Snuff Review: Abraxas Cerise Connoisseur

★★★★ 
My take on the Abraxas Cerise Connoisseur. This review has also been posted on Snuff House.

Another excellent snuff from Abraxas, the Cerise Connoisseur was the third to be released. Like the Abraxas Club, it is dark, very coarse, moist and rich in flavour. Fresh from the 15g glass jar it needed some airing to reduce the expected ammonia but that is never a problem. One whiff of that smell tells me a snuff is as fresh as it gets so all is well. Like the other Abraxas snuffs this one is also described as a premium sort and the price reflects that. Even at that price this is a wonderful snuff, positively decadent in its depth of flavour.

The initial scent blast is of cherries of course, as the name proclaims. In fact leaving a jar open nicely scents the entire room! But the flavour is not just of cherries. It's more of a cherry brandy with the alcoholic liqueur adding an extra dimension to the overall experience. There is also something else lurking in the recesses of this blend, something somewhat bitter-sweet which I can't quite place. I'm sure as time goes on with this snuff I'll find more flavours just waiting to be discovered.

The only drawback for me, once again, as with the Club and Dragun snuffs from Abraxas, is that the coarse grind tends to make me sneeze a lot and once again, that's my only reason for only giving this excellent snuff four stars rather than five.

Snuff Review: Abraxas Club

★★★★
Abraxas Club was the second premium snuff to be released by Abraxas. Like the others it is very much a premium snuff both in terms of price and flavour. Luckily mine came as a sample in a 15g plastic pot, preserving my bank balance somewhat.

So far only available online from Mr Snuff, Abraxas Club is very coarse, moist and scented. In coarseness and moisture level it ranks with the rappees and it is nearly as dark. The premium nature of this snuff really lies in the flavouring or saucing. I decanted the contents of the 15g pot into a larger 25g tin (an old Samuel Gawith one still in good condition) to give the snuff a chance to breathe a bit, thus enhancing the flavour. And flavour seems to be just the right word here. This stuff is good enough to eat!

Along with a touch of the farmyard (proving freshness) the initial scent is of brandy (or is it a particularly rich rum?), closely followed by coffee, a touch of chocolate, an underlying nuttiness with hints of citrus and an almost plum-like fruitiness. Finally the base tobacco shines through with the occasional reprise of the other scents. Quite amazing snuff, though I must confess that it tends to make me sneeze. I put this down to the coarseness of the mill. Perhaps if I were to add a little extra water it would reduce that tendency.

The only thing that stops this from being a five star snuff for me is that sneeziness, so it gets four.

Snuff Reviews

Along with adding pictures of and comments about my many pipes to this blog, I also intend to properly organise the snuff reviews on this site, eventually copying all my snuff reviews from my old wiki site. I expect to take the time to expand upon some of the reviews as I progress and I will also be adding the comments to the growing collection of reviews on the Snuff House website. That place should be the first port of call for any online snuff user.

The snuffs I like best will get five stars (★★★★★) and those I like least will get one (★).

Pictures of snuffs from Snuff Store (UK), Toque Snuff Ltd.,  Bernard Schnupftabak GmbH and Pöschl Tabak are used with permission and gratitude.

A Peterson 999 "Chubby"

One by one I intend to move, or at least copy, the notes and pictures on my pipe collection from the wiki site where they currently reside to this blog. With a bit of luck I'll add a pipe a day until they are all here. I intend to do it one pipe per post and expand on the notes I may have made on various pipes previously. I'll also start copying all the snuff reviews from the old site.

I'll start the process with this lovely old Peterson 999. I have mentioned this one before, but this time I will expand on the notes.

This is a London made "chubby" 999. Chubby relates to the thickness of the shank compared with earlier and later versions of the shape. They appear to have been produced like this in the middle years of the 20th century though as ever, precise dating is impossible.

It is marked on the left side: Petersons (walking P) over London & Dublin. On the right side: 999  London Made over England.

It's a fine chunky pipe, cool smoking as as comfortable in the hand as clenched between the teeth.

For more information on the history and dating of Peterson pipes, Jim Lilley's superb resource for Peterson pipes on Pipedia is not to be missed.

Banned

This one image says more about the state of things in the world today than a thousand words could ever do.

At least I have my own small piece of Virginia in my back garden...

Small Changes

It looks like the company that hosts my wiki site is changing the way they do things and it seems to me that they really aren't interested in the small user like myself. While I may be able to keep a basic site there I am in the process of moving some of the content there to this blog. Just covering my back of course, as I wouldn't want to lose all that content. Might be time to investigate Wordpress too...

Viking Blonde...

No, what you might think (no dodgy stuff here!) - just another new snuff from My Smoking Shop in Preston.

Viking Blonde is a classic SP style snuff. In flavour it is close to Samuel Gawith's SP No. 1 High Mill. No real surprise there as I am sure Viking Blonde is produced by Samuel Gawith. The 25g vacuum sealed tin a a bit of a give away. The snuff is medium-fine, moist and nicely flavoured with bergamot. A good, solid every day snuff and well worth a try.

It is also fairly similar to the Traditional SP from Snuff Store, though that one is darker and somewhat subtler in flavour. I bought some more of that this week, along with some of their Golden Pinch and Cafe Noir. All excellent snuffs and the 10g tins they come in are a big improvement on the old "baggies". Their service is lightening fast as well.