Sutliff Tobacco Company TS12 Dark Fire Cured

Summary: rich smoky flavor with an inner sweetness enwrapping the almond flavors of Burley.

Fire curing began long before tobacco, serving our ancestors to preserve meat and fish. It allows you to take a raw material from nature and both preserve it and impart the gentle flavor of fire, which signals to our brains that it is safe to consume. Sutliff "TS12 Dark Fired Cured" mixes a few different Burleys and smokes them quickly, then adds moisture and a light anisette flavor as a casing in order to set the curing. It smokes with a faint Burley vegetal bitterness in the background, but mostly the nutty flavor of Burley which to me resembles mixed grains and flowers, and a faint sweetness at the core independent of the casing. This is a great blend to use in your mixtures, but is also entirely enjoyable as a smoke on its own, although I tend to mix it with a little white Burley and some red and bright Virginia for maximum effect.

I bought this one because it sounded interesting, and I wanted the free ceramic jar you got for free when you bought a pound from Sutliff. I’ve had some bite issues with other blends in their lineup, but I think I identified the component of theirs that gave me trouble. It isn’t present in this one, so no trouble.

It comes as a nice, fairly uniform ribbon of mostly dark, reddish color. The tin note smells smokey, sweet, a bit fruity almost like perique a bit. It came a bit wet to smoke easily, and drying it out had limited success. Even some left in my pouch a few days was still able to be smoked, so it has to be cased, and most likely it is flavored a bit I’d say.

In my experience, it took a few lights to get going, and a few relights along the way. I’ve taken to packing it a bit more loosely than I would normally to get it to smoke well. The flavor is definitely on the intense side, smokey, peppery and sweet. It intensifies toward the second half, and is very rich tasting. It burns slow, even if pushed. I’ve had to stir it up and relight the last third of the bowl every time, except when left a few days in the pouch. It leaves some dottle, and that’s fine for me.

I would say if you like dark fired Kentucky, this one could be good for you. It can be an all day smoke, as it’s not overly strong in the nic department. It does pair well with morning coffee, and an evening scotch. (I’ve tried both) It never bit on the tongue for me, so that’s a bonus. As a warning I would say it has a low “wife rating”. It got a look and an off color comment from mine, as she passed through my den, lol. I love a good strong tobacco aroma personally, so it’s right up my alley.

20230313 edit: I don't think I'd smoke this over HH bold Kentucky, for example, which is easy enough to prepare. Knocking it down a star.

Out of a Dublin meer, it's sweet and very mild as far as DFK goes, without tasting overly of plain burley. Got some campfire to it, but I'd call it a gentler, friendlier DFK. This is something I don't necessarily need to be in the mood for, I think, whereas when I really get a craving for a strong DFK I'd probably pick G&H dark bird's eye. Almost think this might be a little mild for blending purposes, but it's great for smoking by itself. Don't love the cut or the moisture level (and incidentally the way it packs, due to the casing probably), but it burns well enough. Not enough of a detraction to lower my rating.

Jar note of pungent smokey and a mild sweet/fruity. Tobacco is fairly uniform ribbon of mostly dark brown reddish color, Tobacco is a little moist, drying may be preferred. Burns slow with few relights. The strength is medium and nic is mild to medium. No flavoring detected despite tin note. Taste is medium to full and consistent, with notes of toasted bread, dry wood, earth, cocoa, mildly creamy, molasses, leather, slight bitterness, sour vegetation, mildly acidic, mildly smoky, a mildly sweet nutty background note, and a mildly peppery retro. Room note is tolerable, and aftertaste is great.