Sutliff Tobacco Company CD Blend

The nutty, earthy, woody, lightly molasses sweet burley is the main star. The grassy, citrusy, bready, lightly sugary Virginia plays a back up role. The lightly smoky, woody, earthy, leathery, barely foral Cyprian Latakia, and raisiny, plumy, earthy, woody perique are barely condiments. There are very slight fig and prune notes with a hint of a topping I cannot identify. At times, I get a slightly sour tangy taste mixing in with the sweet that gives this a minor complexity. Because it's a rough coarse cut mixture, I recommend a round bowl rather than a pipe with a narrow chamber so it will burn to the last bit The strength and nic-hit a couple of steps past the mid mark. The taste is a notch past the center of mild to medium. Won't bite or get harsh, but has a few small rough notes. Well balanced, and mildly complex. It burns cool and clean at a moderate pace with a very consistent, nutty, sweet, lightly smoky flavor that extends to a short lived, pleasant after taste. Barely leaves any dampness in the bowl. Requires few relights. The room note is a tad stronger than the after taste. It's an all day smoke, and superior to House of Windsor's Country Doctor blend. The major difference is that this is a little sweeter, and fuller in taste with less roughness. Three and a half stars.

-JimInks

I find myself much more impressed with my sample tin of Sutliff's CD mixture than I thought I would be. It's been laying around here for a couple of years now and I figured it was time.

I'm a big fan of the so-called “American English” genre and tobaccos such as Middleton's Walnut, C&D's Epiphany, Iwan Ries's Dr. Bradley, and Hoffman's Spilman Mixture. What sealed this fandom was the opportunity to sample some of the original old classics like Blue Boar and the Philip Morris version of Revelation. These are all Burley-heavy tobaccos with lightly added condimental tobaccos including Perique and Latakia. And most of them have their flavors bound together and lifted by the application of a light, fruity topping. They aren't everyday smokes for me, but I confess to going on American-English benders that can last a couple weeks or more.

CD Blend fits comfortably into this genre. It seems to be very much dominated by a malty Burley and this is supported by very small quantities of Latakia and Perique. By mid bowl, I find it very easy to forget that there is condimental leaf in here at all. And it takes some pretty serious looking to find any of these darker condimental tobaccos in the tin, where the tobacco is almost uniformly light brown. I'm not really sure what this has been topped with. There is something simultaneously molasses-ish and prune-like going on, so maybe it's not too far off to suggest that it's topped with an old man's breakfast as recommended by an early 20th century Country Doctor. Molasses and prune. CD blend certainly keeps me regular.

The cut on this tobacco is rough—almost ridiculously rough. I've given up trying to load it straight from the tin and instead, I now dump some on my desk and tear it down into more manageable pieces. It burns nicely, like most Burleys and provides mostly a sweet and malty flavor with hints of prune. The strength is moderate. It's not nearly as exciting as some other tobaccos in the genre, but it does have a kind of workmanlike quality to it. It's pretty easy to smoke but I think that it could get boring as the primary tobacco in a small rotation.

Still, and even though it's ultimately a little boring, I'd recommend CD Blend to fans of Walnut or Epiphany. It's a pretty decent change of pace.

My sample was quite dry. The bag note was earthy burley and a lite latakia smell. Packed quite easily as a course cut mixture. Burnes quite quickly ( I used a wide short bowl) and to ash no dottle in the bowl. The Burley keeps the smoke quite cool and very smooth no bite whatsoever. Molasses flavor and just a lite hint of Latakia, the Virginia gives it just a bit of sweetness. This is a great blend for those wanting to try Latakia as it is very lite. Nic hit was medium. Could be an all day smoke. 3.5 stars

First up, if I ever smoked Country Doctor in years long ago, I certainly don't remember it. Whatever topping has been added is extremely mild, just a hint of dark fruit. I will also take the blender notes at their word that there are Virginia and Perique present. The Latakia is just noticable, however.

Overall, I found this to be a pleasant, easy-to-load rough cut; somewhat fast-burning but with no bite. Since I know there are many tobaccos out there I would rate a 4, the question arises would I rebuy this particular tobacco, assuming my tastes don't change much more. In this case, the answer is, I have.

Here is an actual review of CD Blend. This blend is supposed to be a match for Country Doctor. Which I've not tried. Upon opening the tin I was greeted by a slightly fig/ smoky aroma. I was very hesitant to try this because something about the aroma reminded me of the Fox and Hound blend by Altadis which I absolutely despise(They don't smell similar at all side by side necessarily, but there was a certain commonality in the smokiness. Like the difference between a wet campfire and sweet beef teriyaki. Both smell smoky but both are worlds apart.). So the adventurer inside me wouldn't let me give up so easily, and I'm glad I didn't. I was very surprised at how good the tobacco actually looked and felt. Not too moist and not too dry. Just about perfect for my taste. It packed nicely in my cob and off we went. Pre-light, tamp, secondary light. Hmmm?! My fears of tasting another F&H are gone. There's a slightly sweet but rich tobacco taste. The aroma is that of good tobacco and a little fig maybe. After the first third the slightly sweet but rich tobacco taste is still here. The aroma too. The last third maintained the slightly sweet but rich tobacco taste to the end, but getting a little stronger on the tobacco taste. The aroma stayed constant throughout the entire bowl. This blend however, was mild in nicotine throughout. A nice gray ash was left that came out with little to no effort. Needless to say, when I had finished I was relaxed and pleased. This would make a great fall smoke to me. It's also shows potential to only improve with aging. This has a spot in my rotation now, and we'll see what some aging can do. I'm sure there are other blends and opinions that will differ from this one. But I hope this encourages some of us to at least give it a try. Happy smoking!