I had the opportunity to take a snort of snuff yesterday evening – and so, for the first time in my life – I snuffed tobacco. It was a small snort, placed gingerly on the fleshy bit of hand between my thumb and index finger. (Left hand, if you must know.) With a sharp inhalation, the powdered tobacco leaves shot straight up my nostril. After an ever-so momentary desire to sneeze, I relaxed and enjoyed the tingling sensation in my nose.
So what was it like? Um, a bit like chewing tobacco (which I have only done once … it made me sick), but with much less (read ‘no’) saliva. Not really like smoking a cigarette or pipe – much cleaner and more immediate. It was all over rather quickly though; I didn’t really have a chance to enjoy or savour it. And whilst it must be healthier than smoking, I would guess that inhaling anything aside from air up your nose is probably not a healthy habit to start. All in all, a less than memorable experience, but certainly not a bad one either. My recommendation rating (out of 10, 10 being the highest): 3, mostly if you want to be able to tell people that you’ve sniffed snuff.
And for those interested in learning the etiquette of snuff, I recommend the Snuff Tobacco UK website, which is chock full of seemingly expert advice.
Snuff sniffing done, I turned my attention to the bottle 10 Year Old Macallan for a little end of the evening treat. Now that was an enjoyable and memorable experience …