out an hour before smoking it, it's a lot smoother and has a nice spicy overtone. Taste like you've biten into a spicy tangerine, slightly creamy-very rewarding smoke. Haven't quite pinned downed the room note, but I like it. Works best in a briar. Caution if you use a paper filter as it causes somewhat of a bite. If there was a "juicy fruit" of pipe tobacco this would be it. So remember these two things w/ SY: let 'er dry out for an hour and this blend's made for sipping by the more experienced smoker. A must in one's rotation.

Of all the Sail offerings, I find "Yellow" to be the most balanced and pleasant.

As where "Green" has absolutely NO tobacco taste -or taste at all, in fact- and "Natural" bites, bites, bites, "Yellow" displays some tobacco taste which will either be spicy, very lightly sweet and a little something else hard to describe. It does not really taste what the pouch aroma forecasts.

I waited 3 weeks after opening the pouch, making sure the humidity was minimal. When I felt dry tobacco, that is when I started smoking "Yellow". It smokes very well and leaves a nice bunch of grey ash on the bottom.

This is one I will definitively rebuy to accompany my Cob pipes whenever I go for a stroll outside the house.

I like this one. It's a very unassuming and mild tobacco that doesn't try to do too much. A nice pleasant honey flavoring has been added (to my taste) but it doesn't overpower the light burley/virginia tobacco. The room note is very nice but not even approaching the overblown character of your basic aromatic.

This has much less flavor than Skandinavik Regular or Full Aroma and is therefore a bit easier to smoke, if the smoker was an "all day" kind of guy. I got nothing approaching a bite from this - very mild and inoffensive. This is good enough to stock up on for those times I want something mild tasting, pleasing in aroma to those around me, and when my mind is on something other than my tobacco. Try this one if you're tired of overflavored or overly powerful nicotine tobaccos. This would be great while on a hammock on the beach in Fiji with some rum. 🙂

A quintessential example of Dutch blending art, from the Royal Theodorus Niemeyer Co., Groningen, The Netherlands.

The gently sweetened burley lends this mélange surprising body, the Turkish leaf a silken, nutty quality that plays well with the mellow Virginia, and the Cavendish adds a velvety finish.

As an habitual latakia fancier, I find this elegant, supple mixture a wonderful change-of-pace bonne bouche, especially in the morning. It burns cool and dry.

When I am ready to enjoy a simple pipe of tobacco without having to worry about room note or flavorings, Sail has been a good choice. I did not try this blend prior to its production by Orlik. Just a nice smooth blend with the burleys taking charge with a hint of VA flavor. Pleasantly sweet with no bite experienced. Also, this blend smokes smooth right down to the bottom of the bowl. No dottle, just a nice fine gray ash. Recommended for a mellow all-day smoke.

In the pouch, this appears to be a fine ribbon cut, quite evenly light to mid-brown, i..e likely not a wide variety of tobaccos; fairly moist. The pouch aroma to me is primarily Virginia, with a little honey/fruity scent; it tastes mildly sweet/sour, so it certainly has some Cavendish.

Smokes evenly and mild, not a lot of character, but very pleasant for a long smoke. I like my tobacco on the damp side, so this was perfect for me. I could detect no Oriental note and not a lot of casing flavour, certainly none of the old Sail anise scent. For an inexpensive tobacco, this is just fine, but the manufacturer's description led me to expect more character. Reminds me of Troost Aromatic Cavendish, which used to be my all-day smoke many years ago.

This will not be one my regular tobaccos, but I can recommend it for new smokers or anyone wanting relief from too many exotic flavours, stoved Virgina or heavy Latakia! In fact, I think I'll use it to blend & lighten some very rich house blends I have on hand....

Sail Yellow… I smoked my share of this stuff, back when… somewhere around the late 60's and 70's, and always found Sail Yellow (and Amphora) very enjoyable. When available both were regulars, along with several other so-called drug store blends. But after reading some of these reviews, it looks like the new product has changed enough to warrant a revisit of a old friend. So the following is my experiences with the latest SY product.

Pouch (42g) aroma for what it's worth, is a very mild cherry / tobacco scent, with maybe only a ghost of noticeable Orientals in the aroma or taste during the smoke. As I like my tobacco on the dry side, I put some out to dry, which it did nicely, (IMO) a good sign. The added drying also helps with bowl packing, as this stuff is so finely rubbed out, packing a damper tobacco can be easily overdone, and end up to tight in the bowl for a good draw. Hate that! Easy light up and plenty of tasty smoke followed, thankfully the strength increased as the bowl burned down, as it is a little too mild at startup, and still remained smooth and without any tongue bite. Very pleasant. Taste wise, I found this blend somewhat similar to a weak “Golden Slice” (flake, with a touch of anise) also an Orlik product. As far as blend changes over the years goes, who knows, but as it stands today, this is a excellent all day mild and well mannered smoke, well worth a try, in a briar or cob. For its intended niche 3 stars. My personal rating 4.5/5

Around last summer I met a friend of mine at Racine and Laramie Tobacconist in San Diego, CA Oldtown State Historic Park. A nice little tourist destination. Racine and Laramie have been there for over 50 years. The Park has the old west theme and the employees there dress in the usual old west garb. I have seen this one advertised in cigar and pipe tobacco catalogs for years and finally decided to try it. Also, and no fault of their own, CA loves to tax tobacco. This nice little yellow pouch was $12.25 plus sales tax and set me back around 13 dollars or so and was one of the cheaper selections. The package calls this an Original Dutch Cavendish whereas the web page on this lists the blend as Scottish. I will leave this debate to others. I decided to smoke a little more of this for the evening. The tin note was of a sweetness that I am guessing was cased with honey and or sugar water as there is no flavoring listed. The contents are of a nice dark brown broken flake. I would say that most of what I got out of the three bowls of this was of a natural flavor of the tobaccos with I dare say hardly any bite. The more I smoked of this it did start to remind me a little bit of Mac Baren’s Mixture Scottish Blend but without the bite. This blend is a little bit better than I thought as I associated this blind as some ‘old codger’ blend that you would pick up at the drug store. Though I have had plenty of ‘drug store’ blends that I like. Not a bad smoke indeed. If you are ever in San Diego, stop by and visit, a really nice store.

I am a builder by trade and imagine my excitement when I was contracted to build a home for a person who owns tobacco shops. Well, after visiting the shops, I quickly found out the tobacco shop was kind of like the average one carrying very little pipe tobacco things. Well, the owner claimed to have something special for me and met me one day. What he gave me was mind blowing. Three two pound bags of some sutliff bulks, one five pound bag of Lane MV1000 and a 7 oz tin of Sail Yellow that looked like it was opened to give samples.

Of this, the only thing I really cared for was the Sail Yellow. It is a pretty good aromatic in the Dutch tradition, that being a Virginia heavy blend with a light topping. The twist on this one is the inclusion of some oriental leaf in the mix which gives this a bit more of a citrusy sour type taste as well. I found this to be an enjoyable smoke, but would rather smoke PS Aromatic Dutch Slices or even Skandinavik Full Aroma Cavendish, which I think this one also lightly resembles.

I will give it a heads up for consistency though. The tin I had was old. It had been in a storage shed for several years from what I was told and was put there when they closed a store out a long time ago. It may have sat in that store for a long time as well. I am guessing it to be from the early 90's but have had some speculate that it looked to be the tins they offered in the 80's.

All that said, I was given a sample from 2012 to compare and the leaf looked and tasted identical. So there is something for that, particularly if you really like this blend. I just found it alright. In fact, the same person who sent me the 2012 sample also sent me a sample of the sutliff match and I actually preferred the match to the original.