Sutliff Tobacco Company Tobacco Galleria - Midnight Smoke

Sutliff Tobacco Co. - Tobacco Galleria - Midnight Smoke.

I've just returned from a holiday and this was one of the blends I took along with me.

In keeping with the name the colour's jet black. The smell is artificial and it's way too moist. So, it needs a decent airing.

The smoke? There's nothing serious here! We have a very sweet, smooth, cool burning, vanilla aromatic. The tobacco flavour's the typically clumsy black Cav' one and it manufactures big plumes of smoke. There's hardly any nicotine to be had from it and although it fills the room with smoke it smells nice!

This is one of those blends which brings out the kid in me. Like a bowl of jelly: although I'm all grown up, sometimes the 'fun' of something's appealing! That said, though, I don't think it warrants any higher than two stars:

Somewhat recommended.

Okay, so this isn’t the most flavorful smoke in the world. I’n my opinion, there’s no need for it to be. This was one of the first tobaccos I purchased, and a reason I still enjoy it from time to time is that I’m not the kind of fellow whose smoking experience is limited to sitting down and analyzing a blend. I like sticking a pipe in my mouth and puffing mindlessly while I do stuff. Fishing, working, walkinjg, etc, I enjoy being able to puff on something without my tongue being bitten or burned.

That’s the beauty of this blend: it’s not complex. It’s like the La Croix of tobacco. There’s a little hint of sweetness, though I’m not sure what it is. Vanilla? Marshmallow? Not sure. But it’s pleasant.

This is a blend for mindless puffery. It fits that purpose well.

As a big fan of black cavendish, I had sought out a reasonably priced sample. At just under $9, this seemed worth a try. The smell when I first opened the pouch was pleasant. Holding it closer, I could smell the richness of the fremented leaf. I gave it the moisture test, and found that it stuck to itself far too much when I made a small ball of it in my fist. Lighting a bowl full at this point would be difficult. I spread some out on a papertowel to dry. (Since I live in Arizona and our average humidity is about 8%, it wouldn't take long.) I came back to check after about an hour and found that it was almost perfect. I chose one of my meerschaums, and filled the bowl in 3 pinches.

It still took a whole match to light. As I puffed away getting it going, there was no taste at all. I inhaled a puff just to see if there was any taste there, but there wasn't. I could tell I had inhaled smoke (sacrelidge to some, a norm for others) but upon blowing it out, there was an almost imperceptible flavor of nuttiness. On occasion I had to remove the stem of the pipe and blow out the condensation. Perhaps I could have let the tobacco dry a bit more. I hate a gurgling pipe, and blow out my stems quite often while smoking. Since I do most of my smoking outdoors, it's not an issue.

I noticed almost no tongue bite once the bowl was burning well (no surprise there). I smoked slowly and deliberately, enjoying the mellow taste and aroma. Halfway through, I stopped for a full 5 minutes, letting the bowl cool down and waiting for the fire to go out. As an outdoorsman, I frequently get engaged in some side activity and have to put down my pipe for a minute or two. I find that some tobaccos get worse when they sit, and some do not.

After tamping, the bowl lit right up with about half a match to spare. The taste had not changed. I smoked for a while longer, and then did the inhalation test again.

I was pleasantly surprised. The nuttiness had grown stronger and sweeter. The flavor was excellent. It seemed that the closer I got to the bottom of the bowl, the richer the flavor. If they could steep this brand in it's own juices for just a bit longer during the fermentation, I believe it could be the best single cavendish around.

The taste will be dissapointing to some connoissuers, but for beginners, it will be a pleasant surprise.

Black short ribbon cut tobacco. Comes a little moist, tho I suspect that is mostly PG rather than water.

Bag note is a vanilla/caramel/maple generic sort of aroma. There is something else in there I think, perhaps anisette. Additionally the smoke itself has some citrus notes, which might be from the tobacco itself.

Despite the apparent moisture this is a one match tobacco. It is mild and sweet with the pouch notes staying true for most of the bowl, until the last third when some bitterness comes to the front.

A very subdued tobacco suitable as a change of pace or something to please the missus, or at least less likely to draw complaints. I can't rate in higher than 2 because of the bitterness however.

Edit. This baccy actually fogged up when jarred. Not a little bit, but like a teenager's Holden HR at the drive-in. This was a new one to me.

There is something to be said about this style of tobacco. It really is very plain. Some companies would give this type of blend a ridiculous name, put it in an elegantly gilded tin, and charge three times the price of this blend. Even in this configuration people would buy it and smoke it.

In the pouch this tobacco is dark as the pits of hell. Much like Lanes BCA, it is very goopy, has a slight chemical smell, and will leave a ghost in anything that burns it. It had very little flavor, and I had a heck of a time keeping it lit, even though I attempted (in vain) to dry it out.

It is certainly not all bad. To my surprise this blend had no tongue bite at all, which is rare for this type of ameliorate steeped tobacco. Also, the room note was very nice.

First time pipe smoker, this was a recommendation from my local cigar shop. I wanted to determine if I liked Cavendish vs Latakia and such.

The smell is deep and sweet, molasses like. It smells pretty good, but it was quite moist as well. I was Surprised how mild it was after how deep it smelled. it was like smoking nothing at all, what's the point?

I love dark, deep, smooth cigars, but I could hardly notice any real flavor at all. Just enough to know that I would like to find a Cavendish of much higher quality, in that i guess it served it's purpose. This tobacco needs to be dried out, as it took a lot of matches to keep it lit, which takes the relaxation out of it constantly relighting and just trying to keep it going.

I may blend this with the Altadis Fox and Hound I got from the local store as well, just to see how that goes.

Its not bad; its not great either. At first i thought this blend was definitely worth adding in as something to always have on hand. As i smoked more bowls i realized there was nothing too special about it. The flavoring was quite bland. There was no trace of topping but very little flavor from the leaf as well; i found myself wondering what the point of even smoking it was.

This blend was simply too bland and simple for me. I'm not a black Cavendish fanatic but i definitely thought this blend was lacking in character. It's worth a shot but i wouldn't recommend it over casual conversation.

I can smoke this aromatic with little problems, but it tends to bite a little. The finish is not that great, and the moisture content is pretty high. If you smoke this make sure you let it dry out. If I am in a fix and in the mood for an aromatic, I will smoke this, but the chances of me buying more are not too high. Not a really terrible blend when smokes slowly, but nothing too special either.

I just got my sampler pack last night, and I've only smoked 1 bowl of this stuff. My question is, is it tobacco? Very mild smoke. Not much of any kind of flavor, but when I opened the bag, it was very noticeable, though not once I lit the bowl. Room note is just OK. I probably wouldn't buy this again, but I would definitely recommend this one to someone just starting out. Very very mild, with no detectable bite...

Update, Saturday 5:01am. Well I finished a bowl of this, and I still wonder where the tobacco went? I noted that when I cleaned out the last bit of dottle, it was rather wet looking, so I would imagine that I will have to clean out my pipe after every single smoke of this stuff. Still overall, for a free sample it wasn't that bad. I have smoked worse. Borkum Riff Jamaican Rum comes to mind.

Sunday 7:06am. I decided to try another bowl of this stuff. I can't make up my mind about this tobacco. I think one must either like it or hate it. I happen to like many cavendish blends, so I'm gonna give this one a few more trys, and then I'll come back and give it my final verdict.

Saturday 12/29/07 I have discovered a good use for this Midnight Smoke. Use it as a mix for tobacco's with a bad bite, or a bad taste. I had some older Borkum Riff which had been laying around for quite some time, so I decided to mix up two parts of Borkum Riff to one part Midnight Smoke. Turned some rather unsmokable crapola into something not too bad.