The wooden shop sign is in the shape of a twist of tabacco, like a coiled rope. This is how tobacco was processed and sold at this date, and the buyer chopped it or pulled it apart to smoke in a pipe, or grated it into powder for snuff.
The name Twist originates from sailors who made the tobacco into balls, soaking it in molasses for a sweeter taste. The Twist tobacco was then chewed not smoked, as the sailors worked on wooden boats and smoking would have been a fire hazard. Chewing the tobacco was also suited to miners due to the obvious fire risks in the mines.
☀A tobacco hogshead was used in British and American colonial times to transport and store tobacco. It was a very large wooden barrel. Fully packed with tobacco, it weighed about 1,000 pounds (454 kg).
