What's your 2025 Lazarus blend?

[sablebrush52]

Hogshead, that stuff ran the full spectrum of Virginia flavors, a real kitchen sink red that’s both strong in nicotine, rich and complex as can be. Wipes the floor with CRF.

Hogshead is coming back.

 

[DesertDan]

The McB HH blends, especially Latakia Flake
SPC blends
EGR

 

[elvishrunes]

Our Scandinavian overlords didn’t kill the entire Sutliff brand — just the good blends. Crème Brûlée, Vanilla Custard, etc. will stick around

Oh yes right good call, these are the ones they kept and ruined as usual. I thought it was leftover stock. I do like some STG stuff in all fairness, but would prefer a less centralized supply for my worthless 2 cents.

 

[Skippy Piper]

I’d love for Russ to do some collabs with C&D — maybe we’d get some blends that actually have some casing & topping to tone down the raw, harsh tobaccos C&D sources

That has been my one consistent complaint with C&D, that they don't steam treat their tobaccos before blending like all the other big blending houses (STG, Gawith, Kopp, John Middleton, and formerly Mac Baren and Sutliff) do. The result is a very natural and strong tasting tobacco, but one that's also really raw, harsh, and just kinda rough and ragged to smoke. I get that it's their style to use minimally processed tobaccos, but I just don't have the constitution for it and always get a sore throat after smoking any of their blends. Even their aromatics are harsh as all get out.

If they just set aside a bit of the profits from all those small batch limited edition releases for a year they could probably buy a tobacco steaming machine in no time, and Rivertown sure isn't going to fill the gap in the US market left by the departure of Sutliff until they do.

 

[Strike Anywhere]

That has been my one consistent complaint with C&D, that they don't steam treat their tobaccos before blending like all the other big blending houses (STG, Gawith, Kopp, John Middleton, and formerly Mac Baren and Sutliff) do. The result is a very natural and strong tasting tobacco, but one that's also really raw, harsh, and just kinda rough and ragged to smoke. I get that it's their style to use minimally processed tobaccos, but I just don't have the constitution for it and always get a sore throat after smoking any of their blends. Even their aromatics are harsh as all get out.

If they just set aside a bit of the profits from all those small batch limited edition releases for a year they could probably buy a tobacco steaming machine in no time, and Rivertown sure isn't going to fill the gap in the US market left by the departure of Sutliff until they do.

Fully agree, and even if they didn’t steam, they could create a more enjoyable product with toasting and adding some sweeteners & flavors to their casings. Like you say, they’ve made the “distilled water only” thing their hallmark, but I think the lack of casing flavors and subtle toppings actually makes most of their stuff taste the same. I would love nothing more than to give 100% of my tobacco money to an American company, but subjectively & in my opinion, their product is vastly inferior to everything else on the market except for D&R and RYO “pipe” tobacco…

 

[hoosierpipeguy]

MB HH Pure Virginia is the only one I care about