when did flavored tobacco come into use? mainly vanilla?

From what I understand, the flavor of the tobacco came from the way those that grew the "weed" cured it. Cavendish was a type of aromatic (flavored) tobacco that was around during the time of the Civil War and before. An aromatic tobacco gets its flavor by the combination of various sugars, tobacco extracts, and essences. A non-aromatic tobacco are aromatic in their own true aroma. This means that nothing has been added to them to give them their flavor and are natural. Even after curing, the tobacco could be put into a certain flavor of the smokers delight. You can achieve an apple tasting tobacco if you leave a peeling in your tobacco over a small length of time. This not only flavors the tobacco, but also puts moisture back into dried out tobacco. Cherry flavor can be done by adding a cherry (your choice), vanilla by adding a vanilla bean, whiskey by letting it soak in a small amount of whiskey etc. All these tricks I have done and have had success at doing. You can also buy flavorings(like a nut flavor) and let the tobacco soak it this. If you really want to make a good blend of tastes, soak tobacco in several different flavors and then mix them all together.   As far as the dates on when all these came into popularity, I don't know.  I myself like to smoke a mild, smooth tobacco that consists of a little bit of honey with a little bit of nut flavoring, preferably amaretto liqueur.

I know not much of this answered your main question, but I thought I would give you some insight on what I learned from sampling and trying various types of pipe tobaccos either by making my own or sampling others on the market.

thanks... that helps... sort of.

Dulcie, your question got me interested in the subject as I like to smoke cigars and their use for my impressions has crossed my mind before.  I found one reference so far to "sweetened tobaccos":

1864: AGRICULTURE: WHITE BURLEY first cultivated in Ohio Valley; highly absorbent new leaf proves ideal for sweetened chewing tobacco.

This suggests to me that such tobaccos were in use before this time but I haven't found any corroboration yet.

Edit -  I did find this quote on another site:

Where did the idea for Flavored cigars come from?
Along with the history of cigar boxes comes the origin for flavored cigars. Men in the early 1800’s carried their pipe and cigar tobacco in a pouch made from a pig’s bladder. Of course the smell after a couple of days in the pouch would permeate into the pipe & cigar tobacco. Someone figured out that adding a hand full of vanilla beans replaced the smell with a pleasant aroma. And that was the beginning of flavored cigars and pipe tobacco.

It seems that flavoured tobacco was in use from the early part of the 19th Century.  

--Last edited by Isleguy57 on 2007-09-22 14:50:06 --

yah... now to convince everyone to start smoking vanilla tobacco

That would be a start, eh?  Another site I found mentioned that other items were put into tobacco pouches as well.  Apples slices and cherries are two that I recall.  It seems like a lot of aromatic items like that were used as well as steeping the tobacco in liquids like rum.  So, on first glance at what I found, flavoured tobaccos were likely used, on an individual basis.  Some smokers would have gotten the habit to maintain the freshness of their smoke and continued for the flavour.