Thursday, March 12, 2009

General Wintergreen portion snus. Review of a Swedish snus for American tastes!


Welcome back Snustopians!


This past weekend I decided to take a walk around my favorite part of Snustopia, Skruf Square, to relax and decide which snus we should review this week. As always, I stopped by my tobacconist to see what new snus came in and, lo and behold, I found a snus that Snustopians from America will really be interested in reading a review about, General Wintergreen white portion snus!

I know what you’re all thinking! “Snus Guy! Why would Americans be so interested in General Wintergreen? Is it made there?” No, it’s made in Sweden by Swedish Match. It’s the taste that Americans will really like and most will identify with. Identify how, you ask? Let’s get into the review of General Wintergreen white portion snus and you’ll see!

General Wintergreen white portion snus is another fine snus manufactured by the folks at Swedish Match, the same people who make General Mini Mint! You may be asking yourselves why I mentioned Mini Mint. I did this because General Wintergreen, like General Mini Mint, was created specifically for the American market meaning, to date, it’s only available in American tobacco shops or, from the Swedish Match snus store online. As I did in the General Mini Mint review, I’ll include a link to the Swedish Match store locator at the end of the review! “Ok, enough history already Snus Guy, get back to the review!” Sorry, got a bit wrapped up but it is important to know this! Now, back to the review!

General Wintergreen is a white type portion snus. As you all remember, white portions are white in color and get this way because they do not go thru the additional wetting step that regular portions do. They have 1 gram of snus per portion and there are 24 portions in each can with 8 mg of Nicotine per portion.

The portion material is the same soft tea bag type material that Swedish Match uses in all its white portion snus and sits really comfortably under the lip. I’ve had a portion in for over 2 hours with hardly any discomfort from the material. My time recommendation is about 2 hours max. I also offer this observation about it though. Even after an hour, the snus will wrinkle the inside of your lip. I’ve found that most snus that contains any kind of mint will do this. Although not irritating, some Snustopians have questioned me about it. If this bothers you, try doing what I do. I alternate sides when using mint flavored snus after each portion and this seems to not wrinkle my inner lip as much! Just some food for thought.

The can that General Wintergreen comes in is the exact same one that General Sterk comes in, complete with the used portion compartment in the lid. The only difference is the label. You’re probably thinking that the can is really not that special and, you would be right. The taste is what makes General Wintergreen special. “Special how, Snus Guy?” I’m glad you asked that Snustopians!

General Wintergreen’s taste is pretty unique. When most people think Wintergreen, the first thing that jumps to mind is Wintergreen Life Savers. I asked a few Snustopians here to smell an open can of General Wintergreen just to get their opinion on what they smelled. 3 of the 4 did indeed smell Wintergreen Life Savers but the 4th Snustopian smelled the exact same thing I did, the American Smokeless brand, Skoal Wintergreen! But this is not a bad thing and next you’ll see why!

While the scent is very close to Skoal Wintergreen, the taste has its differences. The first thing you taste in General Wintergreen is, indeed Wintergreen Life Savers but the more you have a portion in, the more it develops the flavors reminiscent of Skoal Wintergreen. General Wintergreen has the same burn in the lip as Skoal does as well! Wintergreen though, is not the only flavor I taste in General Wintergreen. I can actually taste the tobacco and salt in it as well! In Skoal Wintergreen, all I could taste is Wintergreen. The hint of tobacco and the slight saltiness really plays well with the Wintergreen and helps to eliminate the bitterness you typically get with Skoal Wintergreen. I’ve had the flavor last about 2 hours when the taste is pretty much gone. I recommend an overall max of about 2 hours in regards to feel and flavor.

“Snus Guy! You’re making a lot of connections with Skoal Wintergreen here! What exactly are you driving at?” Well, here’s where I explain the whole “taste that most Americans will identify with” thing! Since the flavor of General Wintergreen is really close to the flavor of Skoal Wintergreen, it would be very easy for new Snustopians that were using a wintergreen flavored American smokeless tobacco product, to easily switch over to General Wintergreen. In addition to that, Snustopians that used to smoke menthol cigarettes seem to like the Wintergreen taste as well!

So, what drinks go well with General Wintergreen? “We know Snus Guy, Diet Coke and Monsters do well!” :) Actually, Diet Coke and General Wintergreen created a taste I never thought it would! The two together tastes very similar to a Diet Coke with lime! Monster Energy Drinks really didn’t do well actually. The Monster made the snus taste bitter and gave the drink an off taste. The best drink was a true Southern Style sweet tea! The sweetness in the tea enhanced the wintergreen flavor and helped to bring the tobacco flavor out. Sweet tea Snustopians, I really recommend!

Before I give you my overall recommendations for General Wintergreen white portion snus Snustopians, I have to admit something to you. I had my reservations about General Wintergreen when I first smelled the can. The reason I don’t really care for Skoal Wintergreen is the fact that Skoal Wintergreen was really over flavored to the point it made me sick. After I smelled General Wintergreen, all the memories of that incident came flooding back. Being the sacrificing soul for my fellow Snustopians, I gathered all my courage and tried it. It was then I learned that I had nothing to be concerned about!

My overall recommendation for General Wintergreen white portion snus Snustopians, is this; New Snustopians who currently use an American Smokeless tobacco product and want to transition to a safer, cleaner way to use smokeless tobacco but still want a familiar flavor, can’t go wrong with a couple of cans of General Wintergreen! Seasoned Snustopians that like wintergreen flavors can’t go wrong either! If you really don’t care for wintergreen flavors, you may not want to try General Wintergreen but, I leave this decision up to you!

As I said in the beginning, as of the writing of this review, General Wintergreen is only available at American tobacco shops and Swedish Match’s Snus Shop. Today, General Wintergreen is now available online and at Snustopia's favorite snus shop, The Northerner, for about $3.72 USD a can and, if your a first time customer, simply click on the banner to the right and get 10% off so, you really can't go wrong by trying a can or two!
Well Snustopians, I hope you enjoyed our trip thru Swedish Match’s General Wintergreen white portion snus and found it useful and informative. As always, I welcome your questions and comments and will do my best to answer them all as soon as I can!

Until our next review,

Happy Snussing!

That Snus Guy

3 comments:

SnusGal said...

Snus Guy --

'Converted' a co-worker this week to Snus using this brand. He had risen to a 2+pack a day smoker so I thought I would expose him to the wonderful world of Snus. I bought him a can of regular white portion and one of the wintergreen -- both from my local tobacco store. He liked the original but Loved the wintermint (and he is not a menthol smoker). He was amazed after two days of Snussing that he still had the original 2 new packs of smokes untouched in his jacket that he bought the morning before he first tried the Snus. No shakes / jitters or nervousness from the lack of smokes-- I think he is now hooked. Turned him onto your blog for further reading and information.

Thanks for the review.

TobakGuy a.k.a. Rob Jarzombek said...

Hi SnusGal!

Congrats on the co-worker conversion! It seems that many people are using Wintergreen to slide over to our great land of snus!

Thanks as well for pointing him to Snustopia! Always happy to add another Snustopian in the books! :)

As always, I'll do my best to keep Snustopia informative and fun!

Thanks again SnusGal. :)

Sincerly,

That Snus Guy

heath said...

Hey! just wanted to let you know after 5 years on general white and nothing else i accidently bought the wintergreen via the internet instead. They look very similar and living in Australia i had no choice but to try them or go without... 4 months on Now i have changed brands and will not be going back to white they are fantastic!
Now if you could just help me find a way i can get snus into australia without customs holding my packages up for 2 weeks i will be forever in your debt! lol.
Keep up the good work