Ever add whole spices to flavour tobacco?

[sparroa]

I know there has been plenty of discussion on the topic of flavouring lately, but I have a specific question:
Has anyone ever experimented with something so simple as adding cloves/star anise/coffee beans/tonka beans or some other whole spice into a jar of tobacco and left it for awhile?
Will there be any aroma or flavour imparted unto the tobacco or will it just be a waste of time?
I imagine that you need a solvent of some sort such as alcohol in order to extract a serious amount of flavour but then you will be saddled with additional moisture problems and also extraction of the harsh/bitter elements of the spice that too much concentration would bring...
I figured this method might give the tobacco a very light flavour and aroma if anything, but even that would be nice for a change of pace... If I did this, I'd use PA and I'd obviously remove the spices before smoking. I've heard people say that a blend will soak up the smells of surrounding tobaccos such as latakia if not sealed properly so it only makes sense that this could work to some small degree...
What are your thoughts on this?

 

[shawn622]

I have cased whole leaf in honey, alcohol, and both vanilla and anise extracts and the taste was good. It just has to age 6 months. I have put lemon peel in a bag with Whole leaf Yenidje Oriental and it turned out wonderful!!!

 

[sparroa]

Thanks for your response, Shawn. I have great confidence in your experiments with honey/alcohol/extracts but I was wondering moreso about solids. I expect the effects to be subtle and for it to take a long time, but I'm sure something would come of it...
Your lemon peel experiment is exactly what I was talking about. Was it dried lemon peel?
Also, what kind of bag did you use (ziploc?) and how long did you let them intermingle?
Was the lemon peel really noticeable in the taste/smell or was it just a little something extra that enhanced the Yenidje? (Would a friend be able to notice it without being told, perhaps?)

 

[sjpipesmoker]

In regards to the lemon peel, I would think that fresh peel can mold? I'm no biologist, just thinking about adding wet items to tobacco. As far as spice, you should make sure that there ok to smoke? Some spice can possibly be toxic??

 

[koshersmoke]

im interested in this idea. my fist thought is will a hand full of cloves or what ever spice your going for realy impart enough flovor to stand up to the tobacco in the end when its in the bowl and burning. solvent idea might extract a little more flavor but as you said it might extract some of the bitter and not so palatable flavors. if it were me i would go big on the spices maybe put the tobacco in a mesh bag and burry it in what ever spice your looking to impart into the tobacco. more surface area the more of a chance it will impart more flavor. Plus if its in a bag you can pull it out and you dont have to pull any spices out of the tobacco. It will impart flavor and no need for sorting. I wonder if you extract some of the essental oil and put a few dabs on as a natural spice sauce casing. iI gater your looking for a natural easy way to boost the flavor profile. essental oil mite be a good option too.

 

[sparroa]

sjpipesmoker, I would think that fresh peel can definitely mold. That's why I asked was it dried... I also was asking about whole items because the idea was not to smoke the spice, but to remove them from the tobacco after a set period of maturation in the hopes that the essence of the spice would marry with the tobacco... I'm also no biologist but I just presumed that the oils of edible spices would be safe to smoke in such minute quantities. Especially cloves and anise because they have been used with tobacco for generations...
koshersmoke, I agree with you that one would have to use A LOT of spices in order to get any lasting flavour. But I don't know if it would survive the combustion process at all. It is probably too volatile, I was just wondering if anybody has done it before... Essential oils are potentially dangerous because many of them are toxic and not to be ingested; I don't know enough about the subject to experiment with any confidence... In comparison, I am sure that your mesh bag idea is much safer. However, if you placed a mesh bag into the middle of the spices the surface area is actually less than if you distributed the tobacco amongst the spices. What about the middle of the bag - see my point?
I think that distributing the tobacco amongst a generous helping of spices while leaving enough space in the jar so that you can effectively mix up the whole thing every so often with a good shake... Rinse and repeat for a month or so, then open it up to see if it made any difference...
Using the cloves example, though, I can see a potential pitfall being that your whole mouth and sinuses may go numb. LOL. Probably wouldn't be a good feeling to use too much if the tobacco soaks up all the oils. It would also be a royal pain to pick out all of the pieces if I did it my way instead of yours...

 

[hawk60ce]

I like the idea of coffee beans.wouldnt hurt to try a half ounce of some bulk and just set it in the back for a year or so and see what happens

 

[sparroa]

I think that a year steeped in coffee beans would definitely produce a result - it'd be hard for the tobacco not to take on a flavour with that length of time... I'd be more concerned about the coffee beans going stale. It'd be a decent experiment. It is a possibility though, that you'd just have a great coffee-scented tobacco that smoked the same. lol
For my purposes, though, I'm thinking more along the lines of a 1-2 month project. If it doesn't flavour after that length of time it's probably too much trouble to bother with extended aging...
If I get a tub of PA I'll probably give either cloves/anise/coffee a shot just to see if anything happens.

 

[captainbob]

One must be very careful here. That being said, adding an herb such as Deer Tongue, cut to the size of the tobacco blend it is added to, is very effective and yields the results you are looking for. I suggest never more than 20% maximum if using the herb, Deer Tongue. My rule is that if it can't burn and be smoked as a leaf within the blend, it is more likely to cause harm than good. Kinda like thinking that putting sliced apple in the jar will help. Such is not the case. However, spraying the inside of the top lid of your jar with plain water will restore moisture and benefit a blend that is too dry. But, flavoring a blend or adding other non-tobacco ingredients is usually a waste of time. The toppings sprayed by the tobacco manufacturer are "extremely concentrated" in order to flavor but not add too much moisture to your blended leaf. Anything short of those very expensive concentrated flavorings (intended for tobacco) will cause more harm than good. On the other hand, if you have a relatively dried and blend of tobacco (such as pure blending tobacco's) you could go to your grocery store and in the spice isle find about any flavor you desire, like vanilla or maple. Apply at 100% strength to your blend and do not make your tobacco too wet. The strength of these flavorings is not near the concentration of the professional flavors used by tobacco manufacturers. But, you may have some success with this approach. I do suggest "not applying" grocery store flavors to tobacco blends treated with PG (Propylene Glycol - a preservative) or already-aromatized tobacco. Rather, purchase blending tobacco's from your pipe shop (unflavored and no containing no PG). Or, these tobacco's are available from C&D directly on their special "blending-tobacco's page". The professional flavorings are prohibitively expensive. Minimum orders of hundreds of dollars is required and we are talking about flavors that can cost as much as $100 for a half-gallon! I mention C&D only because I have never attempted to order blending tobacco from anyone else. But, I will repeat, if using untreated "blending tobacco" and using grocery store flavorings from their spice Isle at 100% will result in a satisfactory result if done correctly. You can even combine flavors, as I have done. For example, liquid cinnamon, vanilla, maple in combination on a blend of un-treated blending tobacco's (of your choice) will result in a satisfactory result (technically speaking). I can offer more suggestions in this regard if you are going to follow this experimental path. If you have questions, I suggest using this string to ask me and I will respond, so every interested amateur blender can benefit from the answer to your question.

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[gmwolford]

This is a very interesting thread, to me at least. I recently tried a blend that has a lemon-zest flavor. It was surprisingly refreshing and a nice little delight. I honestly didn't think I'd like it much if at all but I did. I'd love to learn to "tobacco tinker" a bit myself, too.

 

[bigvan]

Shawn, where does one find whole yenidje leaf? Also you recommend aging for six months ... I thought you just took up the pipe a month ago. Or is the six month recommendation a supposition? Just curious.

 

[shawn622]

I pealed a lemon, and sliced it into 1/4" strips. Then I took the leaf and layered it with lemon peel in between each layer of leaf. Ever day I mixed the tobacco/lemon peel mixture and rezipped the bag. I did this for 21 days and the results were very pleasant. I believe that after this tobacco ages for several months that it will be a really nice blending smoke. I stored it in the refrigerator because I had tries something similar with pre processed tobacco and stuck it in a warm area and it molded within 2 weeks. I was thinking of putting apple slices and cloves in some good Virginia blend. They make clove cigarettes, so it must be pretty good although I would pull the cloves from the tobacco before I smoked it. Good luck in your adventure. Let us know how it comes out.

 

[shawn622]

Big van, You get all the leaf I speak of from leafonly.com. Email Rich about your interests and he will give you advise. I have been smoking a pipe since early july. The 6 month ageing is advice I got from a well known blender. I pretty much got all my ideas from him. I'm having a lot of fun doing it too. In 6 months, I should have a couple pounds of good blending tobaccos. If you are interested in any of the specifics of my experiments, feel free to message me ::

 

[shawn622]

Well I'm glad I read Captainbobs post. I hadnt read the entire thread. Thanks for the heads up Bob. I may have ruined a bunch of tobacco with apples. lol Great post...

 

[shawn622]

You know bigvan, it almost seemed to me like you thought I was lying. It started getting to me so I decided to take a pic of some of the leaf I got from leafonly.com. The dark bundle is Dark Fire Cured from Tennessee. The small bag is the raw Yenidje leaf. The loos leaf is the lemon peel experiment Yenidje leaf. Beautiful stuff huh????

 

[sparroa]

Captain Bob,
You raise many valid points and I respect your level of experience. As they say, though, curiosity killed the cat...
I think I will proceed with 2oz of PA in a jar full of cloves/star anise/coffee (haven't decided yet) just this one time and I will see if there is any perceivable flavour after about 2 months. I don't have much to lose - perhaps 7 or 8 dollars and I'll face a bit of disappointment.
I predict it may be lightly scented, but that it most likely won't transfer over to the smoke. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to achieve the potency of a commercial aromatic - one would most definiely need the heavy duty flavourings from the blenders for that)
Your recommendations regarding extracts are interesting but I am not eager to follow that route just yet due to the aforementioned moisture issues. I am curious, though, so if you have any knowledge to share I would be happy to hear it... Another reason that I am hesitant to experiment with extracts is that the common types available that I am aware of are already well represented in the pipe tobacco world - as you mentioned, vanilla/maple/cinnamon have quite a few options out there. The flavours I am most interested in, however, aren't already sold and I don't know of too many ready-made extracts for them.
I am glad that you specified blending tobacco when starting from scratch with the grocery store flavours; that will preempt some trial and error.
I am interested in deer tongue, for example, but I am not sure if I like the taste. I have not gotten around to sampling Crooner or the other blends on the market. Are there any other commercially available herbs out there that are smokeable and have a history in pipe tobacco? I'd say "safe" to smoke but you know what I mean!
Greg, it really sounds interesting, doesn't it? Too bad it sounds hard to achieve any lasting flavours, but one can only try! I don't know how far I will go with this aspect of it but I am definitely leaning towards buying a bunch of blending tobaccos and tinkering with my own English/VAPer blends and other assorted hybrids... If there was a clove pipe tobacco on the market I probably wouldn't bother with the flavouring side of it.
Shawn, I'll admit the fresh lemon addition sounds risky but if it doesn't spoil on you then I say congratulations. You are a braver man than me for trying to flavour your own leaf because as you mention it'll take such a long time and a big work investment before you even find out if it worked. I'd be too ticked if it didn't pan out...
Have you smoked any Yenidje by itself yet? What's that like?
By the way, I got the clove idea from clove cigarettes too, but it is also one of my favourite scents - I love it in bay rum or even just simmering them on the stove for a bit of "aromatherapy" once in awhile!
I heard about the apple idea a long time ago but I wouldn't try that for sure because it'll rot and go moldy in no time. It might be okay for an old fella to throw it in a disposable pouch in a pinch, where he is going to smoke the entire contents in a day or so but I wouldn't ever recommend it to anybody. At least the acidity of lemons is a preservative and you might get a bit more mileage out of it, but IDK how it'll hold out in the long run. Good on you for trying though, I hope it all pans out.

 

[bigvan]

Lying? Not at all Shawn. I had never heard of anyone selling raw leaf, let alone something as unusual as yenidje, as I had heard it was pretty much unsmokable.

 

[shawn622]

Oh. Well I am sorry. I tend to go on the defense really quickly. It stems from a really hard life. lol Yenidje is really pretty pleasant. It is tiny little leaves compared to most all other tobacco. I did the lemon peel test and have mixed it with various tobaccos and it has a mellowing effect on the flavor, but I still get that harshness from the tobacco needing to age. So any tobacco I cased of treated with steam or various rinse methods, has to dry and be jarred up for a minimum of 6 month for aging. The leaf tobacco is cheap. most about 20 a pound. If you get bored or adventurous you should try to create something. I have no life other than my kids so to me, this has been a grand adventure. I am sorry Bigvan. I guess I should have not assumed. Have a great day!!!

 

[gmwolford]

Anthony, sounds like you're having fun (and Shawn, too) if nothing else. Personally, I don't care for cloves, the taste, though the scent is okay. My mom used to put about a can of whole cloves in the top of the Christmas ham every year. That damaged me for life!

 

[baronsamedi]

I was wondering where the hell you got whole leaf too! That's pretty cool!
I've heard the lemon peel works great for rehydrating, too, but as of late, I've been using plain water like Captain Bob does.