Snus from a British Perspective – Snus to gig to

Bonjour snusers,

June was a very special week for me, I managed to tick off an entry on my bucket list, I saw Megadeth live in an intimate setting and not at a festival or arena, I was so close to Dave Mustaine his sweat landed on me!

Megadeth Live and Swedish Snus

I have seen Megadeth live plenty of times, but it has always been at a festival or on an arena tour  That connection that you feel with a live band when it is up close and personal is somewhat lost. Not so at the Manchester Academy on 5th June 2013, Megadeth tore the place up!

It is nearly a week since the gig and I am still buzzing! There was the usual hissy fit throw by Mustaine, but with good reason.

The guy on the spot light was shining it right in the face, not ideal playing conditions, so in true Mustaine style, the band went off for 10 minutes whilst he chinned the guy responsible, then when they came back on kept up the traditional banter of ripping into some idiot who dared insult the messiah of thrash metal, then back to soloing and putting on a damn good show.

Since smoking bans came in, gigs went the same way as pubs here in the UK; you could really smell the sweat!  It was always there before, but it would eventually be masked by the many Marlboro lights being lit up in between circle pits.

I never needed to tailor my tobacco to my gigs as any cigarette would go with any booze that was being consumed. However, since consigning the tabs to the bin, I have found myself taking different snuses to different social situations, plain starks and extra starks for the pub and restaurants, flavoured stuff for grabbing a coffee etc, but a thrash metal gig? What to snus?

What I ended up with was what I had taken to work with me as we went to the gig straight from the office (FYI Nick & Johnny Green Spyke does NOT go well with sushi and champagne.  Champagne on its own, yes; add fish into the mix and uuggghhhhh!!).

Snusing at a gig is easy, really easy, just pop in a portion and jump into the pit: simple.

I oddly bumped into a Swedish guy at the gig who was quite surprised, and happy to find a fellow snuser behind the iron curtain of EU oppression.  He was impressed by N&J Green Spyke and I ended up trading the rest of my tin for his General Ekstra Sterk.  18 portions of General Ekstra Sterk for about 7 N&J Green Spyke portions was too good an opportunity to miss!

The drinks list at the gig was typical, beer, cider, or spirits, General Extra Strong really goes well with Jack Daniels, everything went well with beer, Red Stripe in this instance, and Green Spyke goes nicely with cider.

Enough of this rambling on, the gig was amazing, Megadeth were amazing, the whole evening was amazing.

Nick and Johnny Green Spyke Xtra Strong Snus, Thunder Snus Malka, and out-drinking Moe Unz (allegedly)

I am converted to Green Spyke, I was a bit sceptical at first, I mean cactus flavoured snus? Whats that all about? To cut to the chase, it tastes like pear, I don’t get any apple which I have read about, or jolly rancher apple sweets, its pear and it’s a great summer snus.

An update for those of us who live in the EU, V2 has released Thunder chewing tobacco bags. This is hot on the heels of the Thunder chewing tobacco recently released, which was basically loose snus but technically makla.  Now it would appear to be makla in bags. If they are anything like the Thunder chewing tobacco they will taste just like their snus counterparts, however my German isn’t great and I roughly got the translation as cuts of tobacco in bags.

The chew comes in Original, Frosted and Wintergreen; the bags are Original, Frosted and Lakrits. I have no idea when they will be released here in the UK but it appears they are available in Germany now.

I have to thank V2 Tobacco for this, as its not snus, its perfectly legal. Being a V2 product it will be produced just like snus is and to the same standards.  This makes the EU Snus Ban look even more ridiculous as there are products out there that is for all intents and purposes, are the same as snus, but because it isn’t called snus, or made in Sweden, its EU legal!

I will leave you to draw your own conclusions on that one!

So for now fellow snusers, I need to go and give Moe a lesson in how to drink  He challenged me to a drinking contest not too long ago and had a high price to pay for getting whipped, notice how there have been quite a lot of snus sales at the SnusCentral.com Snus Shop recently ;-).

As a gentleman I promised to teach him my secrets so we can truly state that there isn’t a bar anywhere in the world we couldn’t drink dry, go out for a vindaloo, then continue the drinking on a scale that would embarrass even the most hardened football hooligan before a Millwall v West Ham game!

EDITOR’S NOTE:  With all respect to the Author, I was told a completely different version of the drinking competition between he and Moe Unz.  It involved the Author peeing himself at least twice.  There has been an unusual amount of Snus on Sale at SnusCentral.com as of late, even by our standards, however.  Most of us just assumed Moe was drunk as usual but had received too much sun.  I will now have to re-think that scenario.]

This essay was brought to you by the music of Megadeth, Nick & Johnny Green Spyke Xtra Strong Snus, and Brew Dog Punk IPA, my new favourite beer!

Adios chicos.

ADAM SKELLAND
Reporting from the UK for SnusCENTRAL.org