I just read the following on the Black Swan shops website.
“Samuel Gawith’s produce some of the finest English Snuffs on the market, which are highly sort after worldwide. Their snuffs are ground the traditional way using the original machinery, which was bought in 1792 from King George the third who had originally used the machinery for grinding gun powder.”
I have to wonder if the odd smell (a burnt rubber smell) some people have described some S.G. snuffs as haveing is in anyway connected to this fact? Like a lingering gun powder component. Not trying to freak anyone out. I just have to wonder if there is a connection.
I have noticed a certain scent there too, with some of them, but not with the KB’s or Peppermint Dark, for example. I always chalked it up to the base tobacco and how it’s cured and processed. Also on occasion there’s something I percieve with some other brands’ toasts that’s a bit rubbery. I’m not sure what it is.
Well, the main flag from the HMS Victory still reeks of gunpowder from the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Maybe it’s not as impossible as it seems on the face of it.
The additives in the unregulated 18th century were added to give bulk first - to give a higher return at point of sale and secondly to make up for the loss of ‘burn’, for want of a better word. The bulking agent - any ground up plant matter to hand - was the major adulteration with small amounts of the various irritants added to reproduce that burn.
I doubt saltpetre was ever used though, that was a very difficult thing to produce in those days requiring a lot of hard work; the gunpowder or saltpetre would have been worth more than the snuff. Probably an urban myth of the time.
I only said so because there was a reference in a book about someone adding too much saltpeter to the snuff they produced. It may have been in “Things Fall Apart”…
