Sutliff Tobacco Company Uno

The rather sweet, fermented, spicy Katerini perique provides an abundance of earth, wood, sugary stewed plums and raisins, vegetation, a fair amount of floralness, and herbs along with light incense and smoke notes. It takes a small lead. The sweet and very smoky Cyprian Latakia offers plenty wood, earth, floralness, incense, and a pinch of spice as an important supporting player that occasionally challenges the effect of the Katerini perique. The Saint James perique produces some earth, wood, sugary fermented stewed fruit (plums, dates, figs, raisins) and pepper as a strong competitive supporting player. The aspects of the reds, stoved and bright Virginias are deeply tangy dark fruit, tart and tangy citrus, earth, wood, bread, sugar, mild grass, vegetation, floralness, some stewed fruit, light spice and vinegar. They form the bed for the other varietals, and are always noticeable. The earthy, woody, sweet and sour, herbal, floral, vegetative, mildly nutty, spicy aged dark fired Kentucky makes a conspicuous contribution just above the condimental line. The smoothly creamy, sugary, burley black cavendish tames many of the rough edges. The strength is a couple of steps past the medium mark. The taste level is a notch ahead of that. The nic-hit is a slot past the medium threshold. There’s no chance of bite or harshness. This easily broken apart crumble cake sliced product is mildly moist, but as is usual custom, I didn’t dry it. Well balanced, deeply rich and complex, it burns cool, clean and a tad slow with mostly consistent zesty, fermented, stewed fruity, sugary, creamy, spicy, floral, herbal, smoky, mild nutty, campfire flavor that extends to the pleasantly lingering after taste. The room note is a bit more pungent. Leaves little dampness in the bowl, and requires some relights. Not quite an all day smoke, but it is repeatable, especially for the veteran piper. Four stars out of four.

-JimInks

Sutliff Uno - The Katarini Perique and the St james Perique combine to give the main flavors of plum and cranberrie like fruit sweetness , with a herbal spice and a touch of sour . The Latakia is always in the background complimenting the Periques very nicely . I am glad they put the latakia in this blend as it backs up the blend perfectly. The Virginias with sweetness bring it all together. I will get a wee wiff of the Kentucky at times but barely notice them . The Katarini that has gone through the Perique process of fermenting is definitely unique in taste and aroma . This blend I don’t think can be compared to anything else . I like it 4 . I would buy it again .

Uno the Owl…a very wise bird!!!

Uno is the name of a special and very limited release Blend soon to be available from Sutliff. The Owl will be featured on the label. Recently as some of you maybe noticed on Facebook Jeremy McKenna of Sutliff was looking for some volunteers to come and sample 6 brand new blends. Myself and my CORPS brother Chris Ford were two of the lucky folks being used as taste testers. Those six brand new blends were developed in as many days by Per Georg Jensen of Mac Baren. He flew over with a few Mac Baren blending tobaccos to use and came to taste and blend a totally new one to him and the world!!! In a word I can rate all 6 blends, success!!! Unfortunately for you folks trying to explain what is in these blends and how they taste will take many more words so please forgive me for the long read but do know this first to be released one of the six is worth the effort. It should be released soon and again will be called Uno with an owl on the label, all the blends created in those six insane day will feature a bird on the label.

In a word this blend is Unique!!! Sometimes that word gets over used but here it’s true for sure as one of the ingredients has only been made this once and likely never will be again. But this blend is more than unique, it’s balanced and delicious and complex and it’s rare…very rare as once it’s gone don’t expect it to come back and there isn’t much of it. I am unsure how to classify this blend so I am not going to try as how does one put Katerini Perique in a pigeon hole? But it sure tastes great in this blend and when stuffed into your pipe bowl!!!

Yes Katerini Perique, Katerini Oriental that has gone through the Perique process!!! The resulting leaf is not exactly Oriental or Perique, it’s unique and leads to the name of the blend, Uno as it’s one of a kind and a one time only kind of a thing. Mark Ryan, former owner of D&R Tobaccos, is the mad but smart man behind this as owner and master of L.A. Poche Perique Tobacco Company and the start of this tale. He obtained a sizable batch of Katerini Oriental leaf and decided to try and process it as he does Perique!!! Not knowing what the result might be, or if indeed it would result in anything more than a mess and a waste of good leaf, he proceeded with the months long process. The result is both magnificent and disappointing, magnificent in the part of the batch that created the unique leaf that resulted, but sad as a large portion of the batch also failed and just was a loss. Fortunately the part that successfully fermented has been blended into this truly special blend by Per Georg Jensen of Mac Baren here in the USA at Sutliff Tobacco.

In the course of six days Per first tasted and assessed this new tobacco and came up with this blend and two others to highlight its unique properties and three others that are unique in their own right. For now we will focus on this blend. Katerini Perique has a dusty grayish green appearance and a scent that is neither oriental nor Perique, again unique. The taste is not peppery like Perique can be but definitely has the dark fruits taste going for it, also a very delicate herbal taste that’s very pleasant. I personally can only handle so much regular Perique as it tingles my tongue and lips even in modest doses and in large doses it becomes a problem. Interestingly the Katerini Perique doesn’t do that to me, for me it’s the perfect Perique that adds sweetness and dark fruitiness without the pepper or the tingles.

In Uno it’s added to three different Virginias, one for sure sweet and somewhat bready, another more grassy and a third with a touch of acid or citrus to balance the blend. The Katerini Perique along with some regular Perique that between them add a lot of deep dark fruit, raisins and dried plums to me, with just a hint of spice and I mean a hint. There is some Dark Fired Kentucky for a touch of smoke and depth as well as a touch of nicotine. There is burley for a nice balance and some unflavored Cavendished Burley as well and with the Dark Fired Kentucky they give it a very rich mouth feel and density to the smoke.

It makes for a rich and complex smoke that when I first smoked it only hours old was a bit easier to sense and pick out the individual components, again it was literally no more than about 48 hours old. It was pressed into a fairly loose but compact cake and sliced into thick flakes that rub out easily. A decent moisture level as is but I rub it out and allow it to dry a bit and now it’s had a bit of time to age, about 2 months, it’s melded a bit. The individual components and flavors have had time to marry and the result is wonderful. Though the individual tastes are harder to pick out they work together in harmony and make for a very enjoyable smoke. Rich, complex, full in body and mouth feel, can’t bite or be harsh. A truly rare and unique treat!!!

What a startlingly unique blend! There's so much going on here and all of it is delightful.

Immediately upon opening the tin, you're hit with the sweet, fermented funk of perique. It's almost overwhelming and, if you're a perique fan, intoxicating. The tobacco comes in beautifully dense crumble cake slices and is therefore fairly wet. It'll smoke straight out of the tin but I find that 10-15 minutes in the dry Texas air does miracles.

The flavor composition of this blend is extraordinarily complex and develops throughout the bowl, slowly shifting and evolving. The blend of Virgininas form the backbone providing a slight citrus tang that transitions to a deep port wine sweetness and back again.

The blend is supported confidently but quietly by the latakia and dark fired that just prop up the blend and fill out the bass notes of the composition.

But all of that is accompanied by the strangely compelling melody of that periqued Katerini and St. James perique. That duet is unlike anything else I've ever tasted. Warm, earthy mushrooms, sour bergamot, and dried figs dance around each other creating an absolutely fascinating experience.

TL;DR - It's rare to find a blend that prompts an immediate, "holy crap, what is this?!" moment. This is one such blend. I haven't had this strong of a reaction since I first tasted aged Haddo's Delight. Putting several more tins in the cellar.

Sutliff Tobacco Co. - Uno.

This tin contained 4 slices of dark, mottled kake. They smell of plums, with a touch of leather. A touch damp, but not wet. I crumble mine to a very coarse consistency.

Wow, what a flavour. The St. James Perique gives a sharp spiciness and lots of plums, while the Katerini has a more sour flavour; this isn't as strong as the St. James. The Latakia gives a leathery flavour, isn't too smoky tasting. I get a wonderful vibrancy from the Red Virginia, a punch of ripe fruit. The Kentucky, although not a headstrong flavour, adds just enough of a fire-cured flavour to give the smoke some 'weight'. This is all I've piped since last night, I've not experienced any tongue-bite and have found it to burn perfect giving a mid-temperature smoke.

Nicotine: rather strong. Room-note: not great.

Uno? A brilliant smoke. Highly recommended:

Four stars.

Tin note of tart and tangy fruit, sugar and spices. Tobacco crumble cake is a marbled reddish-browns with some black and tan mixed in, Moisture content is good to go, cake breaks and rubs out easily. Burns low with a few relights. The strength is medium and nic is mild to medium. No flavoring detected. Taste is medium to full and consistent, with notes of sweet, smoky, toast, wood, orange peel/zest, spices, fermented sour, mildly spicy, earth, floral, herbal incense, mild bitter nuts, citrus, hay, mild dark fruit, a brown sugary sweet background note, and a mostly smooth and mildly spicy retro. Oriental/Turkish is leading with Virginia and Black Cavendish closely supporting. Latakia and Perique supporting when needed, and Kentucky is mostly buried in the fray, only getting glimpses now and again. Room note is pleasant to tolerable, and aftertaste is great.

처음 한모금을 빨아들었을 때는 물맛이 났다. 그만큼 연초치고는 엄청 깔끔하고 물리지가 않는 맛이었고 작고 다양한 맛들이 보일락 말락했다. 그래도 굳이 맛을 찾으려하지 않고 편하게 다시 파이프를 빨았는데.. 여러가지 맛들이 올라오는 것을 느껴지며 아주 기분이 좋았다.. 얼리 모닝 또한 지금 피우면 연한 라타키아맛인데 이건 정말로 투명함을 유지하면서 잉글리쉬의 고소한 맛이 계속 처음처럼 올라오고 미려한 즐거움을 선사한다.

피우면 피울수록 스파이시함이 켜켜이 쌓이며 연초의 무개감을 더해주고 페릭의 한 며칠을 숙성시킨 말린 자두같은 향이 감칠맛을 잡아주는 듯 하다. 얼리모닝과 흡사하게 오리엔탈의 존재감이 강한 연초로 보다 깊은 맛의 다양함을 느낄 수 있다.

플럼 푸딩이 사람들이 가득모여 땀냄새를 풍기며 열정적인 춤을 추는 재즈클럽이라면 이거는 커다란 홀에 여유로운 간격으로 떨어져있는 사람들이 한쌍씩 나와 춤을 추는 느낌이다.