John Cotton John Cotton's Double Pressed Virginia

(3.06)
From P&C's website: A blend of sweet Virginias is first pressed and then sliced into a flake. It's then tumbled into a ribbon, allowed to breathe and put back into the mold to be pressed again into a crumble cake. This darkens the leaf, gives it a deeper, richer flavor, and takes much of the "edge" off the blend. Finally, there's a Virginia tobacco that just about anyone can enjoy - John Cotton's Double Pressed Virginia. John Cotton's Double Pressed Virginia was the winner of the 2019 Chicago Bowl.

Details

Brand John Cotton
Blended By Russ Ouellette
Manufactured By Sutliff Tobacco Company
Blend Type Straight Virginia
Contents Virginia
Flavoring
Cut Krumble Kake
Packaging 50 grams 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

3.06 / 4
8

6

1

3

Reviews

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Displaying 1 - 10 of 18 Reviews
Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
May 16, 2019 Mild to Medium None Detected Mild to Medium Pleasant
The various Virginias offer some tart citrus and grass, a fair amount of wood and earth, hints of sugar, spice and sourness, and a little tangy dark fruit, along with a light floral, fermented quality. The double pressing eliminates any sharpness and rough edges, creating a mostly smooth, matured, rather mellow Virginia experience. The strength is in the center of mild to medium. The taste is a step past that center. The nic-hit is a couple of rungs past the mild mark. Won’t bite or get harsh even if you smoke like a freight train. This is an easily broken apart crumble kake designed to suit your packing preference. Burns very cool and clean at a slow pace. It’s mildly sweet with a slight savory note, and has a very consistent flavor from start to finish. Leaves little dampness in the bowl, and does require a lot of relights. Has a pleasant, short lived after taste and room note. By design, it’s a fairly easy going all day smoke.

-JimInks
28 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Sep 04, 2019 Mild to Medium None Detected Mild to Medium Pleasant
John Cotton - John Cotton's Double Pressed Virginia.

The kake arrives as one piece, and sits on the precipice of being a plug. It doesn't require a knife or coffee grinder, but don't expect something as easy to rub as, say, Cornell and Diehl's Black Frigate. This requires a more pertinacious preparation! The smell from it isn't too sweet or ambrosial, but quite mellow. My hydration was good right away.

Make no mistake, the smoke's high quality. The flavour incorporates many Virginia nuances, but isn't just a tart, or grassy, smoke. The overriding taste is quite mild, and very laid back; don't expect a blast of zest! For the initial quarter I notice more of a hay-like note, which gets replaced by a fruity touch as the bowl burns. But, again, this fruity touch doesn't monopolize the flavour; it embellishes, without turning it too tangy or sweet. The burn's exemplary: slow, cool, no hassle with maintenance. And, it generates a bite-free smoke.

Nicotine: quite mild. Room-note: I like it.

Double Pressed Virginia? A steadfast four stars:

Highly recommended.
Pipe Used: Peterson Summertime XL02
PurchasedFrom: Cup O' Joes
Age When Smoked: 2 months
11 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jun 30, 2019 Mild to Medium None Detected Mild to Medium Pleasant to Tolerable
I smoked this blend first before attempting the Doubled Pressed Kentucky and I'm glad I did. Double Pressed Virginia, despite it's appearance, is a milder blend than the former and I agree with the sentiments of reviewer Criblo 2019-05-29. Like he, I thought DPV's darker color would yield a stouter smoke; it didn't. The blend smokes rather soft and easy and fits right in at the top of the bell shaped curve for Virginias. This is a crowded place and a blend needs something to set it apart in this neighborhood. Double Pressed Virginia lacks that edge but, don't get me wrong, smokes on and on in a pleasant way until you discover you're at the bottom of the bowl. I don't have anything bad to say about it and would have no problem recommending it to any pipe smoker. Conversely, I can't elevate it to four star status. This is an all day smoke of high quality with the grassiness that you Virginia lovers crave and is an easy three stars.
Pipe Used: Kaywoodie Large Billiard - 2001 NASPC yearpipe
PurchasedFrom: Pipes and Cigars
Age When Smoked: current
9 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jul 25, 2019 Medium None Detected Medium Pleasant
Im a bit surprised that veteran reviewers here don't give this the deserved four stars. Its among the best pure virginias out there today. Since mcclelland closed its hard to find high quality pure viriginia. This is it.

That said, Russ Oullette and Sutliff are out of their minds asking this price for a tin. Its crazy and I personally won't pay it. Which makes me sad.

By the way, Sutliff makes a perfectly good..in fact very good...red virginia crumble cake for 30% less. Go there.
PurchasedFrom: cup o joes
7 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jul 27, 2020 Medium None Detected Medium to Full Tolerable
It's a funny old world. I opened my tin eagerly, was happy to be greeted by a little pressed cake. It smelled like virginia. I put some in my pipe, and it tastes.... like virginia. It's a little ashy and a little punchy, this is maybe an old-school offering, but I just don't like smoking this kind of thing much. Reminded me of the Fribourg Golden. Like a really heavy cigarette. That's fine if that's your bag. I prefer some nuance I guess.
5 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
May 16, 2022 Medium None Detected Mild to Medium Pleasant to Tolerable
I bought a few tins of this a while back just knowing I would love it. Cracked a fresh tin, fired it up and hated it. I placed the remaining tins in my old wooden ammo box and forgot about them. Thirteen months later I pulled one out and gave it another try. I love it! The fresh tin had a raw, green flavor. Kind of like some type of fruit that's not quite ripe and sour too boot. The aged tins have smoothed out and present a dark stewd fruit flavor with no rough edges and a hint of natural sweetness. Excellent with a hot black coffee! I highly recommend this to Virginia smokers but this has to have a bit of age on it to be at its best.
Pipe Used: Various
PurchasedFrom: Smokingpipes.com
Age When Smoked: 13 months
3 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jan 19, 2023 Mild to Medium None Detected Medium Pleasant
Tin note of fermented vegetation, sugar, and spices. Tobacco is a yellowish brown and tan speckled Krumble Kake. The 1/2-inch thick Kake has a good moisture content, some may prefer to dry it. Kake breaks and rubs out easily. Burns slow with a few relights. The strength is mild to medium and nic is mild. No flavoring detected. Taste is medium and very consistent, with notes of leather, spices, wood, sweet grass, floral, bread, earth, tangy citrus, sugar, citrus peel, fermented vegetation, mildly spicy/acidic, mild sour lemon, a ripe dark fruity background note, and a moderately peppery retro. Room note is pleasant, and aftertaste is great.
Pipe Used: Peterson Bard Rusticated 221 Fishtail
Age When Smoked: 2 years
2 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
May 08, 2022 Strong Mild to Medium Overwhelming Strong
Zesty, sour, vinegar that’s in your face. If you like Sutliffs Cringle Flake, grab this , as it’s very similar. It has that signature bold bold vinegar tart zest that’s present in all of sutliffs Virginias. It’s one big rough edge, not soft or easy like say, HH Pure Virginia for example. After three bowls of trying to like this, I cannot recommend it.
Pipe Used: Cone, pot, cylinder
Age When Smoked: 3 years
2 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Feb 07, 2022 Mild to Medium None Detected Mild to Medium Pleasant
After trying John Cotton's Double Pressed Kentucky, I didn't expect any special miracles from this series. But I had a tin of John Cotton's Double Pressed Virginia in store, especially since this tobacco was also highly regarded by the pipe-smoking community as a winner at the 2019 Chicago show.

Vacuum sealed, can, circa September 2021. The color of the tobacco is medium roast coffee, monochromatic, with no flecks or streaks. Shape and cut - the tobacco has been pressed, flake cut, broken and pressed again into a " crumble cake". This makes it seem like there is less tobacco in the tin than there really is. The consistency is slightly different from Double Pressed Kentucky - the tobacco is a little wetter. It breaks off, crumbles and puffs extremely easily.

The aroma of the tobacco from the tin is the truest pure Virginia. Mild smell of hay, some wheat bread, a little salt and dried fish. No sauces, additives, extraneous smells. There are no harsh flavors, and the tobacco seems older than it really is.

Since Virginia has to be smoked slowly, and the strength, even considering the preparation method, is unlikely to exceed medium, I took a large but fairly narrow pipe and stuffed it completely. The flavor of this blend initially gave no reason to think - indeed, a hay herb, moderately sweet, flavored with a little bread. What was nice was that the tobacco was surprisingly soft and had no roughness at all, as if the Virginia had been in the tin for ten years. Gradually a fruity note came through, the tobacco got some fullness of flavor, it had a fruity note, added sweetness, but it was still a plain Virginia. I wrote down notes, did my work and did not notice how the pipe ran out, but when I glanced at my watch, I saw that almost an hour had passed. During that time I did not use my lighter even once - the tobacco smoked smoothly and burned almost completely, turning into a dusty, whitish ash. But when I took the pipe apart a lot of water poured out and I was glad I took the Peterson System pipe for the test - its chamber had accumulated condensate, which I poured out. In the bowl itself, however, there was no moisture. Based on the fact that I did not notice how I smoked the pipe, I guess that the strength of the tobacco is below average. The aftertaste is mild, sweetish-fruity, without any nuances.

The smoke from the tobacco is light, sweet, easy to disperse, no discomfort in the room.

What's the result? Perhaps I was expecting too much from a simple Virginia. It's a very good, quality tobacco, smooth and simple in flavor. I have three more tins I bought as a reserve, and if I wanted the simple taste of good Virginia, I wouldn't hesitate to take one of them. It doesn't need to be aged, it's ready to please you as soon as you open the tin. Maybe it will have some collector's value someday - we don't know how long it will be available.
Pipe Used: Peterson System B42
PurchasedFrom: Online
Age When Smoked: Fresh
2 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Oct 25, 2020 Mild to Medium None Detected Medium Pleasant
I have to say as tins get more and more ugly beurocratic labels on them it really detracts from good tin art. These John Cotton blends come in really nice tins. I'm really new to straight Virginia's, and I think Capstan Blue is the only one I've had so far of the genre. I have to say that as I've smoked this, this week it gives me a really nice impression.

When I opened my tin for the first time I saw two very nicely pressed cakes of Virginia tobacco. Rubbing these cakes out is a very satisfying experience, they don't fall apart like some of the C&D cakes do. The rubbed out cake actually looks like a rubbed out flake due to the double pressing. The tin note on this one is fermented hay which is oddly a little dark fruit like, with a little citrus. It loads very easily and I don't really have a hard time getting it lit. I find it has a slow burn, and may need a few more than average relights. The smell is sweet and very pleasant.

Let's get down to taste. I'm going to assume the Virginia in this is Red Virginia. It's not the citrusy sweet I got from the majority of the Capstan. I taste a lot of dark fruit, but because of the fermentation it is really well rounded and mellow. There is some hay and citrus in the background. There is a lot of volume to the smoke and it comes in nice white clouds. It's hard to get this one hot, you really need to try and push it. If this is what I can look forward to in trying new Virginia's I am definitely going to pick a few more up. The taste in this blend is a medium, and the strength is medium with just a hair to the mild side.

This blend just goes to show that simplicity sometimes wins the day. I would happily buy a couple more tins of this and put them in the cellar. This is a strong win for me.
Pipe Used: Kaywoodie Birkshire Large Billiard
Age When Smoked: New
2 people found this review helpful.
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