Butera Golden Cake

Chestnut brown with shades of tan, this broken flake has the signature McClelland fermented Virginia tin nose that people seem either to love or hate. I happen to love it. The flakes are cut thinner than many McClelland VA's, so it's much easier to rub out and load. Takes to the match very well without the need for over-drying. In fact, I smoked this one with more moisture content than I typically do with flakes.

As I was smoking this, I was wracking my brain to try and figure out which McC blend this was. I went back through everything I could find and could not come up with anything. I presume that since this is a Butera blend, there may have been some sort of agreement between the two parties to make it unique, and it is. I'm not the biggest straight lemon VA fan there is, but this one has made me a believer. There's no overemphasis on sweetness or honey or citrus. This has a decently sweet flavor but there is a nice spice as well, almost perique-like but not quite. More hay than grass, but both descriptors do this blend an injustice by hinting that it is just another straight VA. It's not. This may be the finest example of an Old belt bright leaf tobacco blend in existence. Perhaps even better than the Cut Virginia Plug I just smoked from F&T. They are different from each other but this one seems further off the beaten path. This one has a lot more dimension to it than most of its kind. McClellands, who probably own the crown of finest virginia blend producer in the U.S, earned it on the strength of blends like this. Then again, it's Mike Butera's recipe. 🙂

This blend came to me in a 4 year old unopened tin. Being a straight Virginia flake, I thought the aging would make this blend extra special, and indeed it was. It was naturally sweet, with a hint of sweet hay as I puffed which deepened as I worked my way down the bowl. A slow burning leaf that never bit. Very enjoyable and the tin didn't last long.

Pipestud

This is a super golden Va. Seriously. A lot of McClelland Va's are misses with me. I really like MV 24 and Rich Virginia Ribbon if that tells you anything about my tastes, but many other McC Va's start out great and soon sink into blandness for me.

Butera Golden Cake has no McClelland equivalent. It's a unique flake they make for the Butera series. In terms of casing, I sometimes feel this has some added honey going on, but I don't always get that impression, so it's a pretty clean straight Va.

This one is very full flavored for a McC Va. It isn't terribly complex, but the flavor really delivers to the end of the bowl. It's pretty sweet, occasionally showing honey notes. Not as grassy as a lot of golden Va's. Overall the biggest impression is tobacco, not the sugar, and that's why I like it so much. The closest tobacco I could compare this to is Samuel Gawith's Medium Virginia Flake, but they are quite different. They are like these two house's interpretation of the same ideal, which is a lovely, sugary golden Va flake. I adore both tobaccos and they're a couple of my very favorite warm weather smokes.

I rate Golden Cake very high, without reservation one of my top ten tobaccos, and a sleeper Va that will delight Va smokers, even if other McClelland Va's haven't done it for you.

update 21March2016: I wanted to give a shout out to DK. When I first started exploring Va's his reviews here were vital to me. When you find someone here you've identified as having a similar palate it really saves you a lot of time exploring new genres of tobacco by using their experience to guide you. Coming from Latakia and Burley blends, I found DK's prolific body of reviews here extraordinarily helpful, so thank you very much DK!

The Virginia offers mild honey and tart and tangy citrus with some other fruit and a touch of earth. For the most part, the “vinegar” dissipates fairly quickly. There’s some spice, and a bit of grass and hay, along with a sour, acidic note at times. Needs a little rubbing out, and a little dry time. The nic-hit is just below the potency of the strength threshold, which is in the center of mild to medium The taste barely hits the medium mark. Burns a tad warm, very clean and slow with a sweetly, spicy consistent flavor, and could nip at the tongue if puffed at a fast rate, so sipping the smoke is recommended. Needs some relights. Has a nice after taste, and the room note is pleasant. Not quite an all day smoke.

-JimInks

Butera?s Royal Vintage Golden Cake is a zesty flue-cured bright pipe tobacco blended by the McClelland Tobacco Company.

The tin aroma is very tangy with a naturally sweet, bread-like undertone. The aroma is strong in the acidic dimension but enjoyably so. Golden cake is composed of a high quality long leaf Virginia tobacco. The color of this tobacco is of a lighter caramel/gold and has strips of yellow throughout. A generous amount of sugar crystals are present on this tobacco.

Butera?s Golden Cake is layered and aged in cakes then cut into large and thick flakes. The flakes are softer than many other similar flake tobaccos and they rub out averagely well. The blend also packs well. The flakes have a medium high initial moisture level but eliminating the moisture does not tend to alter any of the tobacco?s smoking characteristics.

Golden Cake lights readily and evenly, and when considered relatively to other flake tobaccos, it does so wonderfully. The blend burns and spreads nicely and does not require over drawing to keep the tobacco burning. The ash is soft and without any dottle. The room note is medium in strength and has an enjoyable tartness.

The flavor of Golden Cake is tangy but has a definite sweet dimension with a true warm Virginia tobacco taste. Golden Cake is not stoved and because of this has little dark spiciness but instead has interplay between the sweet and the sour. Golden Cake smokes best with full steady draws, which yields the best taste from the tobacco and the least amount of tongue bite. This blend does not smoke overly hot considering its components. The smoke produced is medium.

Butera?s Royal Vintage Golden Cake is a great example of a bright Virginia Flake tobacco. The blend has wonderfully distinct yet well-proportioned flavors, a welcome contrast to the equally enjoyable deep stoved blends.

Butera's recipes for McClelland are very underrated. Golden Cake is maybe the best. I came to this blend late but I now have it as a regular in my rotation. Its a straight up unadorned Virginia. Not heavily stoved, if at all, but pressed into dark blond flakes. Reminds one a bit of Best Brown Flake (but considerably darker and fuller...though there is a resemblance in taste).. But better IMHO. if you like lighter virginias on occasion (lemon virginia i would guess in this case), with real sweetness from the tobacco and not from any casing, then this is for you.

Addendum: I have to say after a year of smoking this blend, alongside McCellands 1776, Blackwoods Flake, and even Gawith's FVF.....I think this is perhaps my favorite straight virginia. I suppose it depends on one's love of a particular varietal....or if you like more stoving or any number of things. But yo cannot beat this for full flavor, cool burning, no bite, and simply elegant complexity. A ten star blend.

An outstanding, well rounded smoke. A fairly strong note of hay with a nice tang to it. A little more sour than sweet. Just a hint of something similar to lemon and a touch of spice. Has a mild sharpness on the retrohale that gives it a nice edginess. Great in briar and clay, but a cob brings out the flavor just a little better. I like it best chopped and dry. Burns very well.

Medium in body and taste. I can't detect any honey or other additives. Not terribly complex, just a straight-forward, very well done Virginia flake.

Butera - Golden Cake.

Because of the name I thought a Sunday morning would make the perfect relaxed time to sit, unrushed, and prepare a krumble kake. So I felt a bit moronic when I opened it this morning to be met by flakes! Which leads me onto my next point nicely: whole flakes, not broken ones as the description states. They're fairly dark, and medium in thickness.

Golden Cake screams quality. It has more of a genteel flavour, than just being Virginia-sweet, or sharp grass, alone. There's a delicate sweetness, just enough, and a slightly grassy/hay-like note; not as sharp as is often found in Va's. When I retro-hale the flavour becomes sweeter, and the hay note diminishes. Flawless, this describes the burn perfectly: relatively cool, and extremely consistent.

I quite like the room-note, and the nicotine from it's mild to medium.

One of the best straight Virginia's there is.

Highly recommended.

Having tried other Butera blends, this is my first go round with the McClelland made ones. First let me say that with few exceptions, I am not a huge fan of straight bright Virginas. But this one won me over. Sweet, a tad bit of nuttiness and best smoked (for me) by letting the flakes pieces dry and keeping them in tact as much as possible. There is a bit of a nic kick to RVGC too although not strong. There is the usual McClelland smell that comes from the aging/fermenting of their Virginias, but I don’t find it off putting. I don’t get much of the citrus note but mainly just sweetness with a tiny bit of spice along with a little bit of the expected hay. I sometimes find myself over puffing (the worst thing with this type of blend) when smoking lemon Virginias in an effort to get a bolder flavor. That is not the case here as there is plenty of flavor to satisfy me. RVGC wouldn’t be a regular blend, but when in the mood, RVGC fits the bill nicely.

This is blended by McClelland's, in my opinion, one of the best "Virginia" blenders out there. It does have the familiar sweet and sour McClelland flavors, It has nice balance between high and base notes, it is spicy as you smoke the first 1/3 of the bowl but calms down during the last 2/3's'. Very flavorful on relights, no bite and ample "N". Interesting through the whole smoke. Reminds me of McC "Boston 1776"