Sutliff Tobacco Company Crumble Kake Red Virginia

(3.25)
Aged red Virginias pressed into a vintage crumble cake providing an exceptionally sweet and smooth smoke.

Details

Brand Sutliff Tobacco Company
Blended By Sutliff Tobacco Company
Manufactured By Sutliff Tobacco Company
Blend Type Straight Virginia
Contents Virginia
Flavoring
Cut Krumble Kake
Packaging 1.5 ounce tin
Country United States
Production Currently available

Profile

Strength
Mild to Medium
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Extremely Mild -> Overwhelming
Flavoring
None Detected
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
None Detected -> Extra Strong
Room Note
Pleasant
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Unnoticeable -> Overwhelming
Taste
Mild to Medium
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Extremely Mild (Flat) -> Overwhelming

Average Rating

3.25 / 4
20

9

3

4

Reviews

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Displaying 1 - 10 of 36 Reviews
Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Sep 20, 2018 Mild to Medium None Detected Mild to Medium Pleasant
The various aged, fermented red Virginias provide tangy dark fruit, quite a lot of earth, some bread and wood, a fair amount of tart lemon and tangy citrus, a little sugary stewed dark fruit, mild grass, a couple pinches of spice, and extremely light floral and sour notes. There's a touch or two of vinegar that isn't very obvious much of the time. They have some aspects of both McClelland 5100 and C&D’s Carolina Red Flake. The strength and taste levels fall a step short of medium. The nic-hit is a hair short of the center of mild to medium. Won’t bite or get harsh, but once in a while, you may notice a light rough edge. This crumble cake is mildly moist, and easily broken apart. Burns cool, clean and slightly slow with a very consistent, rich, deep flavor from top to bottom. Leaves little dampness in the bowl, and requires just slightly more than an average number of relights. Has a pleasant, short lived after taste and room note. An all day smoke that would also make a good mixer. Three and a half stars out of four.

-JimInks
47 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Dec 14, 2018 Mild Mild Mild Pleasant
Here’s a straight VA that might be acceptable to smokers who generally avoid VAs. It’s soft, very sweet, fragrant, and easy to prepare and smoke. Sutliff’s Crumble Kake Red Virginia presents in the tin as two large, thin-ish kakes (or two large, very thick flakes) that look to be made from pressed, fine shag tobacco, mostly deep, very dark brown in color with some golden and light brown flecks. After smoking it I guess it’s mostly deeply stoved and air cured, fermented reds and orange, with some brown, along with a little flue cured lemon. Tin note is muted, dark fruit leather, and over a couple of days some vinegar comes up (although it’s MIA when SCKRV is smoked). Anyway, there’s not much going on in the way of a tin note. Looking back, IMO it’s worth setting the re-closed tin aside for a couple of days before smoking SCKRV. Prep is just busting a chunk off a soft kake and pushing it into a VA pipe. I prefer this blend from a 3 – 4 pipe. It lights easily, and the smoker is immediately treated to a mouthful of sugar along with copious smoke. The combusting scent is fragrant, fluffy, sweet wheat muffin over stewed plum and peach, with fragrant, distant burning leaves, and the taste is a light, “voluminous” version of the scent. Again, this blend tastes very sweet, because there’s plenty of sugar on it. Tastes include some muted VA spices that intensify (relatively speaking) as it’s smoked down, gaining a little sharpness/acidity, and more of this as it burns down. For me, it basically smokes itself (with some tamping) down to past ¾. Then, absent some stirring, it goes out, at which point I prefer to toss the remainder rather than trying to smoke it. If it’s stirred and smoked down further it becomes somewhat acrid/ashen, at least compared to the main part of the smoke. YMMV, of course. Strength is mild. Tastes are more mild than medium. Room note is pleasant. Ash avoided, aftertaste is a sweet, lingering best of the smoke.

Yup, this is a good one, all right; easy-peasy, kick back, no-brainer good. It is pretty much one dimensional, but it’s a very good dimension! Although it’s hard being a VA these days, SCKRV offers enough for 4 stars.
Pipe Used: dedicated VA briars
PurchasedFrom: Cup O' Joe's
Age When Smoked: rested 1 week
18 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Dec 13, 2018 Mild to Medium None Detected Mild to Medium Pleasant
Sutliff Tobacco Co. - Crumble Kake Red Virginia.

Appearance: the tin holds two slices of dark brown kake, about half a cm thick; a little similar to Bengal Slices to look at. Preparation couldn't be any easier, a delicate pinch removes a bowls worth from a slice. The moisture's maybe a bit high, but I like a tobacco to be on the moister side for cellaring.

What's the first word to come to mind? 'Wow'. This is a remarkable smoke. Although a Virginia I don't find the smoke consumed by sharp notes of grass, hay, citrus, etc. The leading flavour's one of rich, tangy, dark fruit. The flavour seems a little ambulant, becoming deeper after the halfway point. The smoke has a 'wet' feeling, and doesn't feel dry on the palate. The temperature's quite cool, producing a smoke without a bite.

Nicotine: below medium. Room-note: nice.

Crumble Kake Red Virginia? As tangy as some of the best McClelland Virginias. Definitely worth four stats:

Highly recommended.
Pipe Used: Peterson Dracula #221
PurchasedFrom: Smokingpipes.com
Age When Smoked: New
15 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Nov 11, 2018 Medium None Detected Medium Pleasant to Tolerable
A beautifully crafted crumble cake of Red Virginia's. Sweet, but not overbearing. Definite Red Virginia characteristics, light ripe fruit notes, not at all citrusy, no notes of hay or grass. Not McClelland, but with some age in the tin, I would dare to say it would come within the conversation. I'm proud as a North Carolinian that my state produced this fine, flue cured and fermented albeit briefly) leaf. Absolutely no bite. A good all day Red Virginia smoke.
Pipe Used: Rossi Rubino
PurchasedFrom: Pipes Ltd.
Age When Smoked: New
13 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Apr 03, 2019 Mild to Medium Extremely Mild Mild to Medium Pleasant
Mostly black to dark brown with some light flecks, this came in 2 brownies that were incredibly easy to crumble. A soft pinch and pull did it just fine. A weird tin aroma (and indeed this tobacco was strange for a simple red) that I'm told is vinegar. I got that but I also groaned at what I thought may be an excessive Sutliff PG smell. As this one dried out quickly enough, my worry there was for nought. But the tin aroma is one I don't associate with straight reds. I think they were going for a McClellands fermented sileage aroma but missed, possibly due to the tobacco not being aged long enough. As straight reds have all but disappeared from the U.S market, I certainly can't blame Sutliff for wanting to get this one out quickly!

Each bowl of this started out smooth but with strange flavors. An occasional rough spot, but mostly smooth and with a kind of "wet" feeling. Wet isn't the best descriptor but if you're familiar with a dry mouthfeel, this one is the opposite. Kind of babies the palate - very soothing. Eventually this locked in and what I got was mostly what I would expect from a straight red... that tangy, dried fruit zesty roundness. But along with that, at times I got a spicy, fruity flavor that I associate with a light addition of perique. Is there perique in here??? Sure tasted like it and the snork rendered a light nose tingle I also associate with that condiment. Further, this blend is rounder than, say 5100 or Watch City's Simply Red. Not too much sweetness (just enough) but I suspect a small bit of bright VA is in here as well. All in all, I found this to be a "straight" red that has been fritzed with a bit. I think their 515 is a better example of a standard red VA. I actually liked this one enough to award it 3 stars but I think it's on a different plane than 515. This is just "more" than what I'm accustomed to with reds. No worries, though - this is a fine blend. Not one I'll stock up on but I enjoyed smoking it. It's not 5100, and that's ok... 515 is closer to that and Watch City's Simply Red closer still. The latter is where my dollars will go, but I wouldn't kick either Sutliff out of my bowl.
8 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Dec 24, 2018 Mild to Medium None Detected Medium to Full Tolerable to Strong
First, hats off to Sutliff for understanding a big hole in the market and bothering to fill it.

Tin note is vinegar. No joke - not fermented something or other, just plain white vinegar. Singe the hairs in your nose. And if you just load the pipe and fire it... this is pretty bad for about 5 minutes, then smartens up into a pretty tasty red va. Left on the counter for an hour before loading, all that vinegar nose just flashes off and leaves a really nice smelling red va, that deep sweet, almost woodsy smell.

In the pipe this is bigger than the lamented 5100 - more akin to something like Blackjack I supposed. Sweet enough, lots of flavor variation through the bowl... slight ammonia in the snork here and there. Don't know if more age would remove that.

Pleasant tobacco if you can get your head around the vinegar. Not in the same league as either Wessex Red Flake but the effort is there. Not quite a 4 star for me but perfectly acceptable and gladly received as there is a dearth of reds.
Pipe Used: ks111, castello,
Age When Smoked: fresh
7 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Sep 17, 2019 Mild to Medium None Detected Mild to Medium Pleasant
This is my first review here. I have used this site as a very useful resource and want to “give back”, as it were.

I’ve been smoking pipes for 30 years, off and on; but I took a long hiatus from pipes for about 4 years, smoking cigars only for that time. Well, with an occasional pipe now and then. I’ve smoked some English tobaccos and an aromatic here and there, but I love my Virginias and had settled on several McClelland varieties as my pipe smoking staples. Imagine my dismay when I went online to order some McC’s a month ago and found they had shut down!

I’ve found nothing to compare to my beloved Deep Hollow, but that will come with some blending once I have the requisite substrates, I hope. The real gem I needed to find was a solid, smooth, plain red VA, something like McC’s 5100, and CKRV is definitely in the ballpark. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t compare to 5100 as new. But I have a pound of 5100 that’s sat in a jar for 11 years that I’ve just re-opened, and Crumble Kake fresh from the tin is remarkably close in taste and smoking qualities to the well aged 5100.

But enough of the comparo... CKRV presents in the tin as a very nicely pressed cake that crumbles easily. A bit moist, but nothing that half an hour on a piece of clean paper won’t fix. In the tin it smells like vinegar and molasses to my nose, with a deep sweet note under that, and plenty of rich, dark dried fruit greet the turbinates here. None of the old McClelland ketchup, here, I find it much more pleasant.

I didn’t wait, but smoked the first bowl straight out of the tin. The charring light was better than I expected, and after a light top-tamp it took the match much better than its apparent moisture in the tin led me to expect. It made lots of thick, rich smoke; the feel in the mouth was full and sweet with a hint of pepper that makes me wonder if there might be a pinch of Perique hiding in this blend. It smoked hot but without any bite for the first few minutes, then settled down in the middle 1/3 of the bowl, with no heat or bite, and the full flavor really came through. I taste plum and sherry, with strong quiet base of grass and autumn leaves. Deeper into the bowl, the flavor really rolls up its sleeves and gives that satisfying rich, full flavor I look for in my VA’s. The nic hit is stronger than I expected from the other reviews here, a pleasant surprise as far as I’m concerned.

I’ll be buying more of this stuff, and soon. I expect it to improve substantially with a month or two in the tobacco jar, so that’s where my second tin is going as soon as I finish typing this.
Pipe Used: Peterson Aran
PurchasedFrom: Cup o’ Joes
Age When Smoked: Fresh from tin
6 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Nov 18, 2019 Medium None Detected Medium Unnoticeable
The kakes break apart quite easily . Kind of like marble cake but much smaller pieces and you don’t have to worry about it rubbing to crumbs . Lots of thick fairly sweet smoke . Tastes better in a medium sized pipe . A little hay and grass and some baked bread and a little spice but not a lot . Not really any citrus or dark stewed fruit . Some vinegar does come through but not in a bad way . When i crave some red Virginia this does what i expect . A whisper of cocoa from the natural red Virginia taste . I like it . 3 1/4 stars just because it doesn’t wow me . It is damn good though .
5 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
May 09, 2019 Mild Very Mild Mild Pleasant to Tolerable
At first whiff one would think Sutliff is trying to take over where McClelland left off. But, I don't think that sour tang is from fermentation but the addition of sodium acetate or diacetate which is a food ingredient that imparts an acidic sour-salty aroma and taste e.g. salt & vinegar potato chips. It's different than acetic acid from fermentation and taste to me(and others) almost metallic with an undertone of gun powder. I hate it. This is a common ingredient used for decades in the tobacco industry and Sutliff uses it across their bulk cavendish blends. It just ruins tobacco especially aromatics where one may be smoking the likes of a maple cavendish with those metallic sour notes coming through. It just doesn't work. And it doesn't work with this tobacco of otherwise good red virginia. Fortunatley, it doesn't seem to come through the smoke which suggests to me it is being applied as a topping after made into a cake and sliced. Smoke wise, very mild for a virginia, light on the nicotine, simple and straight forward. Sutliff is trying to deceptively pass this off as a matured tobacco which it isn't. Get rid of that chemical additive and perhaps add a bit of a sweatener to reinforce the darker virginia flavor and then it would really be something.
5 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Feb 10, 2020 Mild to Medium None Detected Mild to Medium Unnoticeable
A friend of mine at the pipe club let me try some of this jarred 7 Apr 19. I found this to be still moist in the jar. I crumbled some up and fired it up. The first third of the bowl not much flavor but about halfway I started to get the nice Red Virginia flavor, nice and semi-sweet. Toward the end the flavor slightly diminished. I am by no means a Virginia expert but this was not too bad. I have had better but would not toss out the baby with the bathwater so to speak. I like the C&D much better and I hate to borrow clichés but ‘your mileage may vary’ YMMV.
Age When Smoked: Almost 2 years.
4 people found this review helpful.
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