Latakia Standards or Regulations?

Latakia is smoked tobacco, so it's not like there is something inherently special about it and it costs no more than cavendish or stoved Virginias. Seems like an awful big risk for no real gain. I wouldn't worry about Mr. Pease, he discontinued some of his most popular blends when he ran out of Syrian Latakia.

Is such a thing as artificial Latakia even possible?

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According to at least one member here ... yes.
I've never been given an example, however, of a particular blend containing said imposter.
From what I've heard, the imposter loses flavor while being smoked where the real-deal does not.

^ I forgot about that. I would love to have more info as well.

Yeah, they just dump a few drops of Liquid Smoke in the tin and seal it up.
I'm sorry, I just think the idea of counterfeit Latakia is a bit off base. Pipe tobacco, at least what I know of in the premium, tinned and bulk offerings is blended with select leaf whether it's Oriental, Virginia or whatever. Cavendish is a processed leaf, Perique is a processed leaf as is Latakia. It's the region in which it's grown that can make for a taste difference.
Check out the you tube vid on how St. James Parish Perique is born, (not flavored). That will give you an idea and an appreciation for just how labor intensive the process is and how great of deal you recieve for just a few bucks an ounce.

Is perique still created in the parish? I know there were financial problems a little while back...maybe a change of ownership of the land on which it is/was cultivated?

Much of the parish was destroyed by Katrina. There's still some cultivation going on at a smaller scale I believe. There's another periquing process that's called Green River?? Perique. It's Burley but not grown in the same soil. It's filled the void and as far as I know it's widely used in many blends. McClellands has the largest reserve of Syrian Latakia and probably St. James Perique. I'm sure there are more knowledgable members here that can correct any misguided information on all this but I believe I'm not too far off the mark.

From what I understand Green River failed to match the St. James Perique, which yes, is still being produced on a small scale. I have never heard of any reputable or otherwise, tobacconist using liquid smoke to make fake Latakia on the pretense of calling it real. But heck between all the casings and toppings I suppose that would, could be one. But when Greg Pease says there is Latakia in it then there is. From what I understand he uses Cyprian Latakia in present blends. But yea the best are all gone that used Syrian Latakia... except this one




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Although Pease lost its stock of Syrian which is very unfortunate, it is my understanding that McClelland and Mac Baren still seem to have plenty for now.
Vintage Syrian by Mac Baren and Samovar, Wilderness and Syrian Star by McClelland to name a few.

The liquid smoke thing was, well, sarcasm.

OK, here' some info. Some of it anecdotal, some concrete.
First the solid stuff: Mane SA is a French company that produces flavorings for the food, cosmetics and tobacco industry. Although they do not publish their tobacco flavorings online, I have it on good authority that their offerings include a Perique flavoring that is widely used in tobacco. You can Google Mane and find numerous references to their tobacco flavorings in trade journals. You will also discover that they have conducted research into identifying the flavor aspects of Latakia tobacco. Since Mane keeps their actual catalog of flavors confidential, we do not know for certain if they offer a Latakia flavoring, but they have conducted the research necessary to produce that flavoring.
Another flavorings producer is Naturally Extracted Tobacco. They cater to the Vape market, but a perusal of their site offers some insight into what is available. Latakia, Perique and Sun Cured Turkish are among their dozens of flavorings. In fact, Latakia flavoring is widely available for e-cig use.
Further, there are extracts available for Dark fired.
Anecdote: I have observed tobacco sold as Latakia that has lost it's "latakia" aroma. I've seen this mostly in blends, but just a few days ago, one of the members of the Lehigh Valley Pipe Club offered up a sample of bulk tobacco that he had bought at a local shop. The shop owner said that the tobacco was several years old. It was almost uniformly deep black, wet with what I assume was PG, and was almost devoid of of the aromatic characteristics associated with the smoked leaf. It was sold as being from one of the major suppliers, but since I can't verify that is where it actually came from, I'm not going to risk slander. We discussed this tobacco, and compared it to the 1997-vintage whole leaf Latakia that I have a good amount of and agreed that whatever this stuff was, it wasn't Latakia. But, having come from one of the major pipe tobacco producers, one has to conclude that this stuff has found its way into popular pipe tobacco blends.
So, my observations lead me to conclude that yes, there are Latakia flavorings available to the tobacco industry, yes they are used, and yes, many of us have smoked tobacco that uses artificial Latakia flavoring.

McClelland's Royal Cajun Black is produced by a very involved process, and to me it has a dark smokey flavor quite similar to Latakia. Because I avoid Latakia and don't have a very discriminating palate for such things, I'm guessing that someone could pass this off as

Latakia and fool me completely.

There are a few blends that have made me wonder, wondering even more now. But, McClelland's Black Shag from the Sherlock series has a latakia like flavor, but it isn't listed. GLP's Laurel Heights has a latakia flavor, but I can't find any particles of latakia in the actual tobacco. Sutliff's latakias have a weird taste to me also, and the little bits don't look normal to me either. I am no latakia expert, and actually, I am just recently exploring this genre, so take this for what it is, speculation. And, not to say that these folks would deceive us or use less than quality ingredients. But, it does make me wonder.
As for vapes, how come there isn't a latakia flavored vape? Not that I am a vape guy at all, but I did have a conversation with a cigar shop owner that was realley promoting the vape thing. When I started asking out of curiosity about pipe and cigar flavors, he had said that none of the vape juice guys have been able to actually make anything close to tasting like real tobacco. Of course, I haven't tried them myself to get an opinion, but my friends that use the thing all opt for fruity flavors, because they too say that they can't find one that actually tastes like tobacco.
If the vape juicers aren't being very successful at making one to appeal to ipipers, is there really a latakia flavoring that is being used in the tobacco industry? I could see them making something almost kinda like latakia and then adding it to some other things in the flavoring world. You'd be surprised at what flavorings are added to cigarettes. Marlboro has things like cherry, licorice, pine, oak, apple, etc... although you cannot actually taste these individually, the mix is what gives them their overall flavoring. Could it be that the cigarette industry adds a touch of latakia juice to it's product?
I know that when you combine different jelly beans, you can get flavors that are nothing like the individual flavors. My daughter was mixing pear, bubble gum, and rootbeer (or something like this) flavored jelly bellies to make make some new flavors like buttered popcorn or something like that. It was amazing how mixing jelly beans can make a whole that is remarkably different than any of the individual beans. Maybe it is used for something like that in the cigarette industry. Just speculating off the top of my head here.

Lots of Vape/e-cig Latakia flavorings, so someone is producing this stuff in bulk.

It's everywhere, it's everywhere!

They may produce it, but does it actually taste like latakia, or does it taste kind of close to latakia, like a Sutliff English blend? :wink:
Ha ha on the Photoshop skilz. Very good, and well played. ::

Someone else did the Heinz bottle...

I would like to see one that says that McClelland Virginia flavoring on a Heinz bottle.

Interesting information Woods. I certainly agree it is suspicious that any Latakia would loose its smokiness regardless of age. Especially considering the companies still selling some Syrian must be dealing with some very well aged Lat and their leaf certainly smells smokey none the less.
Cosmic, Laurel Heights is listed as a Latakia/Virginia blend on TRC.

Yes, but when you look at the actual leaf, there's no little black things. It looks like straight Virginia. I realize that there is latakia of some sort. Pease has said so, but you just don't see it.

Ah, gotcha.