Hey everyone, Now that i have mastered scotches and enjoy them very much. I would like to know which brand of English snuffs would be a good example of what a true plain high dry toast is? Thanks, rridenour

Wilsons of Sharrow Irish High Toast No. 22. There is no better snuff, period.

F&T High Dry Toast gets most of my love. Toque Natural Toast is pretty good also. Honorable mention to Samuel Gawith Irish D Light.

I havent tried my small tin of toque natural yet, would you say it is as good as wilsons IHT no. 22?

@ Pilgrim1, I would say it’s better but for some reason #22 and I don’t get along to well. The Wilson’s is a bit more refined and complex, but the Toque is excellent.

I know I have loved every tin of toque I have tried so far. Very good snuff.

I agree with kjoerup, Wilson’s Irish Toast #22 is fantastic. But Toque’s Toasts are really nice also.

I love F&T HDT

F&T High Dry Toast is wonderful stuff although I cannot compare it to the others mentioned as I have not tried them yet.

For plain, F&T HDT, but for full flavor IHDT #20. Wilsons HDT #22 is also good, you should have them all, solid snuff purchase that would be.

Add my concurrence with Whalens’ post. I personally have a huge preference for the IDHT 20 but for sure, those 3 should all be sampled!

The OP is asking for examples of “true plain high dry toast” and Wilsons Irish D High Toast No20 definitely doesn’t come into that category I’d say.

@bradMajors Thank you

Seems like someone swears by each one. Seriously I’ve only tried the F&T and it’s very fucking awesome. I really need to try the others. From what I can tell it seems they are all really good and it’s just a matter of taste as to which is best.

Ef and Tee High Dry Toast for mee!

All of the above. and Samuel Gawith’s Irish D Light is very good too - extremely finely ground, though. I’ve heard that it is closer to the original F&T HDT recipe than the current F&T HDT.

I think WoS #22 is my fave toast.

Lets not forget Toque Whisky and Honey. Nice toast with just a touch of sweetness.

I received a sample from Nicotine Rush or Wilson’s Irish DH Toast #20, and I have to say that it is magnificent and very moreish - I just can’t keep it out of my nose! It is so easy to snuff, round in flavor - I think that I detect a chocolate/nut - like nuance under the bergamot. I don’t detect any smoke flavors like Toque Toast and Marmalade or F&T’s HDT. Someone please help: what is the dividing line between a toast and an SP? Is the IDHT #20 a toasted SP?

Gawith Hoggarth Irish D is a snuff that doesn’t get mentioned too often, but is a great alternative to the other more familiar toasts. It reminds me a lot of Stokers Plain, in that the tobacco flavour is purer and a little less toasted, but with some smokiness. A little tricky for the beginner though.

A toast is made from tobacco that has been toasted or even burnt. SPs usually consist of plain tobacco with some bergamot, so #20 is probably unique in being a toasted SP.

1. Samuel Gawith Irish D Light 2. FT HDT 3. Toque Toast & Marmalade 4. WoS IHT 22 5. Toque WH 6. Toque Bourbon 7. Samuel Gawith Irish D Original 8. Toque Lime Toast 9. GH Irish D 10. Toque Natual 200. WoS IHT 20 2-9 are damn near ties, with slight favoring, hence the numbering.

I’m slow at times cstokes Those that know me will readily attest to that! Why the 200 designation for the WoS IHT 20?

LOL Because I detest it.

@cstokes4, I have all of them and they are soooooo good. But my #1 is still F&T HDT.

They are all delicious. I just can’t get into #20.

@cstokes Thought that might be the deal… funny how preferences differ though. I gather you like the Grand Cairo a wee bit, (WoS or Frederick T ?) I certainly splurge on the WoS Grand Cairo myself. That we have that snuff in common but are at opposite poles with respect to the IDHT 20 reaffirms the wondrous diversities…

WoS IHT 20 is not a toast, it’s an SP

Ah, but it’s a toasted SP. It says toast on the tin.

@Pieter - that’s what I thought. I couldn’t detect a commonality between the IHT 20 and the few toasts that I have. So I wondered whether “toast” designated process or flavor.

Technically it is a toast.

I have also been looking for a good clear cut list of toasts (I really like toasts and scotches, scotches were easy enough to find and buy one of each, but not so much these) I have actually tried (and like) everything on cstokes list (except for the following): Samuel Gawith Irish D Light Samuel Gawith Irish D Original GH Irish D (never tried those yet, I’ll have to get and test those ones out) The WoS IHT#20 to me is exactly like McChrystal’s S’Nuff, and both have the telltale SP smell to it and I’m not a huge fan of SPs. S’Nuff and this one were both do-able, before I had tried many other snuffs to compare them against, including scotches and (other) toasts, all I had were the newbie quit smoking types and with that being all that I knew at the time, the S’Nuff had actually been my favorite, so I can figure this one also would have been, but now that I can get away from SPs I see overall I don’t care for them as much (Berwick Brown was even completely unusable by me). I’m definitely a scotch and toast type of person.

@cstokes4 - I know a lot of different tastes are represented here on the board, and I respect your dislike for IHDT #20, but then to love grand Cairo, remarkable, there must be something wrong with my tin of Cairo, I just sampled it while composing this. I find the similarities of the two quite close, one being toasted. That being said. it is almost an injustice that IHDT #20 and HDT #22 are similar in name, they inhabit vastly different worlds. But for me they are both an exceptional snuff, a must have in quantity in my collection, I have a new unopened can of Grand Cairo, I will air it out and continue my deliberations. Plain toasts are a rarefied world, would exclude any flavoring, I would think. But now that I think about it, the scotches have the wood smoke flavor. Hmm!

@Debbie, do not believe everything you read!! A toasted SP is neither a toast nor an SP. It’s a hybrid. I love hybrids (high Brits), I ride a GT ZUM hybrid bike.

Can’t let the GC air out, that ruins it. I think it’s the dry nature of IHT 22 that I don’t care for. And there is just something else there that doesn’t work for me. @whistlrr: Samuel Gawith Irish D Light is the original F&T HDT. SG used to supply FT for that blend.

Berwick Brown is not an SP. It’s Berwick Brown.

@cstokes4 - thanks for the tip, I will keep it closed! No airing unless too much ammonia. I do really enjoy how personal tastes and even slight nuances seem to develop over time. I have been tipping out 20 gram batches of IHDT #20 from a 200 gram tub, mine is perfectly moist, I do detect a real spicy element, I just love it, although I also just love SS, and many detest it, I think it should be tried by all, at least once.

@cstokes. Thanks, I have added those to my notepad file’s list of ‘things to try next’ On a slightly different note: what about the Molens/whatever brand snuffs’ “Latakia AP” and “Latakia 1860 AO”? I haven’t tried the AO myself just yet (tho I do have it sitting on my desk in another 5g smashbox to be tried a bit later after testing out the A/P more) but it is said anyway to be a plainer version of the A/P, which I am using this minute and is very pine (or to me evergreen/ fresh cut Christmas-tree everone’s mileage will vary) and definitely somewhere along the lines anyway, of ‘woody’ smokey scotch/toasts, there is an undeniable scotch or toast thing there as I see it So just where do people find/catatorise these Molens (etc) AP/AO fit on the scotch/toast scheme of things? Would they be on the toasts list?

I like SS. #20 does have some elements in common with Grand Cairo, the spiciness being one.

AP is a Pine scented snuff. AO is a latakia snuff with no other flavorings. They are two different recipes. Neither one is a toast, or anywhere near that spectrum. AP would be a scented snuff that is demi-gros to gros. AO 1860 would be a plain snuff that is demi-gros to gros. Both should be very moist when used.

Okay, duly noted abut the AP and AO not really being toasts or scotches. but If its all the same to anyone, I am just now trying the AO right for the first time as I type this, and I’m getting the exact same “beef jerky” smell and taste, even if much more faintly, as I get from the the Kendal Black Twist of tobacco (on either just smelling it as it is as a whole twist or actually tasting it orally by putting a little piece in your mouth). very interesting stuff, both of these, and even if they aren’t even toasts or scotches at all, I’m thinking they still just might be of interest to other scotch/toast takers. Sorry for the bit of derailing with this. Please continue the actual toast discussion, I’ve actually been looking for exactly this sort of conversation to take place quite for some time. Not to be a complete idiot (‘some assembly required’ heh) but just whats the deal with ‘high’ written on toasts anyway, are there any other types, maybe some sort of ‘not-so-high’ toasts?

From snuffbox.org Irish High Dry Toast is a very fine snuff, and fine in every sense. It has a wonderful delicate flavour: but sneezy! Gawith’s “Irish `D’ Light” is the genuine traditional Irish High Dry Toast. Wilsons, Sharrow offers various kinds of Irish Toast. There are various romantic stories about the mid C18th origins of Irish High Dry Toast; e.g.: Lundy Foot of Essex-bridge, Dublin, manufactured snuff, drying the tobacco stalks in kilns watched over by “Larry” - or “Michael Larey” - who got drunk one night, allowing the tobacco to be over-roasted and apparently beyond reclamation. Next morning the furious Lundy Foot kicked and beat poor Larry and denounced him as a “blackguard”. Having milled up the roasted remains in the hope of selling it cheap to the impecunious, he found it delicious; and made a fortune by marketing it under the name “Lundyfoot Irish Blackguard”. Only later did it come to be called Irish High Dry Toast. (The details of the various stories vary; but, no doubt, like the varying stories of the loaves and fishes, they all preserve a kernel of truth.

"Not to be a complete idiot (‘some assembly required’ heh) but just whats the deal with ‘high’ written on toasts anyway, are there any other types, maybe some sort of ‘not-so-high’ toasts? " High and Dry - a bit a nautical slang there shipmate. Like the beached wooden ships of jolly Jack Tar snuff may also be left high and dry. The characteristics of high dry are: dry, unscented, fine (fin), biscuit coloured and before the tobacco stalks are reduced to powder, they are subjected to a roasting process in closed cylinders, which assists in imparting the peculiar smell by which these snuffs are characterised. If the snuff doesn’t match these conditions then it is not, in my opinion, high dry toast. It is associated with Ireland owing to the most celebrated of the Irish snuffs that was manufactured by the firm of Lundy Foot and Co., of Dublin. The best genuine example is arguably Irish High Toast 22 by Wilsons of Sharrow. ‘Irish ‘D’ Light’ by Samuel Gawith is very similar to Professor Phillips Griffith’s much lamented ‘Irish ‘D’ Snuff’ by Carroll of Dublin. The former has, in the past, been bought and re-sold as Griffin’s Finest Irish High Toast and as F&T HDT, making a nice little profit for the middleman.

@whistlrr: Latakia is cured using open fires which give it the smokey “beef jerky” scent. In fact Latakia was originally produced in Syria, but no longer is legal to produce there because it used so many trees and Syria is semi arid and can’t spare the trees. So in the sense that both toasts and Latakia snuffs are fire cured, there is some relationship. The smokey scent in latakia is much stronger as I am sure you have noticed.

@Alcyon: Don’t quote me on this but I’m sure I remember reading somewhere that it’s simply the location of the two Kendal mills - one is up a hill from the other, hence “Top Mill” and “Bottom Mill”.

"PhilpS, I’m not entirely convinced: any sources for that origin of high, dry? While you’re pondering that, what about “top mill” and “bottom mill”? I’d google it, but not 'till I find out the origins of the word “grog”. " @Alycon - Whether high-dry/dried brown malt (for dark beers) or high-dry/dried snuff any kiln dried product is left high off the water mark like the ships from which the term originates. BradMajors is correct about the origins of high mill and low mill. The origin of grog is as follows: Old Grog was Edward Vernon who in 1740 introduced the mixing of water and lime with the sailors rum ration. Vernon was called old grog because he habitually wore a grogram coat, which is made from a coarse fabric of silk mixed with wool.

I believe that he is refering to the idea that snuff was dried in a kiln, or atleast the High Dry Toast was dried in a kiln. Maybe J&H Wilson’s original mill was on the top of a hill, hence Top Mill.

Westbrook Mill was in Sheffield, not Kendal. Just of Sharrow Lane if memory serves me correctly. I’m pretty sure Imperial still has a factory in Liverpool where the J&H snuffs (and probably the Hedges) are produced.

“While Sharrow did make a bottom mill, how did those liverpudlians J&H Wilson end up with a top mill?” @Alycon - Joseph and Henry Wilson were established in Sheffield. Westbrook Mill is a grade II listed building in Sheffield. It was built in 1833. In 1953 the business was sold to Imperial Tobacco and placed under the management of the Ogden branch in Liverpool. Unless you kept up to date with journals the transfer was seamless and made little or no immediate difference to the end user. Quite recently the mill was closed and production moved to Liverpool. The Sheffield mill was converted into offices in 1997. The Bottom Mill snuff by Wilsons at Sharrow Mill suggests that the mill was lower in a geographical sense (upstream or downstream of the river Porter) to J&H Wilsons Top Mill made at Westbrook Mill. High off the water mark (the tide at high water) leaves things (including ships) dry - hence high and dry. The phrase is used figuratively.

erm - was the top and bottom not to do with the fact that the mills at Sharrow were on two floors?

For me it goes F&T HDT Toque Natural Toast Wilsons #22

Surely a mill - however many floors it has - is entire and of itself, and ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ must mean two different buildings?

I think “high” and “top” are the same thing.