Hello again. I just finished my first week of snufftaking. During this week, I took the opportunity to read the most recent 15 pages of this forum’s Snufftaking board and I learned a lot. I tried most of the techniques for pinching that I ran across. As I mentioned in my first post, the only snuffs I have now are the two available locally until my Mr. Snuff orders arrive: McChrystal’s O&G and W.E. Garrett’s Scotch XX, both fine, dry snuffs. My technique is as follows: I use a modified form of the “bunny sniff” technique like this: I take a good-sized pinch, tilt my head back, place the snuff right above my nose with my finger and thumb touching it. Then I take short, sharp sniffs, only rolling my fingers when I’m actually sniffing, until the entire pinch is in my nose. While sniffing, I wrinkle my nose like a sniffing rabbit which seems to have the effect of at least partially closing the back part of my nasal passages. Using this technique, I have had no throat hits and the snuff doesn’t end up all over my clothes or the ground. I know that fine, dry snuffs are a challenge for a newbie, but this technique works for me and I’m happy with it. I hope it works for all kinds of snuff, but I won’t know until I’ve tried it with my orders when they arrive. I take at least two bumps of O&G first thing in the morning to wake me up and then use the Scotch all day. I’m not really a fan of unscented snuffs, so I’m anxiously awaiting my orders. Please feel free to comment.
Congrats on enjoying your first week of this journey @SnuffPirate! The O&G shouldn’t be Dry … you might try putting the tin open overnight in a Tupperware container with a moist papertowel inside the container as well. The snuff will absorb the moisture and be much easier to enjoy
well the question would be is the O G as dry as the scotch?
@bob, no, the O&G is not as dry as the Scotch but in my limited understanding, I thought it was classified as a dry snuff. My mistake. It is fine, however, and my technique described above works with both. I want to say the I very much appreciate those who have taken the time to reply.
@SnuffPirate, different techniques might work different with different snuffs. 
Be careful with the white ones!
Have you tried mixing snuffs already? Sometimes them combos turn out surprisingly good! There’s only one rule of a thumb - mix small amounts first.
Exciting times!!! I too started with American scotches. The good news there is that most snuff will be fairly easy for you to handle after learning on Garret. The exception will be when you try white Indians, they can be a little more tricky.
@SnuffPirate you’ll soon find out one of the immutable truths of snuff taking (seems to apply to pipes too), that is the fact that although there are certain terms commonly used to describe snuff the actual definition of those terms are wildly flexible. Example sometimes dry snuff literally means not chewing tobacco or oral snuff (yes the moister german snuffs sometimes fall into that category).
That is why I thought some clarification would be useful in this discussion.
Also if you want to see the most classic snuff example of common term flexible meaning look up the meaning of S.P.
I started with a scotch snuff as well. Moister snuffs were a challenge for me when I first tried them because I was not sniffing hard enough. I
You may want to try course ground snuffs such as SG Black Rappee
If technique is your problem, I would recommend you to try Schmalzler as well. Go for a Bernard. Aecht Altbayerischer Schmalzler would be my point. It has a very very well made tobacco base and a great scent. The Nicotine is not that high on this one and you can use quiete amount of it. No throat hits will be caused.
For the first time, I would stay away from the fine grinds. Go from coarse to fine in grind. The more experience you have the more you will taste the fine differences in scent and aroma of tobacco. Don t go too over mentholated.
The O and G of McC is a good one for the menthols.
About 20 years ago, when I was a lad at the age of 16 years my first snuff was Gletscherprise by Poschl. Still enjoy it today from time to time.
@snuffmonkey mentioned the issues about sniffing too hard with moister ones. Here in Bavaria where Schmalzlers are common, this issue can also be a problem when taking the finer ones.
Just order a bunch of different types and try them all. I advise you to use the pinch method and stay away from gizmos and gadgets. The easiest, most pleasant way to take snuff is to just take a small pinch between thumb and forefinger, bring to the nostril and inhale.
Good recommendation for a beginner about the pinching method
Pinching is the only way that works for me too. If I try to snuff from a spoon, back of hand or boxcar I always get some that goes up too far. With pinching on the other hand it’s perfect every time, no matter what the snuff is. I actually combine three methods: spoon snuff from container onto back of hand then pinch from back of hand to nose.
I dont pinch when using oily snuffs like Kailash, however, I use them very rarely indeed. The vast majority of my snuffing is with traditional British snuffs, and they are all delivered with a pinch. The only other time I dont pinch, is the last few crumbs out of the snuffbox, when I physically cant get hold of them. They’re tipped on the hand and snuffed from there… and usually end up too far back.
Boxcar for schmalzlers, pinch for every thing else.
I would like to figure out a good spoon technique for when my hands are dirty working in the woodshop. So far I can only use a spoon with schmalzlers
@boiledonions why not spoon to back of hand? I would use back of hand exclusively if all my snuff was in tap boxes…it is by far the superior method for me.
I will give back of hand a try, I think I can manage that with moist snuffs. Whenever I have tried the bendy straw/ kuripe deal it is just time consuming to load it up, but I will give that a try too! When I first started each pinch took me a full minute, now that my hands are coordinated for the task, I doubt it takes 10 seconds.
If Mr Snuff gets the Rococo turn tins they would work well for back of the hand or box car
Snuff Store has them at the moment
http://www.snuffstore.co.uk/rococo-stainless-steel-turn-tin-p-2785.html