Sutliff Tobacco Company French Quarter

Sutliff is kind enough to send our pipe club a dozen tins of their blend of the month and they've been doing it for years (Altadis, prior to Sutliff), and French Quarter came to us very fresh right after they included it in their "Private Stock" listing of tobaccos.

Most Sutliff blends are broad (another word for coarse) cut and, of course, cannot be rubbed out further in such a form. So, expect a slower burn which was intended as these blends usually contain a lot of casing which can heat up any tobacco - including Burley. French Quarter's descriptive here is honey and Vanilla. I tasted neither but did taste a rather unnatural sweetness that frankly, was pretty good. Almost sweet almond extract in nature. The blend is pretty moist and doesn't dry out, so expect a lot of moisture in your pipe after smoking it. Not at all bitey and loaded with flavor (other than tobacco), that really had our club's aromatic crowd delightfully happy.

Pipestud

The tin aroma of this coarse, plug-cut cavendish is of treacly sweet coffee liqueur.

This is made primarily of cavendished light burleys and red virginias. There is a soupçon of dark leaf, most likely black cavendish, as perique doesn't seem to sensibly manifest. Heavily applied, the liqueurish topping is appealing.

French Quarter is a sweet and smooth cavendish which is thoroughly unlike Bourbon Street. It will definitely ghost a briar and seemed best in a narrow to medium gauge chamber.

This tin was a freebee from a fellow pipe club member. It has a wonderfully intense sweet honey like tin aroma and is comprised of large chunky flakes of tobacco. It smokes nice and sweet. I cannot really detect any bourbon flavor and can’t really describe what it tastes like except maybe vanilla, a little honey but that is only borrowed from the description on the web site. I do not have much of a discerning palette to describe this like some of the pros do. It is a nice aromatic and maybe I have just tried too many different blends lately to give it the in depth review it deserves. A nice flavored aromatic tobacco, what more can I say? If you can find a tin, try it.

When I opened the tin I smelled a faint but plesent vanilla smell and found this blend to be very mild yet pleasing. Everyone in the room complimeneted the scent. dry a little before you smoke just a little to moist in the tin for my liking. Recomeneded for the first time smoker because it has a mild flavor. Did not burn to hot and had no bite what so ever.

Look, this is an easy one. Way too many subsequent reviews here tend to reflect a few opinion leaders, a shame in this case. Ignore the smattering of 1-stars by the negativistic nabobs, and read the rest, adding one star to each. A fine, well balanced, lightly aromatic yet featuring the lovely components of the blend.

Hard to beat. If you find any - FQ has been discontinued - buy all you can. 3.5...

This is an awfully interesting blend. The cut is amazing: large chunks of thick, broken flake combined with large cuts and rough ribbon. It smells of anise in the tin, and smokes pretty good. It is a big hard to get going, due to the interesting cut most likely, but smoke well once it gets going. This blend reminds me a bit of Great Outdoors, but is a bit fuller in flavor. It also reminds me of Mixture #79, minus the floral note...

This is a fun one! French Quarter is a blast because it's so chunky, and has a lot of character. It's like a conversation that keeps moving in different directions, so there's a lot of corners that this one takes you around. Lots of scenery. I find this one very earthy, and it reminded me of good times while out camping. Personally, I like the chunky flakes in this one, and it took a minor, minor couple of lights to get going, but when it set, it went through the whole bowl. French Quarter made the best impression on me whilst having a sipping whiskey, and enjoying some good conversation with friends at the end of the day. It's fine, but nothing great...and certainly compared to their R-Blend, or other quality tobaccos in general.