I certainly do! completely comical looking back at my first snuff experience… lets just say the snuff did not make it into the second nostril. 

Toque menthol was the culprit, I got my first snuff purchase about 8 years ago… I stood in front of a full length mirror wanting to see exactly what I was doing, I opened the 25g tin and put the lid under the snuff tin, while holding the tin in my left hand I took a pinch from my right hand and held it under my nostril… I then done what I thought was a sniff, which now I realise was most probably a hard snort, it must have been! felt like it hit my brain. 

The burn came quickly and both my eyes started watering and I could not see a thing, for a split second I realised I was going to sneeze, I must have broke the sound barrier… the most violent sneeze ever & bare in mind my eyes were close from the watering… I only sneezed into the snuff tin in my left hand that then shot up and exploded into my face & the rest fell on the floor… haha! I had a coughing fit that must have lasted 5 mins. My face tingling from the menthol, It was not a good experience… But of course my novice experience was to blame, glad this phase is now over… 

It was just one of them moments where you just had to be there to understand how funny it was,… I will never forget my first time taking snuff. 

Do you remember yours?

About 10 years ago the sub I was stationed on pulled into Portsmouth, England for Christmas. Some friends of mine along with some new friends from the HMS Trenchant went to get ‘pissed’, as they termed it, at a pub. One of the Brits was a snuff taker and had a tin of J&H Wilson No.99 that he offered around, probably to laugh at us poor yanks. Anyway, a couple if my compatriots tried it and it was a comical sight of sneezing while laughing and such. The tin was passed to me and I’m happy to say that I neither sneezed nor coughed much to the suprise of my new acquaintences. It was a revelation to me however, and the next morning I went from newsagent (I think that’s what they call them in the UK) to newsagent buying up all the No.99 I could (and paying a premium mind you) because I thought I’d never be able to find any outside of Jolly Olde England. Not much of a story, but there it is.

Must have been eight or ten. I went to some recreated historical coal mining ghost town out in the country side in Victoria, Australia tralia, with a school trip. I’m happy to say that they had made the effort to stock snuff in the souvenir shop, although I don’t remember any explanation about how underground workers often used snuff because they couldn’t smoke. A group of friends bought a few different flavors, and we all tried it over a few weeks. At first, my mother tolerated it, but she finally stepped in and said, astutely enough, “That stuff is tobacco! You shouldn’t be using that!” I remember it made me sneeze, but I thought that was part of the fun. I’ve got no idea what the brand was. My old man enjoyed tobacco in various forms, Camel no filter mainly, but also cigars and pipes. Once, a few years after the coal mine, one of his women gave him a snuff mull as a birthday present and I tried it again. Then a round 35 year gap until someone reminded me of its existence on a pipe forum.

@JakartaBoy that would’ve been awhile ago, what year were you in Australia, I have never heard of snuff being sold over here? 

My first time snuffing was pretty uneventful, I had some relatives bring back in some snuffs at the beginning of last year. McChrystals O&G several of those 4.4g tins and quite a few Poschl tap boxes.

The first snuff I tried was McC’s O&G off the back of my hand, I remember making sure to just smell it and nothing happened though eventually snuffed it almost perfectly.

Its a really fluffy snuff no matter the grind so I had no issue with it really. I know boring story.

I tried snuff for the first time back in the late '80s.  I saw it in a grocery store in East Texas and thought I’d give it a try.

It was some American Scotch.  Not very good, or fresh. 

I thought that was that, and snuff wasn’t for me until I found out about the wide world of snuff about five years ago.

I was in Grad School at Duke in the 80’s. I had heard of the practice through literature, and I came upon a can of Peach in my local Winn/Dixie. The rest, as they say, is history.

I was probably 12 or 13. My friend and I bought a red plastic tin of snuff at the local drug store no idea what it was. All we knew was that it went up your nose. We each took a huge pinch and snorted it up. After we could see and breath again, we pitched the tin in the nearest trash bin. 

Fast forward 35 odd years and my first snuff was a tin of Silver Dollar and the experience was much nicer.

Silver Dollar Original here. I had “quit” smoking about 50 times and just couldn’t kick it so I thought I’d give snuff a go.  I was intrigued by the historical aspect, and really wanted to keep my beloved tobacco in my life.  I of course had a few bad sniffs that resulted in exploding eyeballs, sore throats and curses.  Finding Mr. Snuff’s selection online helped to feed my commitment to snuff vs. smokes.

Very first time I tried to put it in my mouth as my granny did. Peach was her snuff and all she ever bought. I was 9 at the time. I sneezed and blew a fog out of my mouth, across the kitchen. 2014 I first tried snuff as it should be done. I ordered a 5 gram Wilson’s assortment. While waiting for it to arrive, I bought a tin of Superior and a tin of Square at random at the grocery store. I sneezed a lot with that Superior.

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@Aamon, it was the 1970s. Not that snuff was ever big in Australia, but I also saw it for sale in high end tobbacinists in the 1980s. I think the retail sale of oral tobacco of any sort was banned in the early 1990s, although it’s still legal to import it for personal use.

@JakartaBoy yeah that’s correct. Its a bit of a shame that snuff did not get bigger within Australia when it was legal. I’ve only spoken to one Australia who knew what it was though he was English

In 2013 or so I was working in a tobacconist shop called ye olde pipe abd tobacco in Phoenix. Behind the counter we have several varieties of Silver dollar snuff. Every couple of weeks a guy buys a handful of tins. One day I ask him about it. He lets me try some, not advising me to sniff it, not snort it. I snorted it. Got back into my sinuses and burned. I tried some more the proper way once the burning stopped. After that I really didn’t think much about snuff until a few years later.

I was trying to find a way to kick cigs around 2010 and was aware of snuff and curious about it thanks in part to the Necronomicon (a story I have posted here before). My now ex-wife was also a smoker and I had been using dip exclusively for a time but the cost was getting a bit up there as I was going through half a can a day. So I took one of her cigarettes, a pall mall blue if I remember right and ground it up in a mortar and pestle and gave it a go. It was a wonderful success and  delight. I later did the same and letting sit with an orange peel for flavoring and it was even better. Not long after I picked up a couple american scotches from the local Food Lion and the rest is history.

@Harlequin when you say the Necronomicon are you refering to the H.P Lovecraft made up Grimoire?

Back in 2011 or 2012, my pal Skell18 was kind enough to send me some snuff in a trade. I don’t remember which snuff I used first, but I know Dholakia White was in there and I thought I’d accidentally blown the top of my head off on the first sniff.

Skell, miss you m8 hope you’re alright.

I must have been around 9 or 10 years of age, living in Miami Beach FL. the Pantry Pride supermarket had a small section of one aisle that had all tobacco products except cigs.  Being 1980 it was apparently ok for a pre- teen to get snuff. I don’t remember the brand but it was a little metal can, was from England and was very finely ground and light colored tobacco. I tried sniffing it but was too strange for me…Don’t remember choking on it but I’m sure i sneezed it out I didn’t get back into snuff until high school, with Dr Rumney’s mentholyptus. Short lived habit until 2014 when I really discovered what was available, thanks to everyone here!

@Aamon Sort of. I’m refering to the occult text edited by “Simon” that is loosely connected to the works of Lovecraft. Specifically I refer to its companion book “Dead Names: A Dark History of the Necronomicon”

@Harlequin ahhh yeah. I’ve been mainly reading Crowley and Mathers lately. I take it the text is still about the Mad Arab?

@Aamon You can never go wrong with crowley. And yes, it is still “written by” the Mad Arab, though he is never mentioned by name. The begining is sort of a prologue by him, finishing with an epilogue, and everything in the middle is rites and rituals. Anyone familiar with the ceremony of western occultism should have no problem with its format, even if its a bit out of sequence in some places. These days its a pretty cheap mass market paperback, like the Goetia and such has come to be, so you should be able to find it easily if you want.

It was about 14 years ago.  I was working in Germany, and would regularly go to a Bavarian restaurant with some co-workers (we weren’t in Bavaria though).  Sometimes after dinner the owner would pass around his snuff bottle.  So he dashed out a bit of (what I now know was) schmalzler onto my hand and I followed the others’ example, and said “hey that ain’t bad.”

I first had WoS peppermint fed to be as a young kid by my great grandmother in Scotland. Late 1980s.

Judas Priest concert 1982 Vengeance tour Seattle. Dean Swift ? Do believe I still have that tin somewhere.

I bought some O&G from a tobacco shop about 25 years ago because I wanted to try all kinds of tobacco. I knew about snuff from reading writers like Gogol. I had no idea what I was doing, so I took a pinch and snorted it with full force. Needless to say I sneezed and my sinuses felt like they’d been arc welded.

probably about 13 or 14 years old

a small tin of gallahers wit and wisdom

lunecat,I have emailed them about a month ago,asking if they sell to Greece but never got an answer.
So I bought my SWS from snuffstore.(no harm…)
Do you happen to know if they sell outside UK?

I first tried snuff at Rattray’s Tobacco Shop in Perth, Scotland. It was 1970, and I was going to school nearby in Aberfeldy. I was looking at little bottles of G.Smith snuff, when the shopkeeper asked me if if I’d like to try any of them. I didn’t know anything about snuff, other than that you sniffed it. He gave me a few pinches of Carnation, Golden Cardinal, and Red Cardinal. So I bought about half a dozen types, took them back with me, and only did little bumps now and then, as I was a pretty solid cigarette hand-roller of Golden Virginia and Old Holborn. I kept the G. Smith snuffs, and brought them home to California. Upon returning home, I found that the local head shops sold Dean Swift, and another long forgotten snuff called, “CokeSnuff”. It came in a round tin with a side hole, and I remember buying a few tins of it, and some Dean Swift Camel-leopard. I used them off and on for a few years, and even found the remaining G. Smith snuffs I had brought home from Scotland.

Now fast-forward to 2006, when I had given up smoking cigs, and was into cigars, when somehow, at the local Smoker Friendly store in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, I saw Toque, Silver Dollar, Levi Garrett Sweet and Plain. I bought me a few tins of each brand. I was elated, in a tobacco-type of way. Now, eleven years later, I’m a hopeless snuff fiend and collector. Great topic, btw. I hadn’t thought about Perth and Rattray’s for a long time. I’d love go back there and see if the shop is still there. Maybe they still carry snuff. I bet they do.

lunecat yes,that’s what I thought.
can I count on you in the future if the times get darker?because as you said before:

“I can’t think of any snuff that can beat it for quality & pleasure!”