Detailed overview of Bernard Products

The listed historic formulated products and all menthol/camphor schmalzler excluding Zwiefacher do not contain tamarind extract which gives the non menthol schmalzler their pleasant sweet-sour fruityness
interesting for me is the possible positive health effect of tamarind extract while keeping in mind the compound included here described as tamarind extract could be an isolated flavor.

all descriptions are of personal opinion additionaly incorporating data laid open by the manufacturer in 2011 which according to Bernards have not been changed.

the schmalzler excluding Zwiefacher except the ones with menthol and including Gekachelter Virginie contain added ethylparaben which based on studies in the amount present should be efficient in inhibiting microbiological growth by 100%
ethylparaben was scheduled to the EU REACH program for intensive research for effects on human health in 2017 but their newest review that includes the results for ethylparaben is pending by a year already so no new information can be gained right now. it is used in relative high amounts in cosmetics but preservatives with something i am using daily raise my brow. on the other hand microbiological growth is for sure bad and tobacco has a high affinity for alfatoxin producing molds due to long curing processes. good amount of menthol and camphor kill the shit out microbes so it is not needed there.

i am not a tobacco professional in any way and even new to snuff taking (a month) nor a biochemist so everything i point out based on correlation of content percentages could be wrong.

-Historic Formulation

Civette: pure tobacco aroma a hint of oil (8%), water and salt nothing else added. not the strongest in flavors but similar to Alt Offenbacher has something that reminds of “old” in a pleasant way.

Alt Offenbacher: pure tobacco aroma has iron-III-sulfate and tannin which lend to its even more old, woody, leathery, museum and old tobacco store type aroma similar to the Civette.
both of those components are astringent and probably help to free the nose but with less drip.

Feinster Kownoer: i love this one it contains ammonia solution like Gletcherprise plus ammonium carbonate and sal ammoniac but has no menthol/camphor and is a pleasant snuff for me its the english leaning Bernard. slightly citric sweetness but just a hint. with 0.37% for Bernard unusual high sodium carbonate content might aid in boosting flavor compared to the other classic recipe products. 0.64% salt.

-Uncategorized
Gekachelter Virginie: smoked virginnia with 7% oil, it seems to be used in some of the schmalzlers to give them a smokey note.

Steife Prise: strong menthol maybe with some added mint or eucalyptus hard to take apart as it freezes your nose (steife Prise means cold harsh wind). no data available

-Menthol and Camphor

Zwiefacher: their lowest menthol/camphor schmalzler (1.3% / 0.7%) with a finer ground but still fluffy (15% oil like most schmalzler) and an easy sniff with a lighter brown color. slightly sweet-sour fruity). great product a fruity menthol snuff. .06% tamarind unlike all other menthol schmalzler

Amostrinha: the middle ground second lowest menthol/camphor schmalzler (2.2% / 1.1%), 0.24% plum/prune extract different from the sweet-sour fruityness of tamarind. tasty smokey and long lasting is great outdoors and indoors. has something comforting to it like a sit on the campfire or the moderate smoke smell of the air in modern town where people have in home fireplaces for novelty.
 
Polar Prise: the middle ground a tiny bit more menthol/camphor than the Amostrinha (2.6% / 1.3%) but the same character only difference is 5mg in 1g of an unknown flavor below the .5% range in content (thus freed from public disclosure). has ammonium carbonate (smelling salts) which makes the Polar Prise for me too overpowering compared to Amostrinha which i like a lot.

F / Fichtennadel: second highest menthol/camphor (3.4% / 1.7%) apart from 280 Jahr (Wiesn Snuff, Schmalzler, Weiss-Blau) which is close. 0.74% pine oil content gives it its special character.

280 Jahr / Wiesn Snuff / Schmalzler Weiss Blau: strongest menthol/camphor (3.7% / 1.9%) there seems to be a bit of the Gekachelter Virginie in the mix for a slightly smokey background but way less compared to Amostrinha or Polar Prise.

-Classic Schmalzler

Fresco: their least fruity schmalzler but all the non mentholated schmalzler have tamarind so it is still somewhat fruity in character. with .06% the lowest tamarind content of their classic schmalzler products that do not contain listed artificial flavorant(s) or no more than .5% otherwise it would be forced to list.

Aecht altbayerischer: very very similar to Fresco but slightly less rough with a bit less tobacco content, more molasses and .05% salt (fresco does not have salt). personal impression is that compared to Fresco a cocoa- taste comes trough more compared to fresco but this is of minor difference. with .08% slightly more tamarind extract than Fresco.

Original Schmalzlerfranzl / Doppelt-Fermentiert: different from Fresco and Aecht, less chocolate more sour-fruity tamarind, with .09% highest tamarind content of the non-artificial aromatized schmalzler (see fresco comment on cutoff range for flavorant(s) below .5%)

Gold: very very similar to Original Schmalzlerfranzl but .05% less of unknown flavorant(s), almost same tobacco content like Original, .09% tamarind extract.

-Aromatized Schmalzler
Regensburger Pris: probably based on Original and has same tamarind content, tiny bit more tobacco than Original, with 10% their lowest oiled schmalzler including menthol/camphor types. a hint of sour green apple aroma (.05%) gives it a special fruityness but its hard to detect just aids the flavor. their most sour-fruity product.

Magic Moments: probably based on Aecht albayerischer but with .09% slightly more tamarind, 0.18% undisclosed flavorant(s) (see Fresco comment), 0.1% strawberry sirup (composition unknown most likely including strawberry aroma) which is compared to the Regensburger Pris green-apple more detecteable but blends in nicely while this is a very sweet strawberry chocolate vanilla hinted schmalzler. i still find it not too artificial unlike for example the “child-toothpaste” in-your-face aromatization some of the Poeschl inherent.

Klosterprise: probably based on Fresco with .06% same tamarind and close tobacco content. the data from 2011 says 0.33% rum aroma which is not very present and hard to detect at all. a feint ghost of a smoked bacon/roast aroma only slightly in the background and not listed so there is a possibility that this comes from a tiny bit of Gekachelter Virginie blending with the rum aroma. it has .05% less of an undisclosed flavorant(s) compared to Fresco (see fresco comment) and with only 0.007% it is the one with the lowest “secret” flavorant(s) content surprisingly while not bad somewhat lacking compared to all other Bernard schmalzler.

Postillion: no data available but similar to Klosterprise in color and character. i can not detect the feint ghost of “smoked bacon” that is haunting the Klosterprise instead there seems to be a slight presence of vanilla.
while not bad this one also seems lacking in comparison to the others.

phew! that took me a while writing this and i sniffed them all while doing so 8-}
i hope it helps ordering your favorite Bernard

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sorry the format got i bit screwed up

correction: F (Fichtennadel) has 7.4% pine oil instead of 0.74%

Super, danke schon @SunnyDay for this valuable info!
Snuff chemistry should be better known and understood by every snuff taker.

In summary, Bernard’s schmalzlers distinguishes for being salted (alkalis included), hence contain more free nicotine and are more satisfying nicotine-wise, meanwhile Poschl’s and Sternecker’s are/were just tobacco and oil. Also worth mentioning that there’s vinegar and slaked lime among the ingredients of some Bernard’s products.

But what about Rosinski? I couldn’t find any information about ingredients at BMEL.

P.S. You can edit own posts by pressing the invisible toothwheel (Options) icon on the upper right corner of the post field. It hides next to ‘Like’ and becomes visible when your mouse pointer approaches it.

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@volunge BMEL was not updated since 2011 and the latest review scheduled for June 2017 is still not released butBernard’s are still the same as there is no real reason to change them.
only a paranoid person like me might raise a brow seeing ethylparaben and its is clear that there has to be some form of microbial growth control in a commercial product if the powder does not have menthol/camphor or similar anti microbiological oil/extract with a safe (~100%) inhibition rate. after all its ground leaf that ran trough sometimes long time drying and fermenting processes. still i am very curious to see the review of ethylparaben and other chemicals that were or are queried for research.

There are many different techniques fermenting and saucing the schmalzler where the pH is balanced to a wanted level for each product.
a more alkaline blend accelerate the nicotine uptake and menthol does too.
You can see that only the lowest mentholated Bernard schmalzler the Zwiefacher has slaked lime in the lowest amount compared to the menthol free schmalzler products because it was used to balance the low menthol.

Different acids and alkali can also be used as a catalyst to speed up wanted reactions during processing.

No BMEL update since 2011 that means Rosinski is not included but he commented not having too much trouble with the recent new tobacco laws not needing to reformulate anything because he works only with natural ingredients you might find in the kitchen or garden.
a few Rosinski’s had to be renamed and the label got the ugly general tobacco warning slapped on just like all others snuff pouches,tins or boxes.
Rosinski sells miron glass containers with a name sticker on it seperated from the pouches (black glass, lets trough UV but not sunlight, might help preserve aromas better than usual i have good experiences with them in the kitchen the only thing you need to keep in mind is that direct sunlight will heat them up quick because of the black)
On order make sure to get one of each for a pouch or maybe even more. in find the small glasses store snuff great and are nice to dose with by tapping gently.
Rosinskis are worth a look or many! why? because you need to try all of them! most have their complete own character and i am sometimes picking out scents i did not notice before or do not smell all the time.

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Just FUI. Not Medical or Legal Advice: Camphor (2-camphanone) and camphorated oils were banned on the American market since 1980 after reports of poisoning through accidental ingestion and, less commonly, through skin absorption. As per Organicfoodee.com, topical creams such as BenGay and Aurum Gold Analgesic, containing up to 11 percent camphor, are available and are considered safe by the FDA. These creams produce a sensation of warmth that helps to counter pain. They also increase blood flow to the area to which they are applied, making your skin rosy-pink. You can buy cakes of pure camphor ? usually by special order ? at a pharmacy and make your own camphorated oil. But you may want to think twice before experimenting with this potentially harmful substance. Experts suggest that ingesting amounts as small as a teaspoonful can be fatal. If you care.

Well quite few compounds commonly used in snuff making is quite toxic in large doses.
For example: Tonca bean (Coumarine) is considered toxic by FDA and its not approved as food aditive in the EU.

About Camphor here in Czech Republic pure camphor in pharmaceutical grade quality cn be purchased in various hippie-ezoteric shops.

Vinegar was commonly used as tobacco preservative in years gone by many British tobacco blenders. If I am not mistaken McClellands are still using it as preservative thus it creates signature ketchupy aroma of their pipe tobaccos.

Jack

So ethyl-4-hydroxybenzoat is one of the infamous parabens! Oh my… Once again thanks for enlightening, SunnyDay. I’ll stear clear from parabened Bernard’s products in the future. I’m not going to bin my small stash of GV and Aecht b, though.

Vinegar is ok. Jaap had used vinegar extract for Mettaijer snuif.

My local pharmacy supplies 10% camphor spirit. Quite a simple and safe way to boost snuff with camphor.

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@JackGrave i briefly read about tonkabeans with coumarine extracted that would be an interesting ingridient. the samuel gawith elmo’s reserve contains tonka i think but not sure its without coumarin thats why i am a bit scared of that one. another indgridient i distrust is anything anise or star anise with its high eugenol and methyleugenol content (poeschl loewenprise, poeschl gawiths original/apricot, red bull a-type; swedish match edelprise and tucky but tucky had twice of them all thats probably why its out of production)

@SunnyDay Clove and Peru balm scented snuff might contain more or less eugenol, too. Hepatotoxic doses are rather high both for eugenol and coumarin, though (i.e. relatively low toxicity). Occassional pinch of Elmo’s won’t do much harm to you (even if you are a rare person with low CYP2A6 function), as well as infrequent Schmalzler with paraben.
Or just make safer tonka scented snuff yourself. Putting one bean into a large can of snuff for some days would result in very low-coumarine snuff, but it will be enough to change the character of snuff.
Lavender, parsley, strawberries, cherries, apricots, licorice, bergamot, camomile and many more herbs contain coumarines. Quantity is all that matters. There are lots of far more hazardous substances around us.
By the way, coumarines have some anticancer properties, too.
Interesting article on coumarines:
http://www.academia.edu/1445257/Plant\_coumarins\_myths\_and\_realities

Camphorated oil was rubbed on my chest scores of times when I was a youngster.  It was an old and well established medication for chest complaints and colds.   My grandmother lived until she was nearly 100 and she swore by the stuff.     I think the problem was with people drinking the stuff like cough medicines, and inadvertently poisoning themselves.

I was quite surprised when a few years ago the chemist told me it was no longer available over the counter as it was now deemed dangerous for self medication.

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For years in my younger years I used the gel and oil form on my chapped lips. But then again did other unhealthy things to myself also, but still standing. Somebody is always going to say some things are not good for you. Even some say breathing can be a bad thing for you!

hey you guys i put the bmel data into a spreatsheet here ya go use the explore function but im not sure how to do that with a published sheet.

cheers

Thanks so much @SunnyDay for putting this together, it was very helpful in my latest order

And thanks @volunge for the link!

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hey guys i want to let you know that postillion probably wont be available anymore

it was made for snuff-and-more shop exclusively which owner expired and the shop seems to be closed down

Another loss… Sad news.

On the brighter side, there are still 119 boxes left at MrSnuff/Snuffstore.

I considered this as my “cotton candy” snuff. :((

So the health nazis have intervened again.

^^ my comment was referring to Postillion.