Sutliff Tobacco Company Stoved Virginia #507-S

It's taken me a while to come around to this one. TBH and to my tastes, I am not a Sutliff fan at all. I don't like the obvious vinegar tastes, the aromatics put me off, and of most of what I've tried over the years, the quality of the leaves they use just taste cheap to me. I always enjoyed McClelland Virginia's and IMO, I don't believe very many blends out there compare to what McClelland had. I loved McClelland 2035 dark navy flake. It was a very cool burning, sweet, deep, tangy, spicy, and solid flake and I miss that stuff alot. So when sutliff released 507s, I was skeptical of it. I have never had McClelland 5105 stoved virginia so I can't compare them.

For once im smoking a sutliff product that doesn't taste a Pall Mall cigarette soaked in vinegar. No its not a flavor bomb or the best smoke of the century, but it does have decent flavor. And no vinegar thank God!

The bag note is a sugary caramelized sweetness with a little bit of a white bread. The cut is super chucky. I put mine in a food processor to break it up. Next time, I'll press it and flake cut it. From beginning to end, the flavor is consistent, dark, sweet, sugary, a little creamy, with some citrus tang and a little spice. Also some of the white bread notes come thru from time to time. You can chief the hell out of it and it will not bite. I find aggressive puffing brings out stronger flavors without getting hot or bite.

I find 507s pretty decent at a decent price point. It's definitely not McClelland 2035 Dark Navy Flake, but there is enough there to remind me of it.

I don't know how it is as a blender, but on its own it's a decent all day smoke without burning out your taste buds. Not that my opinion matters, but I do recommend it.

Bought for mixing but smoked it as is. Smoking now: The bag note reminds me of sweet sun tea. There’s a bit of fermented hay (tea leaves) very slight tang (lemon) and lots of sweet sugar (the sugar in your tea). It smells heavenly. Has a cooked sugar smell like maple. The leaves are HUGE. This isn’t ready rubbed tobacco these are the biggest leaves I’ve ever seen in pipe tobacco. Obviously this is meant for mixing. However it packed and lite just fine. Comes rather dry, or in my opinion the perfect moisture. This is a mixing tobacco. The taste. This has a pretty easy going and mellow body. The typical harshness of Virginia is toned way down by the stoving process. There’s dark hay flavors, slight fermented bread dough, dark sugar sweetness. It’s pure Virginia tobacco cooked down for pure smoking enjoyment. Retrohale does give you a mild Virginia sting but is worth it for the grassy hay and citrus notes. This reminds me of sun tea, in that it’s a no bullshit all natural sweetened tobacco. Would smoke this again by it self and will have fun mixing it. For what its intended job is I give it 4 stars. Can’t wait to see what this does over time. *update 1-1-23* Smoking a bowl of this 2 plus years later after smoking many more Virginias. Yeah this is a one dimensional mild sweet Virginia. Lemon tea is still a pretty good analogy for this. A little harsh or stinging on the retrohale. Definitely smokable on its own. Nic is mild

Summary: a mild, flavorful sweet Virginia roasted to perfection.

Almost nothing in nature proves as convenient as an apple, which we just pick off the tree and enjoy. For most foodstuffs, we have to breed them selectively, choosing the high producers and making more of them instead of directly manipulating genes, then ferment them, press them, dice them, age them, and cook them. The same proves true of tobacco: probably from the same young stock red Virginia as their other blends, "507-S" goes through a roasting process that drives out most of the acid and ammonia, leaving behind an easy-smoking blend with a faint hint of maple and fruit, probably from whatever cased the blend before roasting. Although wet, it burns easily, and delivers a natural caramel flavor all the way to the bottom of the bowl. You could smoke this one straight all-day and not be dissatisfied, but if you mix it 60-40 with Burley and then add in your favorite aromatic as a third of the mix, you will end up with a lighter aromatic that loses none of its flavor. I would not use this in English blends without adding some bright and brown Virginias, but it might make a near-perfect vaper if you tossed in some bright Virginia and a little white Burley.

Edit: 19 July, 2021 I’m revisiting this review to knock off a couple of stars. Since this review, I’ve experienced a lot of great tobacco. This isn’t one of those. Two stars.

Original review: 27 February, 2021 I’m two months into pipe smoking, after an absence of maybe eight years. Of course, my previous foray was relatively short. But it was long enough for me to have already gone through the familiar route of aromatics to English to Virginia blends.

So when I came back, I already knew what I like, but only in a in-the-ballpark sense. I initially focused on VaPers, but maybe half a dozen blends in, I realized I’m not especially fond of perique, other than very lightly.

So straight Virginias it is. And, at this point, I decided it was probably a good idea to spend a little time getting to know the different variations of Virginia out there.

And, after reading a LOT of reviews on here of a lot of different tobaccos, I decided to buy some fairly significant quantities of Sutliff’s 515-RC, their red Virginia, and this, its stoved counterpart.

I’ve got to say, in both cases, I’m in love.

But let’s focus on this stoved stuff. I’m not the type of smoker who can detect a whole lot of minute tasting notes. But with this, I detect a little tang. But not nearly as much as the red. It’s barely there, comparatively.

This stuff, I would primarily call this sweet.

But it’s so much more than that. It smokes nice and cool. And I’m not quite sure exactly what I’m describing, but there’s a softness of sorts in the smoke in my mouth. It’s just a luxurious, decadent kind of smoke.

And once I get past the halfway point in a bowl, that slight tanginess all but disappears, and I experience a superb sweetness reminiscent of Samuel Gawith’s Full Virginia Flake but — dare I? — better.

I’m still learning my way around this stuff, so this review will almost certainly be updated.

But at this point, I love it alone. I love it mixed with the aforementioned Red Virginia and the lightest sprinkle of granulated perique. That, my friend, beats almost all the various VaPers I’ve sampled over the last couple of months.

At this point, I’m going to stop singing its praises, because I want it to be in stock the next time I order. And that’s going to be soon, because I want to put some away, because it’s likely to be like silk made out of sugar with a little age.

At the moment, I’m definitely a Sutliff bulk man. And I haven’t even mentioned Virginia Slices yet.

Jar note of toast, mild tart fruit and peaty vegetation. Tobacco is a mostly fat ribbon cut of mostly black and a little dark brown. Moisture content is great. Burns slow with a few extra relights. The strength is medium and nic is mild. No flavoring detected. Taste is medium to full and very consistent, with notes of mildly sour dark fruit, spices, floral, sugar, savory, rich, zesty, wood, earth, mild fermented vinegary, mildly bitter orange peel, bready, mildly acidic, sweet hay, a tart and tangy citrus background note, and a peppery retro. Room note is pleasant, and aftertaste is great.

I don't love the cut, big sort of torn chunks of leaf. Jar notes are very nice, fruity, mainly raisin I think. In the smoke I get more raisin and maybe some tart apple, mild to moderate sweetness. Ridiculously mild, it's been rare to find a tobacco which doesn't produce a heavy cough if I try to inhale a little bit of smoke, but this one doesn't. Mild on the nicotine and flavor, maybe a little too mild for my tastes by itself. Probably be two stars if it were a blend aspiring to be more than it is, but for what it is, I'm comfortable with three.

Sutliff Stoved VA 507-S has a jar note that is rich and deep with sweetness, some dark fruit notes and a little earthy. In the pipe, there is a fermented and tangy dark fruit note that move toward tart at times, it is very earthy with a note or two of wood, a slight yest/bread note and at times subtle note of lemon peal that comes and goes. It does take several false lights before it gets going but after it takes light it burns with just a few relights. The nic is at the middle of the mild to med range but the flavor is med full end, something that at least for me is not often said. It will not bite and the room note for me is very nice but wins no awards with the wife. The flavors do not develop toward the bottom as I expected what I get in the initial few puffs is all that is there so don't push this as it will get bitter. I prefer this in a medium sized bowl if smoking it straight. When mixed it adds depth and that dark fruity note that goes with just about anything. My 4 oz sample was very chunky and it is better if placed in a blender and briefly cut down a little when adding it to another blend. This is an easy 4 stars.

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 doesn't directly correlate to a single McClelland blend, but it DOES provide the sweet, toasty, slightly bready, experience I have enjoyed within McClelland Virginia blends as well as their Virginias in any of their blends. If this was mixed with some more lighter and fruitier Virginias, I could see this being a great replacement for McClellands Virginia #25. I was so happy to find the sweet and toasty, almost toasted marshmallow, flavors in this blend. 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 rough cut, not quite shag as there are some larger chunks, of dark black and dark brown tobacco. It smells of raisins and plums from the bag with a bit of earth and a slight tang. Loads easy and is a bit difficult to keep lit. Stays lit with firm tamping and slow but steady sipping. It produces a small amount of smoke that is not quite creamy, but soft. It tastes slightly sweet (more of the smell), toasty, bready, marshmallow hints, a bit of earth, balanced by slightly sour notes, but just a hair. It has some deeper notes as well, but are not overpowering. It's fairly simple and straight forward and some would probably call it 'one-noted', but I think this is what the 'blend' was intended for, 'blending'. Good stuff!

By itself there's not much there but as a blending agent, to slow down the burn and provide some sweet basis, it does the job. I've been trying to find something that balances with Daughters & Ryan Ramback Turkish,which burns to quick and is characteristically sour, and this stoved VA is perfect. 50/50.

I like the big chunks, they balance out the small ribbon cut of the turkish.