sp's

what is the main player in an sp the tobacco orr the bergamot? i read that mcchrystals s’nuff was a bergamot bomb but even when my nose was good. so which is it?

It depends on the SP. SPs usually have other stuff apart from bergamot in them - often rose, for example. If you want a bergamot bomb then go for Toque SP Extra. The ‘classic’ SP is probably either J&H Wilsons SP No.1 or Wilsons of Sharrow Best SP. My go-to is Wilsons of Sharrow Tom Buck, which is more or less the same flavourings as Best SP but more of them. If you want just plain tobacco and nothing else then try Toque. They certainly used to do a Natural which had no scents at all, and Friborg and Treyer High Dry Toast is also unscented (but toasted, like it says on the tin…).

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Despite popular belief, SPs aren’t “required” to have any bergamot at all. The most recent thread I’ve seen on here conjectured that SP stood for Spanish. However, back in the the day(read 15 or so years ago) all of us old-timers were sort of in agreement that it stood for Special Plain. Various companies and individuals for that matter added their own spice bill.

My understanding is that the now long gone Spanish Jewel, the inspiration for Roderick’s Spanish Gem was actually an SP, and it shows/showed no hint of bergamot. 

All this is an interesting research project that I’m not entirely sure the data exists to make a definitive answer.

The short answer to your question is then, tobacco. Hope this confounds things properly.

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Actually it has been conclusively proven that SP originally stands for Sales Pollard and the company even attempted to trademark it as soon as trademarking was available in the UK. There is a wealth of info on this gathered by one of our old time snuff gurus @PhilipS just google “snuffhouse sales pollard”

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Possibly just " simple production" ?

yeah SP means these days nothing more then the company is calling it an S.P… And the history is murky at best and sounds like there never was a real consensus on what it meant. Almost like someone used the label and people just assumed whatever abbreviation made the most sense to them. Or at least that is how it looks to me.

Some SPs are plainer than the plain ones.

Jaxons SP Premium is plainer than WoS Natural.
SG Red Crest plain is the plainest snuff ever. I find it suitable only as a mixer.

SG Blue and Yellow plain Crests were decent plain SPs.

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@volunge so does WoS Natural have a little SP going on? I’m getting burnt out on WoS perfume, looking for a gentler SP than WoS Best SP

WoS Natural (aka Plain) is unscented snuff, very nice on it’s own. It is good for ‘diluting’ any stronger scented snuff of similar grind, too.

As a toned-down SP I would recommend Toque Original.