Well I am fairly new to your discussion board and first wanted to say hello from the old gold rush motherlode area of California to all the snuffers out there. I hope I am not repeating a previous topic on your site but I would like to share it to anyone who might be interested. My topic is adding a little life to the dry snuff. This also works VERY well for taking some of the drying effect that some of you have noted with the American style snuffs. Do you have old snuff or snuff that dries you out? If so give this a try! This works overnight so is very quick. What you will need is fresh leaves from any type of mint plant (there are other things you can use instead that I will note later). You can buy the potted plants at nurseries or anywhere they sell potted plants for kitchen use such as basil, chives etc. I usually do smaller amounts at a time to have better control over the process. I use an average size snuff tin or box that is half full of snuff. You just take 2-4 (depending on leaf size) fresh picked leaves and crumple-crush them in hand to “open” the leaves up. This crumpling will help the leaves release the natural scent as well as the natural oil in the leaf. You place these leaves directly into the snuff tin and shake around for a few seconds and let sit overnight. During this time you can occasionally shake the tin. The next morning after a few shakes you open the tin and remove the leaves. The leaves should now be all dried up and all of the scent and oils from the leaf is now in the snuff. The oils help in reducing the drying effect. You can tap the rest of snuff off of leaves back into tin or sniff directly off the leaf! You can adjust or fine tune the amount of leaves you use to your liking. I generally keep this up until the snuff is just starting to slightly ball up. The snuff is now ready and better than ever. Other items that have oils that work very well: Fresh Lemon Balm Leaves Fresh Flower Petals that have pleasant scent Fresh Orange Peels Fresh Lemon Peels Fresh Grapefruit Peels are real good. Have any of you tried this procedure before? Do you have any other ingredients used in this way you would like to share? Hope this tip can help someone! Your fellow snuffer, Brian
You’ve actually rediscovered an old way to scent snuff. The only caveat is not leave fresh scenting materials in the snuff over 24 hours, or the snuff may sour or mold. If you want a more intense scent, just change your flowers,etc. every day. You can also use dried herbs, spices, etc. by moistening them with potable alcohol, putting into a mesh teaball and placing it in the tobacco for about a week. You can also add powdered spices etc. directly to the tobaaco, my favorite method.You might be surprised at some of the things that make really good scented snuff. My current concoction is black fired American twist with thyme.
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Sure Alvin, might even add some peyote to help settle down after a long day.
Snuffgrinder, thanks for some other suggestions. I’ve only tried a few spices/herbs including tarragon which gave a slight licorice scent and was pretty good, nutmeg which I did not like and apple mulling spice for making spiced cider. The mulling spice was pretty good as well, reminded me of Christmas. I have also used shredded coconut which was pretty interesting. I have tried about all the alcohol flavorings by placing a bowl of snuff in a bowl of alcohol with a sealed lid. I have 3 favorite alcohol flavors. My favorite alcohol flavor is from Anchor Junipero Gin I guess thats why Bespoke Gin & Tonic is one of my favorite snuffs. And the second favorite is Makers Mark Bourbon and the 3rd is Kahlua. I will have to give your ‘current concoction’ with black fired american twist with thyme a try. Thanks again for some other ideas to play with.
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Thanks for the ideas. I should try these methods. Until now I only used Whisky to give some snuffs a nice scent, but the leaf / flower method sounds also nice.
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Toasted ones are very good to try. Also plain ones are good to play around with. This also works well for some of the American style snuffs/ Scotch snuffs. Say you have a snuff of any flavor but the flavor isn’t noticeable, well then you can add more of that certain flavor until you notice it or another flavor on the side to complement an existing flavor. But it does work well for any old stale snuff.
Thanks for the tip, I will try this with some of the many old tins I have.
Why not old and exotics spices flavors ?? Pepper, clove, red dry peppers…etc…for example… But we can not forget that snuff must to preserve firstly the tobacco flavour. Snuff is tobacco, the former manner to take tobacco. My line is dry and unscented snuffs, although I like sometimes some scented pinch of snuff,… but allways natural flavours. The tobacco aroma, flavour and taste never can be hidden. And this is my modest opinion. Pedro Macias Spain
In re: wacky tobaccy. Knock yourself out. South Africans have been adding cannabis and other drugs to snuff for centuries.That’s one reason that the Zulus were such formidable warriors. Some South American indigenes mix coca and/or hallucinogens with tobacco snuff as well. Another reason to add herbs etc. to tobacco is for medicinal benefit. There was a guy on ebay recently who was selling a medicinal snuff from Tibet that contained all sorts of ingredients including ox gall. Another more appealing compound was a mixture of ginger and tobacco that was used in the 19th century American South to treat “sunpain” or migraine headaches. One thing to remember is that whatever natural flavors you add to tobacco, the result is a combination of the tobacco and the added flavor unless you’re adding huge amounts of the flavorant. In which case, you might as well dispense with tobacco and just snuff the flavorant. A couple more of my favorites are cardamon, and anise seed. The anise was a favorite, once upon a time, on the island of St. Kilda. Olla, Pedro, I heartily agree with all of your remarks. Do you have any more information on that Moroccan snuff that you mentioned in another thread? Sounds interesting.
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Snuffgrinder, I tried your recipe of black fired American twists and thyme, very nice. I added just a fuzz of sage and it and the dang snuff started to make me hungry. I also tried with dark air-cured mixed with air-cured indian leaf and thyme. This was not as robust as the black fired but seemed to have a good amount of nic lift. I have one I just whipped up today that is real good, well to me anyways. Its Gawith Apricot mixed with ground Allspice. Very nice combination. I have been doing a lot of mixing with spices and herbs since this discussion started and this has to be my favorite.
Where do you get your leaf tobacco and twist from? I used Fred Stoker’s for years, but their prices have gotten outrageous. Also curious about your Indian leaf.
Here are some links for a few places I shop. Do you have the Fred Stoker’s catalog or just buy it somewhere else. If not you can get the catalog here Stokers Catalog. Here is a fun one to play with, its dark and strong with dark fired and dark air cured indian leaf Gawith Hoggarth Black Irish X Rope Here is a place for Twists also some more here in larger bulk Twists and Giant Air Cured Leaves This place has a good selection of pipe tobacco that can be used also great product, Finck Cigar Company they have a free catalog as well Unflavored Chewing Tobacco works great for mixing and used as fillers to make larger amounts. I even enjoy making my own flavor chewing tobacco with this. It comes in (12)- 1 3/8oz bags
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A few new ingredients I have tried that work great to add new life to your snuff: 100% Pure Australian Tea Tree Oil. Just a few drops in the snuff is all you need. Mix well and ferment overnight. If it becomes to wet, just leave lid off for a while. For those who don’t know, Tea Tree Oil is used to treat cuts, stings, burns and abrassions. Helps soothe toothache discomfort. Can be used for an inhalant in steam for colds and sinus relief. Its labeled as a medicine kit in a bottle. Pure Orange Extract. The kind that comes in the little bottles used for cooking/baking. Same directions as above. Pure Lemon Extract Mint Extract. Pure Almond Extract and well as Almond emollient oil-This ones makes a very unique scent with plain snuffs. Apricot emollient oil ***With the extracts you do have to leave the lid off after mixing to evaporate the alcohol thats in the extract.
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