The 21+ check when you arrive

The first time you open the site, a panel covers it and asks a single question: are you 21 or older? You answer by choosing a month, a day, and a year from three menus, then selecting Enter site.

That is the whole check. There is no account, no email, and no upload at this stage — the gate exists so that a browsing visitor confirms their age before seeing tobacco products, not so that we can build a file on you.

Your date of birth is not stored

The date you choose is used once, in the moment, to work out whether you are at least 21. Then it is discarded. It is never written to a database, never attached to a profile, and never sent to a third party.

What we set instead is a single cookie that records only that the check passed and when it expires — nothing about who you are or what date you entered. It is signed, so it cannot be forged, and it is httpOnly, so scripts running in your browser cannot read it. It lasts 30 days, after which the panel appears again.

If the date puts you under 21, nothing is written at all. You simply are not let through.

Crossing to our sister storefront

Our two storefronts are separate sites, so each keeps its own verification cookie. When you follow a link from one to the other, a short-lived signed pass travels with you and clears the gate on the other side, so you are not asked the same question twice in a minute. The pass expires within a couple of minutes and, like the cookie, carries no personal detail.

The real check happens at checkout

Choosing a birth date from three menus proves nothing on its own, and we do not pretend otherwise. Before an order ships, your identity and age are verified electronically at checkout against the details you enter there.

If that check does not clear, the order does not ship.