Sutliff Tobacco Company Whimsical

The second release of the Birds of a Feather series of tobaccos.

Earlier this year 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. The six brand new blends of the series 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!!!

Whimsical will be released very soon and it’s maybe not as Unique as Uno, but it’s a delicious and delightful blend. It has a very unified taste now that it lacked when I first tasted it only hours old. It’s now about 7 months since it was tinned and the flavors have married into a harmonious blend. It’s based on some delicious Virginia’s of different types and flavor profiles. I know there is some bright Virginia which adds a nice citrus note, not a lot but just enough to balance out the sweetness and maybe just a touch of a sweet hay almost floral note. There are some red Virginia’s too, I would say at least two and likely more as the complexity with some serious sweetness and various mostly dark fruity notes. There is a touch of bread as well. My guess is that at least one has some age on it as you just know that matured red Virginia flavor and the others maybe a bit younger but together they just work. To that Per added some quality St. James Perique supplied by Mark Ryan which adds more sweetness and dark fruit notes than spice to my taste buds. The final ingredient is some fine burley, the burley adds depth and body and mouth feel and helps it to produce a nicely dense smoke perfect for blowing smoke rings.

The result is pressed into a crumble cake that has been cut into 1/4 inch slices that break up with light finger pressure into a very easy to handle and pack blend. The tin note is gently sweet and a tad fruity. The moisture content is just about perfect. The light is easy and it burns well. The initial flavor is pleasant and richer than expected, sweet, fruity, robust and full. I don’t think you could make it bite or smoke hard unless you really tried hard, but it’s best when smoked slow and smooth. As you progress into the bowl you sense a touch of the citrus and almost floral note a bit more. But it’s rounded out with a deep sweetness from the Red Virginia’s and Perique. There is a little touch of brown sugar and nuttiness from the burley as well as a smoothing effect and it produces a wonderful mouth feel and body. I don’t detect to any noticeable degree any added flavoring. The flavor overall is medium or a bit more and naturally enjoyable, the strength is about the same, nothing to detract from an enjoyable smoke. It’s a bit higher on vitamin N than some blends due to the Perique’s alkaline nature making more of the nicotine available to our mouths and that burley making sure we have plenty of rich smoke. It could easily be an all day smoke for someone with the ability to handle the nicotine. It’s not strong, but it’s there more than in your average VaPer due to the burley, but that burley makes it I think that little bit more enjoyable. It goes great with coffee too! Overall it’s a truly enjoyable smoke, an easy to enjoy blend that lives up to its name Whimsical. The definition of whimsical is: “playfully quaint or fanciful, especially in an appealing and amusing way.“ The nature of the smoke makes you want to blow smoke rings, the feel of it in your mouth is appealing in itself, and it gives you an enjoyable joyful smoke…It Is Whimsical!!!

Sutliff Tobacco - Whimsical.

The krumble Kake's rather dense. It can be broken and rubbed out, but this requires a firm hand. The aroma's a little fruity, not ''cased'', but quite opulent.

The Virginias give loads of flavour. So much so, it's a bit tricky for me to identify each one. The main trait is a very fruity one. It's succulent yet zesty; but that lemon ''zest'' could hail from the topping. The Perique spices things up. It's quite sharp, definitely sour, and peppery. The Burley, this is the lesser of the three. It gives a slight ''toasty'' character, is a touch coarse, but is overshadowed by the others. I've had a great burn from it, the smoke's about medium in temperature. Tongue bite? None.

Nicotine: medium. Room-note: nice enough.

Whimsical? Easily, this deserves four stars:

Highly recommended.

Well, this is indeed a very nice blend - upon opening the jar, a welcoming aroma is detected, fruity, dominantly natural, floral, grassy. While smoking, I find the taste to follow up the said experience from opening the jar, but I could not classify it as a strong or medium/strong blend, but rather a medium, though giving a “full” experience. Sounds a Virginia-forward blend, with very clear (and welcoming) presence of perique and burley in nice portions. Very unique blend indeed.

The crumbled cake is rubbed easily by hand. I typically leave it 10 minutes to sit before loading the bowl. It smokes relatively slowly and perhaps, a few relights come into play (but not many …).

Based on my initial judgment and also following JimInks‘ advice/comment, i use most of the time a little wide but relatively shallow pipe, such as Peterson 80s or 999 (mostly I use an emerald PLIP 999 for this blend). However, I thought to give it a try in a meerschaum Claw pipe with deep bowl and medium diameter (around 47 mm deep, 19 mm wide). While i found it slightly stronger in the 999, it was somewhat sweeter/smoother in the deep meerschaum, plus, i got more the depth of the blend in the meerschaum, while the shallower pipe offered me some more pronounced breadth (you know what I mean…). It is nevertheless smoky, the wife complains little when smoke Whimsical.

Wish the blend can come more regularly in production.

Tin note of sharp tangy fruit and fig newtons. The marbled yellow and brown plug is over 1/2 inch thick and fairly dry and dense. Recommend a knife to trim off what you need, rubs out with some effort. Burns slow with a few relights. The strength is medium and nic is medium. Flavoring is medium, with notes of lemon, it seems to overpower the natural lemon flavor of the Virginias, it's too strong to be natural, it dies down to the background in the last 1/4. Taste is medium and mostly consistent, with notes of tangy citrus, lemon, vinegary, acidic, spicy/peppery, fermented sour, spice, tart, dry, leather, floral, wood, bread, earth, sweet, mildly bitter, a zesty spicy cigar background note, and a peppery retro. Virginia is barely leading over the Flavoring with Burley and Perique supporting. Room note is pleasant to tolerable, and aftertaste is great.

Tin note: slightest foot odor from the perique, rest of it is nice and fruity. Raisins, maybe stewed fruit. Light to moderate fruit in the smoke, but more of something I'm still not sure how do describe. Maybe grassy, hay, but that doesn't seem quite right. Maybe it is, maybe it's the combination of fruit and grasses. Very pleasant in any case. Can't assess the nicotine hit, because it seems like it'll burn my mouth if I push hard enough to get a buzz going. It's said there's a topping, but I'm not tasting anything I believe couldn't have come from the tobaccos; the fruity character certainly isn't overwhelming or unnatural-tasting. The flavor does wane toward the end of the bowl, unfortunately. Otherwise, this is very good.