Can you give me some advice where to buy Samuel Gawith boxes that are probably not stale? I recently got a few from Snuff Store and more than half of them were so dry that rehydrating didn’t help anything. The ones I want to try are Kendal Brown Original, London Brown and McCombie.
you’d do well to try snuff.me.uk. i buy most of my SG’s there now, plus they have bulk quantities available. Those are all excellent choices by the way.
I’ll second that on the KB Original as well as orders from snuff.me @saucy As I’ve not gotten any of the tap boxes from snuff.me, only drums, do you think the taps are fresher from them then other vendors? Not as dried?
@OTD I received a dry London Brown and a really fresh Lavender Dark tap boxes from Snuff.me.uk. I think they had the London Brown in stock and ordered the Lavender from the mill along with my KB Original and Black Coffee drums
So it’s simply luck of the draw with respect to the evil plastic tap then.
I think it is.
@OTD - I have to agree with AP. While my bulk KB original was super fresh the tap boxs were not AS fresh but they weren’t as bad as I’ve come across in the past.
I ordered the black coffee from snuff store Uk, my first ever SG, it came outta that box like black sand! THE WORST snuff I have ever tried. Tried rehydrating and it was not much better. Very strange perfume like smell, horrible. Everything else from Snuff Store has been very fresh. I doubt I will give anymore of SG a chance.
@Iggy: you’d be a fool to give up on SG on account of one dried box. They produce some of the finest snuffs available to man.
Fine snuffs, poor boxes. The toasts and SPs seem to hold up a lot longer in those boxes. For any of the the KBs and rappees, I might just bite the bullet and order bulk in the future. Trading with other folks who have bulk is a better way to sample.
@Saucy, I guess I’ve just hit my own personal snuff wall and feel satisfied with the abundance of snuff I already have. It was more comical than anything, watching that black sand pour out and thinking, So THIS is what they were all talkin about.
I see where you’re coming from, Iggy. I had similar experience with Kendal Brown Original.
I don’t think it is reasonable to buy 250g of snuff that I possibly could not like just because Sam uses these stupid boxes. There must be some other way to go. Also I encourage the retailers to post comments on this. As I have seen, some of them posted here on the board. Perhaps it is feasible to ask the retailers about the age of the boxes before placing the order?
This problem only became apparent to me when I was gifted a series of tap-boxes bought in the UK. Normally I buy drums, which are excellent and made to order. No retailer will guarantee factory-fresh produce so the quality of tap-box contents remains a lottery. Moist snuffs, depending on storage, probably suffer after a week in this packaging, and some purchases could be one or two years old. Unlike food purchases there is no ‘use by’ date. Samuel Gawith snuff is supposedly available in the same vacuum sealed 25gr tins that Smiths use. “The large vac packed tin has never been discontinued by us and probably won’t be.” To date I’ve never seen such packaging. Despite Bob Gregory’s claim one starts to harbour doubts concerning the truth of this assertion. Try mailing Mr. Gregory for information on the “large vac packed tin” at: enquiries@samuelgawith.co.uk PS - I’ve yet to receive a reply to my queries, which has left me feeling rather piqued.
There are 2 Sam Gawith’s available from Petersons of Dublin in those 25g vacuum sealed tins: Kendal Brown Menthol and Menthol XX. Tins are really excellent and snuff is incredible fresh. Maybe retailers just don’t order them?
@iggy lol, my experience exactly with the Black Coffee. But for me at least it did seem to rehydrate nicely. As with others, the SG snuff in bulk validates the contention that Samuel Gawith makes a very nice product. Unfortunate it’s marketed in such poorly designed containers. Perhaps this thread could spark another round of civil inquires as Philip suggests.
there was a member here that bought those vacuum sealed tins from the mill and sold to forum members (FarleyFlavours i think) a long time ago.
The only inquiry I’ve made to SG directly has been to inquire of direct purchases. As with PhilipS, never a reply…
@AllanH: “There are 2 Sam Gawith’s available from Petersons of Dublin in those 25g vacuum sealed tins: Kendal Brown Menthol and Menthol XX” I’ve never heard of either of these Gawith snuffs. They’re doing a Kendal Brown with menthol in ? @PhilipS: “Despite Bob Gregory’s claim one starts to harbour doubts concerning the truth of this assertion.” I did a search and found these photos which were posted a couple of years back: http://snuffhouse.org/extensions/InlineImages/image.php?AttachmentID=317 http://snuffhouse.org/extensions/InlineImages/image.php?AttachmentID=319 If a retailer started stocking these I’d definitely buy them, but save for the very occasional bulk purchase I’ve more or less given up on Samuel Gawith due to their damned plastic tap boxes.
@BradMajors Kendal Brown Menthol is same as Menthol Brown and Menthol XX is Menthol Extra. For some reason those Petersons Gawith tins have slightly different spelling of names than usually, confusing.