Sutliff Tobacco Company Tobacco Galleria - Blue Note

What's this tobacco like? I have absolutely no idea, as I couldn't taste any tobacco. For all I know the base for this blend could have consisted of anything, from the finest of Virginias to the sweepings from the bottom of a rabbit hutch. It was so heavily cased with flavouring that nothing of the tobacco remained. And what a flavouring! Imagine taking a tub of mixed effluents from a food essences factory. Now dribble some into the bowl of your pipe, apply a blowtorch, and in my opinion you have a pretty good approximation of the Blue Note experience. I only felt moved to review it because it's without doubt the worst stuff I've ever smoked.

The grassy, lightly citrusy Virginia forms the base of the blend. The nutty, toasty burley leads a support role. The unsweetened black cavendish adds some brown sugar. There’s a number of toppings in the mix. Not all are definable, but I notice fruit, a little vanilla, chocolate, a few pinches of cinnamon spice. and some caramel; likely some butterscotch and perhaps a few drops of whiskey, too. I detect light chemical and alcohol notes which, along with an extremely light sour/bitter hit, are distracting. The toppings greatly sublimate the tobaccos. Hardly has any nicotine. Won’t bite or get harsh. Burns kind of cool at a reasonable pace with mostly consistent flavor. Leaves too much moisture in the bowl, and requires a few more than an average number of relights as this blend burns wet. Has an unattractive after taste. Can be an all day smoke.

-JimInks

This is undoubtedly the worst aromatic I've smoked in the last 40+ years. The taste was so artificial,even metalic at times. I tryed several bowls in several pipes and could not force my self to finish any of them. On a scale of one to ten I'd have to give this blend a minus 10. In the future I'll aviod this blend like the plague.

Tastes like the left overs in an ash try at the Blue Note Cafe. Nice room note, bad tongue bite. Do I have to give it any stars?

This is my first experience with Altadis blends. I enjoyed the smell of the pouch, but found the tobacco to be unpleasant to smoke. The tobacco was good, but the casing/flavor seemed "chemically". I disliked the blend so much that after smoking 1/3 of the bag I gave it away to a friend instead of throwing it away.

I tried smoking it in a briar, churchwarden, and corncob, and it burned well, but the flavor didn't improve any. Leaves a lot of gooey residue even if you smoke it slowly and leave it on a plate for 1/2 an hour before smoking it.

The aroma was ok. My wife who likes many of my tobaccos said that the smell of this blend was her least favorite of the some 6 tobaccos that I have smoked in our apartment.

I think I will try one more Altadis blend, Montego Bay, before giving up on the brand...

This is my review: What little time I did spend smoking this blend is all the time I care to give to it. It was the second worst blend I have ever smoked...period.

Flavor: Some sweetness, mostly PG.

Complexity: None

Aroma: Sweet but undertermined, perhaps a hint of vanilla but mostly humectants.

Tin/pouch aroma: Vanilla and humectant with some hints of stale and cheap tobacco.

Room note: A wife pleaser, unfortunately I need more than a pleasant room note to like a pipe tobacco.

Burning characteristics: Few relights, leaves a lot of gunk in your pipe though.

Cut/Moisture content: Loose cut and moisture content isn't bad considering it's an aromatic. It's loaded with PG though.

Overall: Altadis isn't a company I hold in very high esteem. Some of their cigars are pretty decent but their pipe weeds are unremarkable and, sometimes, unenjoyable. This is probably one of their most decent offerings but not something I'd recommend since there are much better blends out there. I got a free sample in the mail but I wouldn't waste my time with it again.

I find this blend very hard to smoke. The base tobaccos are unpleasant, with a taste I can only describe as "cheap", while the topping seems very chemical to me.

Having never really ventured into the world of drugstore blends and cheap house blends, I have no tolerance for them. Like Captain Black White, this gets dumped halfway through the bowl.

Oh karma, why must you be so cruel?

Yesterday I wrote a review for one of my favorite aromatics, and spent time blathering on about how aromatics get a bad rap, and how most of the time it is not the tobacco itself that is the problem but the way in which it is smoked.

Today grabbed this beauty from the back of my cellar (received as a free sample in 2008, put in a jar and forgot about) and found a blend to completely negates everything about my assertions yesterday.

Keep in mind this is an aromatic that is 12 years old. Most aromatics do not age well, and this one was not stellar to begin with.

The taste of this blend is .....nothing. It smells great in the jar, but there is no flavor at all. Completely non existent. For me at times the one redeeming quality of blends of this nature is the room note, and that is not even impressing me. I think there might be a higher quantity of PG than tobacco here, this stuff is still stick to your fingers gooey after 12 years. Wouldn't recommend at all.