Jim's Lane Limited Ready Rubbed Review.

The burley is nutty with a molasses and cocoa taste. The Virginia is far in the background, and is sweet with some grassiness. The toppings amplify the molasses and cocoa, the latter being a little more prominent than the former. Burns well, even and cool with a consistent flavor that lasts to the finish. Very few relights needed. No dottle and hardly any moisture is left in the bowl. Has a very pleasant after taste.

Comparing this to the original and the Sutliff ERR Match, I note a few differences. Sutliff's is more of a coarse cut. The original was a cube cut, and Lane’s version is small cut flakes, all of which will effect the blends’ respective burn rates. All have the same flavors, though I notice the molasses in Sutliff's is slightly less deeper in taste than the original. The molasses in Lane's has nearly the same depth of flavor as the ERR. Lane states that they are using the original recipe, but after spending a few days smoking all three incarnations, my perception is that Lane’s has just a little more cocoa than the original does, which lightly lessens the effect of the molasses. It also has a little more PG than the original, but that mostly disappears by the half way point.

The Sutliff ERR Match is just about as close as the Lane version is to the original. It has a shade less cocoa than the Lane product, but the amount of molasses is virtually the same, and the Match could fool many smokers into thinking it was the original in a blind taste test. Lane’s version could easily be mistaken in the same kind of test, too, though the slightly deeper cocoa notes might give it away if you are spending time looking for it.