The invention provides a method of extracting and isolating certain compounds from tobacco. The resulting isolate can include more than 90% by weight of a given compound and can be used as a flavor component for tobacco material used in smoking articles and smokeless tobacco compositions. Exemplary compounds that may be present in the isolate according to the invention include, but are not limited to, solanone, neophytadiene, megastigmatrienone, β-damascenone, norsolanadione, cis-abienol, α-cembratrienediol, β-cembratrienediol, sucrose esters, and lutein.