• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

How Is Snake Oil Produced?

Status
Not open for further replies.
I never heard how it was made, and couldn't get a straight answer out of the guys selling it...........
 
Urizen said:
Legend has it that snake oil is produced by a bored, churlish, swine-like troll who lives in isolation somewhere in the Pacific northwest.
Click to expand...

Admit it Ken, you just posted this because you wanted to use the word 'churlish' in a sentence.
 
mhardy6647 said:
In seriousness, snake oil was one of those many "patent medicines" that were widely sold - and used - prior to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and the Harrison Drug Act of 1914. Even large pharmaceutical companies (and I won't mention names, because one of them is an erstwhile employer of mine!) were in that business prior to the 20th Century. There were all sorts of odd things sold as medicinals -- some were benign, some were laced with narcotics (i.e., opiates, in that day and age), and some were downright dangerous.
Click to expand...

The Actual title of the act is the "Harrison Narcotics Tax Act, 1914" which ironically contained copious amounts of misrepresentation or it's own brand of "Snake Oil". On the surface it appeared to be for regulation and taxation, but in effect it was prohibition.
 
Snake Oil:

k-y-intrigue-premium-personal-lubricant.jpg
 
RamblinE said:
Snake oil is produced primarily in the human brain when one jumps to an immediate conclusion that because they cannot afford something it is not worth the asking price.

Sent from my ZTE Olympia
Click to expand...

No, snake oil is produced when an unscrupulous retailer sees an audiophile coming. Vast amounts of it.

Doug
 
timofred said:
No one has mentioned 'cold-pressed' ??
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I was going to say. Let's look at traditional extraction methods. Cold Pressing would produce an Extra Virgin Snake Oil of exceptional flavor and aromatic bouquet. The leftover snake pomace could be re-extracted with steam or solvents to produce a lower quality snake oil.

Of course you could roast and then press as they do with soybeans in the Old Process to make soybean oil. This would require a large rotary oven that could be filled with thousands of snakes at once. The toasted snakes would then be fed into a screw press to extract the oil.

We haven't even mentioned supercritical fluid extraction yet!
 
The origins of snake oil come from Chinese herbal medicine and it indeed contains oils extracted from the Chinese water snake. Still used by herbal doctors in China as a general pain killer and topical ointment for those with rheumatism and arthritis.
 
Urizen said:
Legend has it that snake oil is produced by a bored, churlish, swine-like troll who lives in isolation somewhere in the Pacific northwest.
Click to expand...

Huh. I have been called plump, or chubby. I have been called tasty and delicious. But not churlish. Although I would admit a certain fondness for "cherub like".

Regards
Mister Pig
 
Well....
Now that the world has already extracted the oil from all of the easily acquired snakes, we now have to resort to "snake fracking' to get the oil out of those snakes remaining....

KJR
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom