Talk:Altoids

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Food Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Food and drink, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of food and drink articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Start This article has been rated as Start-class on the quality scale.
High This article has been rated as high-importance on the importance scale.

Contents

[edit] Misc. comments

"popped an Altoid."? what does that mean? "time of American Revolution"? When is that?

Confusion of 'the 18th century' with 'the 1800s' pops up again, further dimming credibility of the U.S. public school system.

Considering the article mentions that the Altoids brand originated in the 1780s, why do you assert that the author meant "the 1800s" in writing "the 18th century?" Perhaps the US public school system isn't so bad after all? (Anyway-- someone, presumably the anonymous poster above, changed the wording in the article to say "19th century." If the article is correct that Altoids originated in the 1780s, it needs to be changed back, but I haven't a resource with which to double-check. Anyone?) Student Driver 19:48, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
The text says that "the brand" was established in 1780, which seems to be a close paraphrase of the product info that comes packaged in the tins. That copy, though, says only that the Smith & Co. firm was established in that year, and implies that Altoids came along later. All the copy, frankly, seems deliberately vague; it gives late 18th and early 19th century dates for tangentially related events, and says only that Altoids were first produced "at the turn of the 19th century", a phrase it uses twice in three very short paragraphs. If anybody has a better date, it'd be helpful. (In any case, "at the turn of the 19th century is a bit unencyclopedic and potentially confusing--it could potentially be construed as meaning 1798 or 1899--it would probably be better to say "around 1900", all else failing.) 216.52.69.217 19:03, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Altoids now owned by Wrigley's

According to this week's Barron's, Altoids is now owned by Wrigleys.

[edit] Main picture

Is the Wintergreen Altoids tin the most appropriate image to lead this article? Wintergreen is a quite recent product, and not even available in the United Kingdom. It seems to me that a picture of the traditional red tin of peppermints would be more suitable. I will be happy to take and upload such a picture, and am proposing to do so barring serious objection on this talk page in the next few days. Comments?

--Craigkbryant 20:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Splarka (rant) 08:10, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other Uses

  • The discussion of other uses probably doesn't belong so close to the top of the page. A section lower down might be appropriate?

[edit] What can i do?

I am looking for something to edit and I would like to edit here.

--Jak 20:55, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Would like to help

I am a Wikipedia newbie, so bear with me, and please help me out when I stray. I am interested in helping work on the Altoids entry. My hobby is collecting Altoids tins; a collection of over 100 unique tins, including vintage tins. The history of Altoids isn't clear to me. There is some information on the paper inserts in each tin, and the Altoids web site has some information (http://www.altoids.com/faqs.do?categoryId=13). But, I have an old tin that doesn't have the name "Altoids", and I've seen other vintage tins that say "Now known as Altoids". It seems the recipe has been around longer than the name? I am hoping I can help in some way.

Yugdiotla 01:55, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fisherman's Friend

Why is there a link to the "Fisherman's Friend" throat drop brand at the end of the article? They're not manufactured by any of the same companies, are sold for different purposes, etc. The only connection I see between FF and Altoids is that they are lozenge brands from the UK. Student Driver 19:41, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] info request

Anyone know why they are so "curiously strong?" Any information about specific ingredients or anything similar would be nice.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.162.240.250 (talk • contribs).

[edit] Moving production to USA

Altoids are produced in Britain by Callard & Bowser-Suchard at Bridgend, Wales, although Wrigley, the brand's owner, announced in mid 2005 they planned to move Altoids production to an existing plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee in order to manufacture its products closer to where they are sold. The move is expected to be complete by mid-2006.

So was this move ever completed? Is the Bridgend plant still open or was it closed as part of this move?

It does seem odd that Wrigley would move production to the USA given that they have built entire advertising campaigns around the brand's "Britishness". 217.155.20.163 12:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I added the update tag on the page since I don't know if it was updated. TJ Spyke 00:42, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I bought a tin today in the UK and the 'Made in Great Britain' slogan no longer appears. Whether that means the move has happened I don't know, but it would suggest as such.

[edit] Passionfruit no longer produced or entire sours industry?

The sours subsection of the flavors/etc section indicates that either the whole flavor set is no longer produced or the flavor "passionfruit" is no longer produced. It's not clear which one it means. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.157.57.171 (talk) 03:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC).

The Passionfruit sours so far have only been produced around Valentine's Day (PASSION fruit). Did anyone seem them this year (2007) at all? Or have they been discontinued entirely? -Bindingtheory 23:00, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Corrected ingredients list...

...to match the order as shown on the pre-2006 original peppermint tins.


Also, as of the package I'm eating right now, neither corn syrup nor glucose syrup appear in the peppermint variety. The flavors are listed as Natural Flavor(Oil of Peppermint). The package also indicates that they are "100% natural", which is not in evidence on previous packages.

65.42.26.190 (talk) 17:45, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Altoids in popular culture, specifically "The Altoids Trick"

The Altoids product is established in the internet hivemind as specifically associated with the enhancement of oral sex (see http://onastick.net/qtda/altoids.html). While the actual efficacy of the technique is, to put it mildly, not universally accepted (check the Snopes entry for this one, http://www.snopes.com/risque/aphrodisiacs/altoids.asp), the story is certainly "out in the wild". Should it be part of an "Altoids in popular culture" section in the main article? - ChromeNewfie

[edit] Altoids tins used for drug paraphernalia

i see nothing wrong with noting that the tins are used to hold crack pipes and the associated paraphernalia. Badmachine (talk) 19:53, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Besides the fact that it doesn't add any useful information to the article, you're going to have a hard time finding a reliable source for such information. Sure, it might be true, but unless you can find a good article online that states this, it's not going to be acceptable for this article. Oldiesmann (talk) 05:35, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
well youre right, i found this, among others, that only show they are used to store the drugs themselves. i only added it to the article because there were other uses for the tins there. im sure theyre used for the associated paraphernalia, but wont object if someone removes it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Badmachine (talk • contribs) 07:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Varieties

If I'm not mistaken, there were only the original peppermint Altoids for most of the brand's history. Shouldn't some mention be made of this at the top of the section about the different flavors and varieties? B7T (talk) 20:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Altoids "case-modding"

I altered the "Other uses" section to a "popular culture" section, and added a subsection about uses for the tins. I've seen mention elsewhere on the internet of them being turned into cases for iPods or for battery chargers or power supplies, but didn't know of a good reference to cite. I also would have linked to case modding, but that article seems to refer to computer case modding. B7T (talk) 21:04, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

  • I found a New York Times article online that discusses this very thing, and added a footnote link. (Apparently the print version is already mentioned in the References section.) B7T (talk) 13:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] References style

I added a "citation style" template to the article because online and offline references seem to be treated differently. Even though there's a "reflist" tag in that section, all online references are done as inline external links; and no offline references are shown to be relevant to any particular part of the article by use of "ref" tags for footnotes, which I think is the style that should be used because of the number of references. B7T (talk) 14:08, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I've tried to improve the references here. I pulled the inline citations down to a references section, changed what was the references section (which had no actual connection to any article material) to a Further Reading section, and moved the See Also to the bottom. Does these edits address your concerns with this article? --AnnaFrance (talk) 03:41, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
It could probably still do with a bit of tweaking, but it's improved enough that I removed the template. :) B7T (talk) 14:12, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lead acetate

A reversion of this article was recently made to delete a reference to lead acetate. This may not have been vandalism, since this substance has been historically used as a sweetener, and it's entirely plausible that it was "prescribed in the original recipe" (emphasis added) as the article says. I did not revert the article again, because I don't know whether it's actually true. B7T (talk) 02:13, 7 May 2008 (UTC)