tobacco flavor descriptions

interesting info I found online:  

Any of the casing recipes I’ve seen have some sugar component to them (honey, chocolate, molasses, maple syrup, etc) which is also mold food. If you don’t want to add polypropylene glycol or other chemicals, then I would suggest using more natural preservatives such as alcohol and a pinch of salt in the mixture instead of water. 15% ethanol is typically the upper range that most yeast and other fungus can tolerate. I like rum personally, but vodka would be a neutral option. I’ve successfully used a mix of 50/50 water and rum in my pipe mixes. I spray to moisten, toss to mix, let dry till it doesn’t feel “wet” any more, then jar.

There seem to be 180 degree opinions on whether the sugars in casing inhibit mold.  As I ordered the dark fired TN for the char flavor I'm not going to case that.  Still undecided on the Virginia Flue and Latakia.  Some say that Latakia should not be cased.
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Update:  I settled on a grain alcohol + polyethylene glycol solution, with a touch of juniper and malic and citric acids as an anti-mold spray.  I curated this from lengthy web info.

I can report that dark fired TN/KY is excellent without casing.  I still plan to experiment with casing on the Virginia flue cured.  I'm going to leave the Latakia alone (save for spraying).   Also the multi-blade herb scissors (see Amazon) are quite effective.
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Results & Reflections

Tried the Virginia Flue Cured I cased around 14 days age.  The casing did effect change in taste but not one I would call sweet (even with the casing mix being 50%+ sugar).  Compared to uncased Virginia I would say the cased flavor was smoother.  My cased product also seemed to have more nicotine than most of my purchased tobaccos.  Possibly aging or something else the pros use mitigates this -- I don't know.  Also made me wonder about Latika and Perique not taking casing well; absent adding any sweetness to their flavor casing could likely enhance.  The primary driver for casing is increasing the acidity to a range above where mold will grow (the consensus seems to be; there are some convinced anti-casers out there though).  I'm going to put the leaf I cased away for several months.  Strongly suspect the taste will be enhanced.

I chose to case, dry and then spray with a grain alcohol-glycol solution for added anti-mold.  Some recommend adding PPG to the casing mix for a one spray method.  Here Malic acid [from apples, used instead of vinegar] has a lot of champions.  Another difference is that some cut the tobacco before casing and some after (I did after; if before yields a different result I'm not sure).  

Yes I'm going to do some more -- have ordered samples of Burley and Canadian Virginia Flue for my next venture.  Will work more with flavors this time.  Flavors like cocoa, coffee, molasses and a number of fruit essences are frequently used here.  I'm partial to caramel and may try this first.  

Considering flavors some thoughts occurred:

• casing may well be a way to work with strong flavors allowing more nuance than simply adding something to the finished tobacco.  Two plants come to mind: first clove, which may sound strange for pipe tobacco but is common in non-North American cigarette tobacco [Kreteks in Indonesia, also common in France].  Every blue moon or so I like a bit of deer tongue in my mix.  Pervasive stuff which can ghost a pipe if you're not judicious.  Casing could be the way to work with this herb.
• I wonder if e-juice could be used to flavor casing.  It's basically flavorings mixed with propylene glycol or vegetable glycerin, with or without nicotine.  If this has been tried I wasn't able to find.  An intriguing option though.
• Whiskey, brandy and scotch are common alcohol based flavorings.  Why not vermouth as it has herbs, bark, botanicals etc. which should make for an interesting add-on.  I'm not partial to liqueurs but is not difficult to see their use in casing flavor.  Smoking taste is quite different from drinking/eating taste so flavors involved would be quite apart from any food-drink experience.  Urbane for sure.

Casing methods vary but one commonality seems to be heating the leaf moderately before spraying.  I used a standard small oven as opposed to microwave.  Some report microwaving without any problem but I'm risk adverse here.  I've already mentioned herb scissors as a good tool but I found a couple of others.  If you prefer hand cutting another option is a Mezzaluna knife (round blade).  I'd recommend a dedicated cutting board for tobacco.  Also a hand crank food grater could be a useful method for smaller quantities, considerably less costly than tobacco models.

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