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Safely making chimo/ambil

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A friend of mine in america was asking me about chimo (aka ambil but i call it chimo) production the other day. He had cut up the fresh leaves of 2 largish rusticas (nearly a metre tall!!!) and put them on the boil.

The kitchen in his house is apparently quite small so all the windows fogged up with steam. He said that while sitting in the room with the boiling pot of leaves that he didn't once feel like a dip (chewing tobacco is common where he lives). He asked me whether it would be harmful for a person to be sitting in the room with all the fumes.

I said it would be sweet but then i looked on the net and found a little info on nicotine purification. People have tried to purify nicotine from tobacco via distillation. Whilst its not very effecient it does actually work so i ask on his behalf whether or not it would be harmful for someone to be breathing all those fumes in? Especially a non-smoker.

On another note, it would seem from my research of snus that chimo would also be better for someone than smoking and commercially available chewing tobacco as it would contain smaller amounts of tobacco specific nitrosamines (tsna). TSNA's are made during curing so if one were to make chimo from fresh leaves the resulting chimo would be way better for you than smoking.

UNfortunately i can't seem to find anywhere that sells it. Would it be legal for him to send me some that he has made if labelled as a tobacco product? Or do tobacco products have to be made by big tobacco companies? It wouldn't weigh very much so the tax wouldn't be that bad... I just don't want hassles from customs.

I remember years ago there used to be a bit of talk of chimo but not so much anymore.

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i think i seen it for sale in argentina once, online that is. but cant seem to find anything these days. i dont see any problems with breathing the fumes although i do remember reading something torsten wrote about how the fumes carry nicotine with them and can be quite potent. like steam distillation kinda. so windows open maybe if you feel ill? IME its not bad it actually helps with the connection with the paste you are making.

ambil and chimo are slightly different pastes, ambil comes from one part of south america and chimo from another part, if i am remembering rightly, ambil is made with some different ingredients to chimo as well, but they are very similar chimo is more of a paste, or gum resin type thing whilst ambil, is more of a jelly, that is wiped across the gums and teeth, very potent, a good ambil is very strong. its some awesome stuff. for the tobacco novice it is garenteed to knock you around for a bit. hehehehe

there is a story about when white people made it to a mob in the jungle and they shared ambil, the white fulla was knocked out for the whole day vomiting and very ill, the indigenous fullas thought is entertaining and funny :)

to make ambil jelly like, one uses tapioca flour.

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Thanks VS, i had a feeling you would reply :)

For all those who want to know how to make chimo, and if you are a cig smoker you should, here's the link. http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/inde...78&hl=chimo

If you're not a cig smoker you should as well, chimo is great.

Funny how one of the most common intoxicants available to us is often overlooked.

Does anyone have any additives besides coco and honey to improve the flavour/effect? My friend told me he put a pinch of bi-carb in to freebase it and got quite a reaction, fizzed up a fair bit.

I'm thinking import should be sweet so long as the package is labelled correctly.

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a little cayenne is nice gives it some added spiciness.

i prefer sodium cabonate or potasium carbonate over bicarb, but its a mtter of choice i reckon

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the steam will definitely carry nicotine, but only if the liquid was slightly alkaline [maybe even neutral]. It can't hurt to add a dash of lemon juice to the brew before boiling to prevent accidents. Most nicotine would be present as salt anyway and the rest probably forms salt when the plant is injured - via the release of organic acids.

Up to 30% of nic is freebase in tobacco, so just how much of this remains freebase as the cooking starts is anyone's guess and probably depends on many factors. Adding a little acid is just a safe way t go.

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If you do the final evaporation stage in an oven with air circulation and a temp setting less than 100C all should be well...

if i don't die trying i'll report to you tomorrow...haha i laugh now...

blessings.

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Torsten- So if he added bicarb at the beginning then would his chimo be alot weaker because of all the nicotine evaporating off? He has started with rustica so it should have more nicotine to start with so maybe it will even out along the line somehwere.

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Definitely be careful with the boiling liquid!!!

Last batch i made was a while ago (chimo) , most trouble for me was trying not to burn the paste but that was on an electric stove not gas. vanilla pods add a nice flavour :P

have you got any ambil recipes you can post VS?

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yeah bro i can share my ambil recipe, but i will have to do it later when i got time to write it up

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So basically...i put half a packet of American Spirit Organic Blend into a pot of about 500mL of water and then boiled it a bit...

thought about the acid and added some vinegar and 10g of sea salt...

45 minutes later i strained the leaf out and poured the liquid onto a glass baking tray and popped it into the oven for about 3 hours on 80C.

The salt formed brown crystals which were easy to scrape and nice and crunchy and easy to see chunks.

I was scared i might die all alone in the middle of the night so i waited until the next day...

In the evening i went to read some Rumi poems and placed a small snapped lead tip pencil tip size chunk in my gum...my throat closed over and i died!

When i awoke in this alternate universe i thought, well that was lame, i need to try more...so i had 3 times as much and it workd ok...kinda buzz in my body, but still not as strong as snus.

So now i have a chunk about 7 times as much as the first in my mouth...wrapped in a rolling paper and under my gum...lets just say the salt makes me feel like a hoarse and i love the fact that now i have a jar of awesome to suck on for the next few days...

I'm glad the smiling cloud opened up and poured the sweet/salty nectar of nicotine novelty into the nearest network of net nerds...hahahahhahahahahaahaah

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awesome reptyle, sounds good.

heres how i make ambil, its as close as possible to the traditional method.

take one or more whole rustica plants, two or three is good depending on size etc.

strip the green fresh leaves from the plant, add to a large pot and fill with water, cover and simmer for a whole day, 24 or more hours. add water if it gets too low. when its ready, reduce some with the plant material in and then strain squeezing the water from the leaves. let it settle any further sediment and decant the liquid.

slowly reduce now, will take some time. go slow no need to rush when making medicine.

as it reduce start preparing your additives.

if using lime or bi carb or whatever base you are using liquify it, by adding water, i cant give you how much to use this is where your skills in cooking and basifying comes in.

if you are going to flavour the ambil you can add that stuff now. a little cayenne pepper, in one old recipe, 2 avocada seeds are added. why i do not know.

get some tapioca flour mix it up with some water like you would carnstarch when cooking sauces.

when the tobacco liquid gets low, almost paste basify. then add the tapioca mixture slowly stiring etc, when it gets right it will resemble jelly, scrap into container and its now ready for use, run on the gums and teeth. or dip a stick and suck that, its very intense. and super strong.

thats from my memory somewhere on the internet i have posted a complete traditional recipe but i am not sure where i have posted it

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how much tapioca to how much goo?

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i havnt weighted it before, i just mix up a paste like making gravy with flour or cornflour and i add a little stir it around if it doesnt go the way i need it i add some more. when it get low it needs to be very low heat.

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i also recall a certain base mineral salt or something like that that was a prefered alkaline substance for mixing with ambil.

i also heard about people making a base form ash, washing ash or something. my memory is sketchy with that though.

speaking of ash, many people here explore ash as a base before. i got some coolabah bark ash which is very good. was gifted with an acacia traditionally used for ash, never for pituri but other native tobaccos, this ash strong, and has effects different to tobacco when combined together it is some strong medicine there.

this ash's tradition is out of practice these day. most people stopped using this ash. one old man can remember his mother having it all the time and she was one of the last ones collecting and making this ash.

i find it interesting the use of ash as an alkaline additive to snuffs and oral tobacco. maybe i will mix up some snuff one day with this ash and some gosei and send some out for people to try. speaking of gosei and other native tobaccos i would love some seeds if anyone has some laying around.

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here you go some info about the subject

the followin information is derived from the book tobacco shamainsm in south america. sorry ofr any spellgin mistakes.

licking tobacco is of a restricted distribution in south america. it occurs in the northenmost extension of columbian and venezuelan andes, in the putumayo-caqueta region of the northwest amazon and in a few isilated palces of the montana.

lickign entails a syrup extract or jelly known as ambil.

1903 brettes referred to it as "a sort of honey mixed with nicotine"

ir also says teichel-Dolmatoff described the process, boiling of tobacco leaves for several hours and even days until the extract acquires the consitency of a concentrated black syrup. this is thickened further by adding the starch of manioc or arrowroot. the ambil is taken out of the cooking vessel by means of a stick and preserved in a small calabash capped by a somewhat larger container of the same kind. to lick tobacco the Kogi extract a small quantity of ambil with the fingernail and rub it across their teeth, sometimes consumed alone it is more commonly taken while chewing coca leaves.

the tinote-cuica mixed an alkaline substance known as urao into the tobacco geletin. urao a sesquicarbonate of soda, is a greyish or yellow-gray water soluble and alkaline tasting substance that occurs in lenticular layers of varying thickness on the bottom of laguana del urao.

a tobacco paste similar to ambil has been reported for the witoto with several other ingredients is known by the term chimo.

shultes writes,

only the largest and greenest leaves of the lower part of the plant are selected for making ambil. one ot two baskets full of leaves are placed in a clay vessel which is usually 3/4 full of water. this mixture is placed on a pile o firewood, where it boils for 6 to 8 hours.sometimes more. the mouth of the vessel is covered with a large leaf to lesson evaporation. when the extract is thickening and the evaporation slows down, the fire is put out and the extract is allowed to cool. the residue of of the tobacco leaves is removed by hand, and te exces juice is squezzed out. before the extract concentrates to make a thick syrup or in some cases a paste, the ambil is taken out of the vessel and, while being carefully stirred, is mixed with alkaline salts.

these salts are prepared by evaporating water which has been poured iver and drained through the ashes of various plants commonly used for this purpose. a huge forest of the genus lecythis...is probarly the most used source of alkaline ashes. among other plants which are used now and then in the preperation if these ashes are 2 palms bactris and chameadorea. the stem and leaves of the chamaedorea .... and young shoots of the bactris are reduced to ashes.

some other ingredients called for in making ambil are 2 avocado seeds to be added to the boiling concentrate, crude sugar, manioc starch, tapioca, and peppers.

it keeps for a period of 4 or 5 months and then this is discarded for a fresh supply

to take ambil to the mouth either with a spatula or by using the fingers.

coca and ambil are often used together first by taking the ambil to the tongue then the coca leaves.another tribe make it this way by cookgint he green leaves then let them cool pund the leaves and then put it back on the fire the evaporating water is repeatedly replenished until a thick concentrate results. then they add wild red cacao shells, green plaintan peels and yoco pods. yoco paullinia.these are burnt and sifted the ashes into the tobacco extract.some lick it some put it in cigars and the daring swallow it.

this is Siona ambil and is reported to be very strong and apt to stupefy the unaccustomed.

some trinbes use ambil as an enema. :o

some tribe store ambil in a bamboo tube from 10 to 20 centermetres long.

religious practitioners lick ambil from a stick or swallow it from the open hand, after imbibing ayahausca.

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cheers VS informative as usual! :wink:

Wouldnt mind making some ash, meant to for ages but never got around to it, perhaps overlooked in terms of when combined with tobacco but for sure effects the experience (basifying aside), .Had some pituri with native ash incredible experience havent been about to replicate since. should be plenty of natives prime for ash around the joint.

still trying to figure out the best time of season to plant rustica, just dont seem to reach that nice busy state with huge fat leaf in the summer. but as ive been repeatedly told, thanks tantra! seems down here anyway with the autumn/winter rains they really boost.

and how good do the flowers smell!! well i reckon they are great anyway :drool2:

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YT flowers from rustica taste nice too, pick a fresh flower and suck the nectar yummy

i would love to source some yoco pods and bark, anyone know a source for them?

Edited by VelvetSiren

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Reptyle- Have you tried chimo made from fresh leaves? If so, how does your chimo compare to chimo made from the fresh leaves?

Velvet Siren- Have you ever made a snuff from rustica? I reckon it would be very tasty, and hopefully wuite strong :)

Would it be possible to use guarana as a substitute for the yoco? Don't know where you'd get bark but i think the nuts are available somewhere, i know i;ve seen them before at least.

It says on this page that yoco is caffiene rich so maybe they put it in there for stimulation, rather than taste.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=A...2dd1f0a4effebdf

Sorry the link is so long. If anyone can tell me how to provide a link like the above but instead of having the link it says what the link is about, i would really appreciate it. So instead of seeing the above you would see "Alkaloids of Paullinia"

My friend was considering putting some ground coffee beans in the brew before it was filtered to impart a coffee flavour. He decided to put in coco instead though. He didn't know how much he was going to end up with so he under-did it. He said the chimo was quite strong but doesn't have the agreeable taste that other chimos he has tasted. I reckon a stimulating chimo would be great.

On another note i bought some snuff the other day. Way different to how i imagined it would be. Actually clears the sinuses, probably all the eucalyptus and camphor in there. Its actually wuite stimulating whereas i normally find tobacco to be a sedative, but i usually have a fair bit :)

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yep snuff from rustica is good, best snuff i ever had was nunu, from the matses, i had a bottle of the stuff and i fell in love with that, i was very sad to see it go, i have failed at replicating that snuff. they use the bark of the wild cocao tree, i forget its name. is it yoco? getting confused now, the bark is turned to ash.

most snuff from the amazon is made from rustica and its made with green tobacco, fresh leaves are picked and let dry over the fire, or on a hot rock or pot. powdered and mixed with alkaline substance. same with oral tobacco as well made from green leaves usually.

inserting link you go the the link button above paste in your link, click ok another box comes up, write what you want it to say and your done. thanks for the link btw

i think coco is a good additive to chimo. sugar too. and salt. i fidn salt goes really well with tobacco. you can see that when you have some snuffs and snus.

speaking of snuff ever had schmalzler (sp?) its a german triple fermented snuff very fruity and sweet, not very strong but in my mind, one of the best tasting snuffs you can get

smilling cloud i will get my shit together and send you some stuff soon i havetn forgotten

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fantastic reading, thx velvet siren!

i had schmalzler a few time's, nice and a bit painfull...

all i can add is that schmalz is actualy cooking fat, the stuff which drains out of your bacon.

maybe adding a fat makes the absorbtion somehow more pleasant...

maybe they don't use schmalz at all in producing the schmalzler, but the name would suggest they do so.

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yeah i reckon they do add that to it, i know sometimes mineral oil is added to snuffs.

the recipes for schmalzler are a gaurded secret same with snus making. you cna find some old texts that have glimpses of the recipes, but yeah a german family secret, bernards make a good schmalzler.

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I just love the fact your guys are all into this and some of you have been doing it for a long time and with such depth. Chimo is an awesome drug, especially for non-smokers. Some of the best twilight states I've ever had were on chimo.

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.Had some pituri with native ash incredible experience havent been about to replicate since. should be plenty of natives prime for ash around the joint.

I was just reading a interesting PDF on Aboriginal Pharmacopoeia & the preparation of pituri it suggested the ash of Acacia salicina is the most alkaline plant ash known

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mac yeah salicina is just one of the ash plants. in Pitjantjatjara country, a type of grevillia is used with gosei, for making ash, in western NSW there is yet a different acacia, there are many different plants used for ash making, i think mulga too has been used for ash in some parts of australia. and if south america you got the chonta palm that is used for ash there as well as other plants, i would like to look up how to make those llipita balls (sp?) the ones they chew coca with.

might make one specific to australia.

torsten, i agree it is a wonderful thing.

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salicina just happens to be the best ash wood in the pituri area because it burns to a fine white ash with absolutely no bits in it. It's also popular for making fires because it forms hot coals that last a very long time. I did not find the ash particularly alkaline, but it was pleasant to consume and readily available which are probably the main reasons for its use.

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