Now if the following sounds too weird just let me know and i’ll take some pills and have a lie down. No matter what i want to snuff on any given day i always end up following me nose. I might wake up and think ooh really fancy some Whiskey & Honey but after two pinches it becomes clear that today my nose is having none of it. So i go through a variety of different snuffs until i find the one my nose wants. It may be one i’m not even that keen on normally but on that particular day whatever that snuff is becomes the nicest snuff in the world. It may have clogged me up last week or simply done nothing for me at all but on this day it is beautiful because my nose desires it. Now sometimes i only have to go through 5 or 6 different snuffs to find one my nose wants, other times i been through almost my entire collection (you know the old chestnut about the thing your looking for always being in the last place you look). Sometimes my nose wants Toque for weeks on end and then suddenly one day i wake up and one sniff of Toque and my nose seizes up, just won’t play ball and i am not allowed any more Toque until my nose says i can. I have an inkling this is not the same for everybody and am therefore curious as to how many people can snuff whatever they choose and how many have to follow their noses.
This is sorta like when you want something to eat, but everything you eat just doesn’t satisfy, and you end up eating a bunch of stuff, still unsatisfied but too stuffed to care anymore.
Not quite right. The thing here is this whatever the nose chooses is really really good even if it is something i don’t usually care for that much. You are partly right though if you really fancy a curry and you have one then you enjoy it more than if you had to make do with chinese when you really wanted a curry. Except flip that on its head because if i really fancy Toque Natural for example but my nose won’t accept it and becomes congested on this particular day, say i then find that Tom Buck is much more to the liking of my nose regardless of whether i fancy it or not then Tom Buck will be better than i ever remember it being with every subtle nuance being present and me and my nose will both be very happy. The problem is i feel like my nose has a mind of its own and is behaving more like a mistress than a nose.
I’ll get ‘hooked’ on a flavor for a few days then switch. For me it’s a bit like Tom said…just depends what I’m hungry for.
I usually abuse anything I get new, unless I don’t like it from the start. Then I go back to 2 or 3 standby flavors.
I can see i am in a minority here as it does not matter how much i like or want a particular snuff i still need permission from the nose, when she says no she means no. I had a wonderful couple of months recently doing nothing but different Toques but at the moment the nose just seizes up at more than a few pinches but Wisons i can do all day long no problem. It may just be that my nose is sensitive to the weather, temperature or humidity etc. Being the kinda guy i am i always look for a positive in any given situation and for me the good thing is that i regularly have to go through my collection which currently stands at about 150 different snuffs so nothing gets forgotten about and it is amazing how your likes and dislikes alter as your nose develops.
Your not alone Big Al. There is always a snuff I think I want that does not reward my nose the way I thought it would. It is not an easy task to match the whims of the nose. I believe there is a true art to choosing a snuff to enjoy. Instead of choosing something that one wants to enjoy, one needs to choose something the nose will enjoy. It’s very tricky, the mind is. The nose, fairly simple.
I guess I don’t let my nose lead me around. LOL I rummage through my collection in the morning and find what I fancy and use it to wake up. I usually have a few different ones during the day. I snuff the most in the morning and evening. When I’m out and about I dip more.
Most of the time I don’t know exactly what I want until I see it.
@ Juxtaposer- Yes you have it absolutely right, i was hoping someone would understand as while i thought it would likely be an uncommon experience i guessed i wasn’t alone in this. My next thought is that maybe this affects many people to a lesser degree and perhaps they try a snuff just decide they don’t get along with it and don’t bother going back to it again.
I understand what Al is saying, in that some days a certain snuff just isn’t doing it for you. That’s why when I take off for work every morning, I throw 4 or 5 snuffs in my lunch box. I try to bring a few different styles such as menthol, SP, fruity, schmalzler or scotch. As the day progresses I will typically find that I’m “in the mood” for a particular snuff and will focus on that. It’s tougher to make a selection when I am just out running errands or something because I will typically just throw one can in my pocket.
My nose tells me what I want, I get a ‘feeling’ in my nose for the snuff I want. It sort of feels like I can smell the snuff that I want.
I regularly buy four gros snuffs by the pound in weight and one S.P by the half-pound. Additionally I always have in my possession several boxes of Irish and various miscellaneous items from which a pinch is taken as and when I feel like it. Everything from the drums is decanted into empty 2oz Fribourg & Treyer tins immediately after opening and stacked, like the other snuffs, on a snuff unit in my study. The mahogany wall-fitted unit is similar to a tiered spice and herb unit found in kitchens. The mode of choice is simple. After tin containing snuff No.1 is completed, I start on tin containing snuff No.2 and so on until I start once more on No.1. When down to my last eight ounces another bulk purchase is made. The method, like snuff consumption itself, is habitual.
Which coarse snuffs do you buy by the lb PhilipS? Stefan
LOL, thats a great description Roderick!! Big Al, I’m with you all the way on this - my nose is my boss - in fact dictator - when it comes to what I use. Also, I am only happy (or the boss is) using one type exclusively. This might come from the days when - long before internet stores - the only snuff I could get would be what the local tobacconist or corner shop stocked. For me that was SP. So I tend to find the type ‘of the moment’ and use it for weeks or months. Right now that is a blend of Toque original and a couple of other Toque flavours I made up; been using that now for about two months.
For me the downside of the nose being the boss is that like PhilipS i am a creature of habit but with snuff i have to relinquish control and follow my nose, just reading his post i was engulfed in a wave of admiration, you see i like things to have order. Rodericks way of doing things is also very agreeable, a daily menu is a brilliant idea. Sadly my nose would likely insist on starting with the booze and having breakfast for supper. Rather than fight against it i just go with the flow but the bit that really fascinates me is that we are all to a greater or lesser extent at the mercy of our own mind whether we are trying to lose weight or give up cigarettes and i can accept that. With snuff i am convinced body and mind is at the mercy of my nose. Held to ransom by a small hairy appendage its just not fair.
I get a negative effect when I snuff buffet, esp when it’s a binge buffet, I get stopped up. Or have been recently. I think I’ll experiment with one snuff all day, and time(roughly) that taking of it, like hourly. If I sit and snuff one different snuff one after the other, it always leaves me nasally stopped up.
“Which coarse snuffs do you buy by the lb PhilipS?” Hello Stefan Wilsons - Princes, Best Dark * Samuel Gawith - Original Kendal Brown, London Brown. A stock lasts about eight months and probably costs something in the region of £120 sterling. I was happy to make an acquaintance with the latter snuff as this is, as far as memory serves, identical to genuine Morlaix which I used to buy France, and which was packed in large brown paper parcels. The tall F&T tins are admirable containers that do not, in my experience, require any special storage conditions thereafter.
The F and T tins are great, as airtight as they get. I am also a committed bulk buyer as its the only way to experience snuff factory fresh. With the greatest of respect, I think a lot of our US members who buy small tins online are never going to taste snuff as it really should be, as I know from personal experience a lot of those tins are past their best. I know not everyone can buy bulk or wants to though.
I do agree, bulk is best. The snuffs I use most I always buy bulk and I only get small tins for trying others snuffs. In bulk (1/2 lb or 1lb) I have Samuel Gawith KB Special, Irish D, Yellow Crest and Blue Crest, Wilson’s Best Dark, Best SP, IHT No 22 and Princes. I recently (well, yesterday - a birthday present from my wife) got a 1/2 lb tub of Camphor & Mild too. I also have a hefty stash of about 1kg of Bernard’s Brasil Feinst, bought in the 100g packs when they were still available when it looked like Bernard was going out of business. I think the oldest tub is the KB Special and it’s still as good and fresh now as when I first opened it. Yes, those F&T tins/tubes are perfect for snuff storage. With those I never feel the need to put them in anything else airtight as they are good enough already.