Sutliff Tobacco Company Matured Red Virginia 515 RC-1

A straight red virginia that is very heavily cased with propylene glycol, sugar, and vinegar which is unfortunate. In the jar I smell a lot of sweetness and vinegar with a little tobacco in the background. Mild nicotine.

It could be a 3 or 4 star tobacco, but the unjustifiable amount of PG makes it 1 star. I can taste the PG (or some other chemical) all the way through the bowl and it ruins what appears to be a nice red virginia.

If you like the sugar and vinegar thing (think McClelland), I suggest getting some of those fine C&D blending virginias, which have no PG or sweeteners, and add your own casing.

Tin note : Grassy, ketchup, vinegar, rose and citrus.

Flavor : When I first got this blend, all I got was ketchup and vinegar. Almost hated it. After letting it sit in the pouch for a month. The ketchup and vinegar notes toned down.

They were still there but not as much as the first few bowls. It became a more rounded blend. I managed to get some hints of grassy, tomatoes and carrot notes. This blend is really sweet, tangy and savory. There are also hints of rose or rosewater as well as stone fruits such as raspberry, peaches and mangoes.

This tobacco can taste fruity and tartly at times. Has very little rough edges, if any.. The flavor stays consistent throughout the bowl (even untill the very end).

Room note : according to my friends, Pleasant.

Mechanics : This is a ribbon cut. However, it tends to be quite springy and bouncy. So, try to avoid pushing it back in too hard, thus overpacking or packing it too tightly.

It requires quite a couple of charring lights to get going. Requires couple relights across the bowl.

With all that, It is not a challenging blend nor is it a really straightforward smoke in my experience.

Tongue bite : This blend barely bites. However, it might make the pipe wet and the stem might get gurgly. Hence, My advise is to keep a pipe cleaner or two to run through the stem mid-smoke.

Summary : Overall, This is a really good blend. In the initial stages it really put me off as I never was a ketchup guy. All it needed was a little time to sit and perhaps.. some air exposure.

I will really recommend it to new smokers as my friends who just started seem to enjoy it. One of them, bought 2 oz of it and smoked it pretty fast.

However, since it does not favor my palette, I will leave it at 3 stars.

Will i buy this again : not really

HOLY COW!!! Finally found a good replacement for McClelland's Red-Cake!! Haven't had anything this close compare! Oh Happy Day!

I am a HUGE fan of all McClelland blends and was devastated when they closed their doors. Since, I have been on the hunt to find any blends that can either replicate or at least come close to some of these blends. I haven't found any direct replacements.

However, I have yet to find any the directly correlate, though I will share on this forum if I find any for those interested.

With all that being said, this blend seems to be a good replacement, not exact replica, for McClelland's 5100 RedCake. I'm going to experiment with adding this tobacco to a few others to see how close I can get to some McClelland blends.

It's a nice ribbon cut of red and brown tobaccos that loads and lights easily with the standard two light method. It stayed lit easy with light tamping and regular sipping. It had some rough edges if sipped too hard or too often. Otherwise it was a perfectly sweet, sour, tangy, bready and just a bit toasty. Flavors remind me of all the VAs in the McC. blends. Love it!! This will be a go-to and staple from me going forward.

Coming forward as a simple ribbon cut presentation, the bulk 515 RC-1 production encompasses an honest grandstanding of choice matured Red Virginian leaf. Although I do get a sense there is just an inkling of Bright hiding within based upon the acknowledgeable nose and developing taste registration. Nevertheless, the premier quality of this arrangement, as one will discover, is on the focused importance of wholesomely dense Red strains assembled in an unassuming yet captivating manner. What is more, this straightforward mixing encounters with a picture-perfect degree of optimum moistness.

Primarily dark in composure, the blend demonstrates an inviting face of common red/brown-casted goodness. Offering a reasonably contained pouch aroma, as you would have it, the fundamentally sweet tangy essence registers with a full charge of aged Virginian wood, seasoned fruity earthiness, and some subdued weathered hay, for all purposes sequestered by the undeniable presence of sourly determined vinegar.

With an easeful packing effort, 515 RC-1 lends itself to a well-mannered smoking experience overall as the general mechanical performance and creature comforts make for a truly enjoyable excursion. And even though the mixture is less presumptuous vibrato or staged complexity, the end flavorsomeness achieved by Sutliff’s efforts proved to be quite noteworthy.

In a beautifully ordinary fashion, the mild-medium tobacco projects a consistently warm comforting flavor of rustic wood as its base tempered character. Building some ornamental context, one can denote the active commenting of a sweet, tanged spiciness that tastefully annotates and surrounds this wooded surface. Being well cultured in its accenting influence, this embellishment records reliably in grooming the predominant matured flavor with a subtle and suggestive wine-like quality.

Still further, additive colorizing takes the form of some complementing nuances of muted caramel, fleeting bread, and a mellowed citrus hay. Last, the registration also reveals a run of darker fruit, seasoned floral-ness, sour tart, and an abiding tinge of common malty sweeter vinegar. Not overly charismatic as to actual streaming movement on the whole, keep in mind. However, it should be noted that the savor of the minimally embellished tobacco is clearly of a steady character, being perhaps one of the finest straight Red Virginian offerings that I have yet had the pleasure to be satiated by.

Functionally, the production of resulting smoke plumage is of ample body for a conventional Virginian specimen, leaving a warm inviting aroma of reserved sweet-tart earthen, spiced wood. Foreseeably pleasant to tolerant in received demeanor, 515 RC-1 is properly classed as a welcomed companion for the avid Red Virginia enthusiast. Similarly, there is little doubt that this Sutliff blend would make for a nice introduction to those embarking on an new adventure in experiencing this particular varietal.

So, with a final thought, I suppose the tobacco could equally serve as a nice representative mixing component, but let me tell you, as a standalone experience it remains delightedly pleasurable indeed. Its tasteful simplicity is generously magnanimous in impact, in a word. My friends if you do enjoy the darker renditions afforded by a quality Red Virginian selection, or by chance you are an unfortunate virgin to this wonderful strain, then I highly recommend that you take the opportunity to discover the truth of that assertion for yourself. Go grab a pipeful and slowly sip its drawing marvel. Needless to say, I don’t believe you will be a tad disappointed in the least. 3.6 Pipes

This is as close to McClelland 5100 as you're going to find. Just add some Perique and all is well. Just a damn fine blending Virginia.

If it's like 5100, I think it's more like Scotty's Old Red(it's gone off the market),except this one is a little more powerful.

I like the vinegar mixture, which reduces alkaline burns. and in addition to smoking it, I'm now ready to toss again.

REEKS of acetic acid from the pack - not tangy ketchup - so pungent it actually makes me involuntarily recoil when I put my nose in the jar.

Now, mechanically, it lights and burns well. It might indeed be good tobacco... but I can't taste it through the overpowering sour vinegar taste. I honestly cannot imagine how this would be pleasant even if blended.

I never had the opportunity of tasting McClelland 5100 Red Cake but I can't imagine this stuff is remotely what it was like. And in fact, based on the wonderful reviews for this (and the other quality Sutliff blends I have tried), I can only imagine I got a 'bad batch'. But man, what a bad batch it is. Either 515 RC-1 intentionally tastes like this (horrible) or Sutliff's quality control is poor. And viewing the other reviews here by date order, it does seem that something has gone wrong in 2021 - the previous poor reviews are complaints about flavour being too artificial/chemical - the unsmokable/doused in vinegar reviews all date from 2021...

This is honestly a new low for me - it is so bad I feel that I need to increase all my previous reviews by a star to make room for this - as it unfair to the quality of previous 1 star blends.