I live in a state that banned flavored tobacco. From time to time, I enjoy some Copenhagen LC Wintergreen. But, it has been banned and all that’s left to choose from are Natural and Straight.

I bought some LorAnn Wintergreen flavoring. My plan is to add it to a tin of Copenhagen Natural LC. I’ve looked on their website and on Google but I can’t seem to find an answer to how many drops to use to dilute it in water or a carrier liquid. Also, I’ve been thinking about adding a sweetener like sucralose to balance out the flavor because Copenhagen Natural to me is salty.

So, I hope someone can point me in the right direction for diluting the wintergreen oil and if adding a sweetener is a bad idea.

Thank you for your thoughts.

Adding sweeteners would make sense (compare the ingredients: https://www.ussmokeless.com/-/media/Project/Altria/USSTC/products/our-products-and-ingredients/ingredients-pdfs/Copenhagen-Ingredients.pdf), but I would advise running a search for some study with smokeless tobacco analysis data, covering the range of sweetener amounts in various smokeless tobacco products. Obviously, can be added to one’s taste, but excessive (wrongly guesstimated) amounts of some sweeteners might taste off or even impair the texture.

Here’s a link to a report on menthol and methyl salicylate (wintergreen flavour) levels in some American oral tobacco products: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/40773677_Levels_of_mint_and_wintergreen_flavorants_Smokeless_tobacco_products_vs_confectionery_products.

LorAnn Wintergreen Oil and Wintergreen Flavour (both are of virtually the same strength, the former containing natural methyl salicylate, the latter - artificial) can be used (with all due caution*) to flavour smokeless tobacco products, but these flavourants cannot be added in their concentrated form and should be diluted.

Since you don’t want your dip to be any moister than it comes from the factory, consider drying it out, partially, before adding the diluted flavour. I would reduce the weight of 34 g (1.2 oz) natural dip by 5 g (down to 29 g, by drying out) and recondition it with a mixture of 0.5 g Wintergreen Flavour and 4.5 g water (and sweetener,** if you will), mixing the dip with said mixture thoroughly and letting to rest overnight before taking a wad.

Related discussion: Reddit - Dive into anything

*methyl salicylate is toxic; using a scale with 0.01 g graduation is a must.

**up to 3 mg Acesulfame K in 1 g oral tobacco
up to 70 mg xylitol in 1 g oral tobacco
up to 7 mg licorice extract in 1 g oral tobacco

P. S. Stokers Long Cut Green contains 28 mg methyl salicylate (witergreen flavouring) in 1 g product. Smoking Info

Thank you very much for your reply. So, if I did the conversion correctly, .5g wintergreen flavor in 4.5g water would work out to be .6ml in 6ml water. So its like a 1 to 10 ratio. Does that look right? I’ll be using a small medicine dropper. Is water sufficient for diluting or do I need to use some sort of carrier oil like jojoba or coconut oil. I’m thinking those carrier oils could alter the flavor.

As far as sweeteners, I have Stevia or Equal. I think the Stevia tastes better. Thanks again for input

Best to use a carrier into which the oil is soluble. Solutions here would be 95% potable ethanol (such as “Everclear 190” which may or may not be sold in your particular state/market) or propylene glycol.

It actually would be better to use 190 U. S. proof Everclear as a solvent, that would also allow you to skip the drying step. Just make 10% wintergreen tincture and mix 5 ml with 1.2 oz dip. Let the ethanol evaporate, leaving your freshly flavoured dip in an open bow for half an hour or so.

Methyl salicylate is miscible with both propylene glycol and glycerine. The dip which would be used as a base doesn’t contain any humectants, so a gram of PG or glycerine per can wouldn’t mess up the texture and spoil the taste. Besides, both are way cheaper than high proof food grade ethanol, and widely available.