Sutliff Tobacco Company Cringle Flake (2022)

Extreme vinegar taste + flavourless tobacco = overhyped overpriced tobacco.

People seem to get aroused at the idea of cellared tobacco. Tobacco cellaring is used to tone down very flavourful or sharp tobaccos and make all the ingredients homogenous. It can open up new flavours from tobaccos such as virginias, and make balkan or latakia heavy blends less latakia-forward. It's an amazing tool, however, some older tobaccos have preservatives in various forms to help the tobacco last longer. In this case, it's vinegar. I made the mistake of smoking this tobacco fresh out of the can, all I could taste was vinegar. Could not taste any virginia. First third of the bowl had no noticable perique. Second third had the perfect amount of perique. Last third of the bowl the perique was very peppery and almost overwhelming. That's all I could taste other than vinegar. It also ghosted my pipe.

I was told the vinegar taste and smell go away after leaving the tobacco out for a couple of days, however my tobacco was critically-dry when I opened the fresh tin, I fear it will burn too fast and become hot if smoked too dry, it already gave me a little tongue-bite, which was odd because again, aged tobaccos usually have less bite.

I have left half out of it out as of now. I will try again in 3 days time and post my results, but as of right now I do not recommend purchasing this tobacco at all.

UPDATE: It still tastes like vinegar.