Deertongue is a wildflower that is used as a additive/flavoring/scent for pipe tobacco. The unusual thing is this: it's not added as an essence, the way, say, ordinary vanilla flavoring is added. Actual bits of deertongue leaf are blended with the tobacco. I believe this is a very old tradition created by the Native Americans of the Southeast, who blended all sort of wild plants with their tobacco (which was Nicotiana rustica, not our N. tabacum). Deertongue is one of the very few of these plants that are still used in today's pipe tobaccos. Unfortunately, most of the others seem to have been forgotten. I for one think it would be awesome to try traditional blends of rustica and wild herbs.
If you've ever smoked Crooner, or Gentleman Caller, and various other blends that feature deertongue, then you'll know the distinct--and sometimes polarizing--perfume.
The smell is a little like vanilla, and another of the major uses of the plant--which also goes by the name "vanilla plant"--used to be the making of artificial vanilla extract. I think that's now against the law, but we can still smoke it in pipe tobacco.
I have lived pretty much all of my life in deertongue country. i grew up in South Georgia, and I've lived in Central Florida for most of my adult life. I like to walk in the woods, and one of the most mysterious scents of the woods, in these parts, is deertongue. You'll walk through the flatwoods, and there will be a scent--vanilla like, but completely different from anything else--and for me, it's magic.
For many years I did not know what the scent was. I just knew something smelled really nice in certain parts of the woods. Then I started smoking Crooner and thought, That's it! That's the scent!!!
So I went back into the woods, looking for deertongue, and found it easily enough. I ride my motorcycle around the Okefenokee Swamp when going home to see family in Georgia, and in the fall the deertongue is blooming everywhere. It's a very common wildflower.
But the strange thing was, when I picked a leaf, it smelled like a regular old leaf. The deertongue perfume was in the air, but the leaf had no scent. I thought I must have the wrong plant.
I struggled with this mystery for years. But just last week I was talking to a gardening buddy who used to harvest deertongue with her grandfather. She said they used to hang it in wands in the house, like lavender, though most was sold to deertongue buyers (who would have sold at least some of it to pipe tobacco blenders).
So we rode out into the woods, and soon enough we smelled the deer tongue and we looked around and it was growing everywhere. At this time of year, the blooming is over, but the rosettes were visible in the wild grass and pine needles.
We reached down and picked a leaf--and it smelled like a regular old leaf. Yet the air was filled with the scent of deertongue.
So we stood there pondering. How this could be? She harvested it so long ago, she thought maybe she'd gotten the plant wrong. But if we had the plant wrong, which plant was producing the scent?
Then it dawned on both of us: maybe the leaves had to be dried out before they released their scent. Maybe what we smelled was the dead leaves at the base of the plant.
So I picked a few leaves and dried them.
A few days passed, and sure enough, my whole house now smells like deertongue.
I'm gonna experiment with it. I may crumble a tiny bit and blend it with my burley. I'm also going to put an entire leaf whole in a small jar of tobacco, to see if I can scent the tobacco without actually adding crumbled leaf.
️
