Trying a couple from SD range - Licorice and Original some years ago, I couldn’t help but notice that the texture of those snuffs was oddly familiar, quite different from those several Toque brand snuffs I knew. In all fairness, it was very akin to WoS flour. However, I just raised my eyebrows… and forgot about it.

Later on I have accidentally stumbled upon a series of papers, like https://www.fda.gov/media/112939/download , which - dare I put it like this - allude to Toque being on good terms with WoS (and maybe even explains the discontinuation of some WoS flavours). Thinking over, for what it’s worth, I vaguely remember Roderick mentioning somewhere on this forum Toque being involved in contracted snuff manufacturing to some extent. And I surely got flashed back to the beautiful WoS-like texture of SD Licorice and Original.

Now watching Paul Shallbetter’s video review of Silver Dollar Medicated earlier this evening, a back sticker with a WoS-format mfg date code XXX XXA caught my attention. I don’t have any SD tap tin with the new date stickers (mine came without mfg codes back then), but it’s fairly visible in Paul’s review (2:42).

I remember back in 2011 I think Roderick started the Silver Dollar line just as an American Branded Toque line.

@Volunge It’s s really interesting question and I hope someone has some further information. As an extension of that I wonder how much Toque do contract out parts of the manufacturing process and where the base flour is produced.

Not sure, really. But a while ago Sneeshyn was recruiting snuff makers, and there was no direct mention of tobacco milling/grinding, just “blending, flavouring, mixing, tinning, labeling and packing” (full job description: https://my.employed.im/opportunities/employment/106756).

Using ready-milled tobacco flour makes sense – it saves warehouse space, time and staff’s lungs.

I suppose the question really is ‘who has the ability to grind tobacco leaves?’ But hey-ho, no matter really. The manufacture of anything is largely done by other suppliers. Take a car for example. The manufacturers are largely just assemblers of bought-in parts. Snuff no different it seems.

According to Roderick’s statement, they “buy ground flour from many snuff mills, UK and abroad, and tobacco from Italy, Poland, America and a little from Africa. We buy Rustica from India, Poland and Thailand. We also buy some more exotic flour from Thailand and Pakistan.”

And yes, Silver Dollar range comes from WoS and Toque does not grind tobacco leaves.

Worked in a tobacco shop nearly a decade ago, Silver Dollar was marketed to us as coming from Toque back before Toque had a presence in the US.

@Volunge interesting reference to Thailand I was reading about snuff use there https://www.bangkokpost.com/life/social-and-lifestyle/388130/snuff-the-stuff-to-cure-all

@Huysmans Imagine using that tube on a train, or in a pub, ar at table in a restaurant hahahaha

Our local smoke shop had SD and Toque USA until the FDA interfered. The shop owner told me that she had to return all the products, couldn’t put them on sale. But then, miraculously she began carrying a lot of Mc Chrystal’s. Now, it’s the only real snuff she sells. I’ve shown her tins of SG, WoS, etc, but apparently the wholesaler they use can only get Mc C. There are all kinds of restrictions on import tobacco products.