John Cotton John Cotton's Double Pressed Virginia

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.

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.

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.

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.

This blend strikes me as complex and smooth providing the full spectrum of Virginia flavors in fairly composed balance with the lemony citrus and spice being the most prevalent character. Smooth with a nice spice, good body, and some oomph. Builds as you smoke it down the bowl but the flavors remain consistent. Burns easy and clean to a white ash. Quite delicious for the experienced Virginia smoker.

Although it appears as a plug when the tin is popped, it beaks up easily for packing and has an ideal moisture content; smokes smoothly without relights or condensation; no bite from start to finish

Bravo: It is so good to see a blender showing intelligent restraint making a VA product for those who love unadulterated pure VA leaf without molasses, vinegar, ketchup and other such atrocities. Nicely ripened, it shows some natural fruit and sweetness, smokes with full flavor, smooth and just nice. After even a few days in a jar, the sweetness and fruit flavors are showing more and more. The will age well. The cakes is fairly dry, crumbles apart easy and burns down with a consistent pure and pleasant VA flavor. Love it! Will buy more.