Grizzly "Snus" Natural - Review. 25 June 2022.

About two years ago I reviewed Grizzly "Snus" in the Wintergreen and Mint flavors when they were being test-marketed in the US.  It appears now that American Snuff Co (a Reynolds company) is taking this brand nationwide.  Shout-out to my friend Paul from Virginia for finding a can for me, because here in Arkansas we just have the mint and wintergreen ones.  They also have added a new flavor:  Natural.  I'll be honest, when I heard about this flavor I was excited, because Grizzly Natural is one of my favorite tasting snuff products, but also worried, because the previous Grizzly "Snus" products I tried were basically rebranded Camel "SNUS" in a new tin.  With this one, the website promises "Real tobacco, real flavor, real Grizzly".  So, one would assume this would be similar to Grizzly in taste, right?  Well, you would assume wrong.  Let's get to know this product a little better.

The website says that this one has a medium tobacco taste, a strong "intensity", and is a little below the medium market in sweetness.  Their flavor description says, "A bold new option for dippers who love full-bodied flavor but want to skip the spit. Just real, premium tobacco in a nice, neat package".  Each tin weighs 15 grams and has 15 pouches, for 1 gram each.  The nicotine strength isn't published, so I have no clue how strong it is.  In addition to that, we don't have much info on how it's made, as American "snus" is not as transparent as real Swedish Snus.  The website says, "Grizzly "SNUS" is made from a special blend of real imported tobaccos.  Blended tobacco is cured and heat treated for optimum balance, depth of flavor, and consistency."  While they note that the tobacco is "cured", they don't say whether it's fire cured like American snuff or steam cured like real Swedish Snus.  So going into this review, I want to be clear that I can not make any safety or health claims about this product as we do not know how it is made.

Opening the tin you'll notice the pouches are the slim white type, about the same size as Camel's "large" pouches.  They are dry, and low in moisture.  Note, if you want to see what's inside the pouch, I cut one open in my last Grizzly review, you can check that out.  Now as far as the product itself goes, it is anything like Grizzly Natural snuff?  Nope, not at all. So, what is it?  Well, as best I can tell it is, like other Grizzly "Snus" products, rebranded Camel "SNUS".  It tastes the same to me as Camel Robust.  The aroma has a ton of sweetness to it, a musty kind of tobacco base, and almost a tea-like quality to it.  Once you put a pouch in your lip you'll notice it's quite dry, and the flavor develops rather slowly.  I do like the shape, though.  The flavor, again, is basically Camel Robust. It's a sweeter sweet, almost tea-like flavor.  There's a musty, mild tobacco base, and almost a faint hint of citrus.  In terms of nicotine, I don't really notice much.  I know Camel is around 2mg in free nicotine, so I suspect this is much the same.  The flavor tends to stick around for about 35-45 minutes.

Rating and Final Thoughts

My suspicion for why this product exists is this:  Camel "Snus" seems to be marketed to smokers (as the ad campaign of theirs said, "when you can't smoke, snus instead"), so my suspicion for this one is that this is a way to sell Camel "Snus" to dippers.  This, and the other Grizzly products I've tried, are basically just rebranded Camel "Snus", so I can't speak too highly of them.  I'm not the biggest fan of the overly sweetener American attempts at snus.  I opened the tin and read "snus just got real", and that couldn't be further from the truth.  Real snus is made in Sweden, has quality flavors, solid nicotine strengths, and isn't overburdened by sugar.  In light of that, I don't recommend this product when Swedish Snus is readily available, and much higher quality.  If you're a fan of Grizzly Natural snuff, you will be disappointed with this one.  I rated this one at 2.5/5.  And it's that high mainly because I really like the can design/size/shape.  Of all the American "snus" products, this is probably the best one, which isn't saying much when they are all so far below the quality and standards set by real Swedish Snus.