Does anyone else love this stuff as much as I do? I picture a guy in the old days with a tight rope of black hand spun tobacco grating it against his rasp every time he wanted some snuff. I really like the SG dispensers, too. Great tobacco. No flavoring- just natural tasty stuff with a melancholic flavor. It’s very coarse, but I like it.

I plan to include some black snuffs in my next budgeted order. Thanks for another to the list.

I guess not many people have tried it. I really like the stuff. I think if anyone likes Kendall Brown, they’d like this stuff a lot. I used mine up really quick!

I wonder if this is the base tobacco that SG uses for their black coffee.

Bryan; I had no plans to try it soon, but what you just said sold me! (Big Kendal Brown fan, here) Cheers, Java

I’ve just bought a tin of this and I really like it. I’m not keen on the new SG dispensers though, I enjoy pinching out of a tin. Stefan

I, too, prefer a tin- but those dispensers are really good when doing something where your fingers get dirty- like fishing. I tried to take mine apart and reuse it, though and it broke

The new container also makes a great flute when empty.

LOL- I’ll have to try that.

it’s like bit’s of coal or dried up peat. lol but good.

I like lots of dark snuffs, coarse and moist too. But I just couldn’t get into the Black Rapee for some reason. It was perhaps too coarse, or was sticky and clumping together too much for me. I had a hard time getting it out of the dispenser, and then the pieces were so large, I had to insert them into my nose rather than sniff them. It smelled OK, and had a nice bit of burn to it. I didn’t hate it or anything, but I guess it just wasn’t a standout for me.

Great snuff but difficult to use nasally if you mind the obvious mess. Works very well as dip as well.

Not a favourite of mine. Good leathery rich, coal tar like tobacco, but it’s too coarse for me, so I gave it away. There is no doubting the quality, but I don’t think the new dispenser helps matters.

I prefer the more flavoursome brown rappee (London Brown). Both are impossible to use from the new-fangled effort that replaced the tin, but drums are available from My Smoking Shop. Hugh Lofting, amid shell-bursts over the trenches, found sanity in the form of his improbable Doctor Dolittle. In this extract Jip (a dog) is able to trace a missing person from the fact that he takes black rappee snuff. The dog communicates this to the good doctor. Then the boy took from his pocket a great, big red handkerchief and said, “This was my uncle’s too.” As soon as the boy pulled it out, Jip shouted, “Snuff, by Jingo!–Black Rappee snuff. Don’t you smell it? His uncle took snuff-- Ask him, Doctor.” The Doctor questioned the boy again; and he said, “Yes. My uncle took a lot of snuff.” “Fine!” said Jip. “The man’s as good as found. 'Twill be as easy as stealing milk from a kitten. Tell the boy I’ll find his uncle for him in less than a week. Let us go upstairs and see which way the wind is blowing.” “But it is dark now,” said the Doctor. “You can’t find him in the dark!” “I don’t need any light to look for a man who smells of Black Rappee snuff,” said Jip as he climbed the stairs. “If the man had a hard smell, like string, now–or hot water, it would be different. But snuff!–Tut, tut!” The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting.

Thanks for that little excerpt of literature, PhillipS. I wonder if McChrystal’s Jip was named for that dog.

This might be a little off topic but does anybody know if (and where) you can get SG snuff in bulk?

Yes. Try snuff.me.uk. They sell them in 250g drums, I believe. They even have rare ones like White Label. from what I understand they don’t have most varieties on hand, but get them directly from the mill when you order.

JIP Snuff was bought by McChrystals quite recently. JIP Medicated Snuff Ltd of Nuneaton originally made it. It was a favourite of miners and distributed to colliery canteens. With the closure of the Warwickshire coal pits in the 1980s the local snuff company likewise folded. JIP is an acronym, but I can’t recall what is stands for. Certainly not a dog. Anyway, this is how Jip the dog finally leads Doctor Dolittle over the ocean wave to an enormous snuff box full of Black Rappee and its Crusoe-like owner who declares “For four days I have had nothing to eat or drink. I have lived on snuff." http://lofting.thefreelibrary.com/Story-of-Doctor-Dolittle/2-19 250 gram drums of Samuel Gawith snuff are available from My Smoking Shop - http://www.mysmokingshop.co.uk/index2.php?mod=mancats&man=84&sec=1102

Greens of Leeds is another source for bulk Gawith. They don’t list the entire range online but if you call them up you can order any sort.

Thanks Xander and Brad! I’ll check em out

Black Rappee is another of the Samuel Gawith coarse snuffs revisited. My original comment was rather short and to the point: “Moist, black and coarse. Plain tobacco and tasty with it.” Still true of course, but I think I have learned to appreciate Black Rappee even more. It is good, strong tobacco, perhaps lacking the slight smokiness of London Brown but very satisfying with a long lasting flavour. That solid tobacco flavour is so full that one could not call it a mere scent. The grind is coarse, the moisture is positively wet and the colour is as black as it gets. Perfect! The trick, as with all the Samuel Gawith coarse, dark snuffs, is to be sure that the snuff is fresh and moist. If it dries out even a little bit then the best of the flavour seems to go with the moisture. If it’s dry it seems to turn clumpy and gritty. Of course the snuff can always be rehydrated but once it dried beyond a certain point it will prove impossible to recapture the essential qualities of the snuff. Buy it in bulk and use the three tier decanting system for daily use.

Right on Tony. Black Rappee is a delicious dark, coarse snuff. My tin dried out long ago, but this is one that re-hydrates with ease, and once placed in an airtight container, keeps its moisture. Dark, earthy tobacco with hints of rich leather. The scent that lingers reminds me of wood after a long rain. The tobacco if kept moist will stay fluffy and thick, easy going.

I’m loving it recently, myself. I’m going back and forth between it and Scotch Black. The Princes Dark seems to use the same base. Reviews are forthcomng…

I am surprised that Black Rappee and other, similar SG snuffs don’t get discussed all that much. Or maybe those in the know are too busy snuffing them to write about them I’m contemplating a bulk purchase of one them. It’s probably a toss up between Black Rappee and London Brown. Tricky decision. Knowing me I may go for both!

I hear ya Tony. Both Black Rappee and London Brown are certainly on my bulk buy list. EDIT: Add Irish D Light to that as well.

@ ermtony - I have recently bought Black Rappee and London Brown in 250g and you certainly won’t regret the purchase at first i thought they were very similar but the more i spend time with them the more differences are noted in scent, texture and moisture if you decant from each into smash boxes from the Samuel Gawith tubs they will develop very differently over 24 hours. I use empty NTSU containers as they hold enough for a days supply and really allow the character of the snuff a chance to shine unlike tins which dry it out too rapidly.

Thanks for the comments Al. Very useful. I can see me going for both very soon, probably once I’ve finished the various sample boxes (AKA plastic dispensers) I got recently.

I ve just tested SG black rapee i agree that it is relaxing. I hardly smell the taste in my nose though maybe it s because i ve been taking sws latakia blend and mull of oa very often recently.

One of the snuffs that I will take with me in the afterlife, hahaha!

@Gilliat Whoa! I’ll trade you one of my kids…

=P~ @Gilliat That’s a awesome stash!! Black Rappee is one of my favorite “Black” snuffs.

SG Black Rappee was my first snuff back in 1982 and still one of my favorites

Black Rappee, excellent snuff.      One of my favourites,  but I never use it outdoors.  Your nostrils look like a chimney sweeps when using it.

The other dark favourite of mine is S.Gawiths London Brown, I believe now discontinued, but I have six tins unopened for the future.

I’ve been trying to be conservative with my last can of Black Rappee, but it’s hard. I’ve always been that way with this one. I’ll go a year without it sounding at all appetizing, then for a month it’s the only thing I seem to want. The Rappee I really wish I had a back stash of is the Scotch Black. I would pay handsomely for a tin or ten of those. Did any of you get the chance to try Old Mill Marlin Spike? It wasn’t a Rappee, but it had that Briney quality in spades. That, along with the kind of smoke it carried, brought me right back to Ensenada, building bonfires on the beach with the air full of the sea.

Just stocked up on this and others. I LOVE THIS SNUFF! could do with more salt though

Well I figured out the black rappee scent more when outside, the scent is so light, and the tobacco so relaxing that it’s becoming my all day & night snuff with SWS Latakia blend and for the black nose just pretend your working on your car or something ;-).

@Hitsuzen - Scotch Black is what I had hoped Sea Breezes would be like, juding by the description.  That briny smokiness is wonderful, and I’m cherishing the single tap-box I have.  Need to try Black Rapee one of these days.

AFAIK (but maybe I am wrong) Scotch Black and Black Rappee survived the TPD2 massacre. Sadly, London Brown didnt, I managed to snatch the last 8 tins kinda overpriced from snuffstore.de as I couldnt find it anywhere in UK.

Under the title of

Wos Best Dark; a rapee snuff?           

(rappee was spelt using a single p, just in case the search engine has problems with rappee.) 

HR_puffnsnuff   in July 2014   tells us that   Bob Gregory from the factory told him that Black Rappee and London Brown are the same.   London Brown was  labelled differently for a particular customer.

The snuff in my tins of London Brown is slightly lighter and doesn’t roll into balls just as it is about to leave the fingers for the nose.  Unlike the Black Rappee.   

I don’t know if its true or whether to take this info. with a pinch of snuff.

Interesting thought though.

I have both of them in bulk 500/250g drums and the classic 25g tins. They are not the same, they are clearly different. I am taking these snuffs almost daily for more than 6 months now, but apart from that, even non snuff takers can differentiate them by the smell only, (tried the blindfold testing with some), so theres no doubt about this. I can only imagine somebody mistaken about them if the snuffs would be very stale, dry or mold infested beyond recognition.

One short note aside, the word rape (pronounced hape) is still widely used for a sacred medicine in numerous indigineous cultures in the amazonian basin, and it usually is a wild tobacco base mixed with various wood/leaves/flowers ashes. Widely used in Brasil but I have also seen (and taken) it in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador. Not for the faint of heart, though…

For example here is a recent movie with many scenes of rape being blown up the nose ( sec 00:26 in this trailer):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOa9pjl37Lo

Rustica with it’s harmine and harmaline alkaloids is used as a catalist for some types of phsycotropic ingredients I take it. So would yopo be called a rape’? Or is it only snuff with a tobacco base?

Anybody know where the Snuff Store Black Magic fits into this topic?

Rape, in snuff terms, is a French word meaning “grated”. It’s a Gros, irregular grind. A century ago, it would have simply meant it was hand cut.

The only rappee I’ve ever tried (and love) is SWS aged border. Although the last order was pretty dry, it is by far my 3rd favorite snuff.

@elim I too love SWS Aged Border Rapee and have had my plastic tub arrive dry also on a few occasions. Still nice either way though I figured when its dry I dont have to store it in the fridge

@nicmizer I wouldnt classify Black Magic as a Rapee to me its more like a Kendal Brown of sorts.

@Hitsuzen I never knew this, my understanding that demi gros simply translated to wholesale price or wholesale trade (in french). Though it does make more sense that Gros is referring to the grind of the snuff in the way it is worded.

@Aamon your Gros description is the way I have been compiling my Rustica Aztec and Mohawk air cured leaves from the past two grow seasons.

Ancient Rustica is flourishing strong this spring so far.

so bloody jealous!