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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

a great way to rejuvinate old snuffs is to go to some resale shops and find a nice advent baby bottle sterlizer. i saw the one we had for are youngins sitting on the table one day and POOF a light went off. it has a rack inside and the water goes on the bottom. i take any of my old snuff or even new snuff if i want more moister or if i get a old tin. i take the lid off put them on the rack, fluff them up a bit with a knife or pipe nail, fill the bottom with hot water and put the lid on and put it aside for a day or until they are how i want them. you have to do types one at a time, sp’s, plain, menthols etc. too keep from scenting other snuffs, but it works like a dream! it also has alot of possibiltys with scenting with liquers or like was said flowers, etc… i wish i could put a pic up so everyone knows what im talking about, but can not at this time. you could type in its name offcourse and find at pic at the many online stores.

ill be trying some of those, no doubt.

Wow…well…I think I’ll stick to using the stuff as an aromatic additive.

okay BIG SMILE!

Reviving an old thread here… Just found some things that might be rather useful for keeping bulk quantities of snuff moist:Humidifying Discs, Metal

I just wanted to thank Troutstroker for the recipe. I tried it with a bit of Rooster and a lemon peels, and what I have is pretty effin’ good.

And what about moisturizing snuff without flavoring? What will do the best: a dash of water or alcohol? Maybe something else?

@ermtony these are better they are small enough to fit F&T tins and have a self adhesive strip on the back. I use them in all my bulk containers and F&T tins. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2-x-Moisture-Blocks-Tin-Pouch-Keep-Tobacco-Fresh-/330506457034?pt=UK\\_Collectables\\_Tobacciana\\_Smoking\\_LE&hash=item4cf3b84fca

My favorite method is to soak a Tonka bean overnight then place it in the container of snuff overnight. It seems to release the right amount of moisture and imparts the wonderful vanilla-like scent in the snuff.

I bought some large cans of WoS on holiday to find when I opened them that the snuff had turned into dry grit. WoS cans are not airtight even when sealed and this had probably been on the shelf for a year or so. I dumped the whole lot into an old 1/2lb snuff cannister with two table spoons of water and half a peeled apple and gave it a good shake. I left it about 3 days and it had re-hydrated and had taken up some of the apple scent. However, when you loose moisture from snuff you also loose the aromatics (give or take depending on the original flavour strength) and you can effectively end up with a plain snuff, but you can get it back to a useable form. As I blend a lot I just used this as a neutral mixing snuff to bulk out blends with heavy scents like Rose or RG. When it comes to adding the water, you can steam, spray or use various condensation methods but really all you need to do is dump the liquid, whether plain water or not, into the snuff and keep it airtight. A good shake or stir and over a two or three days it will be completeley assimilated anf the snuff will be moist again. The tonka bean trick sounds good @rdunnion. Try keeping one in your snuff box as they did in the hey-day.

If I use the back of my hand, I’ve taken to breathing a slow moist breath or two across the dose, as if fogging a mirror. This won’t rehydrate your snuff but the reasoning is it substitues for the activation of the snuff via body heat from pinching. If the snuff is really dry or fine, I give it a few extra foggings to tame the texture a bit. The whole thing might just be in my head but you could give it a try and see if brings some of the flavor back out.

I have recently tried lavender scented balsamic vinegar to moisten my homemade cigar snuff. It took about a week for it to settle in, but the result was a very nice snuff, slightly sour, but the tobacco flavor really came out. I just put the vinegar into a little hole I made in the snuff with a fingertip, closed it up, forgot about it for a week. Then stirred it well and started snuffing it. It was an experiment that turned out rather well.

A slice of potato will moisten snuff without adding flavor. just don’t make contact with snuff

Thank you @mrmanos. You’re fast becoming our resident necromancer >:) 8-X