Great time had with introduction of smelling salts (8)

'salts' is the definition.
(acetate is a kind of salt)

'great time had with introduction of smelling' is the wordplay.
'great' becomes 'ace' (ace can informally mean very good).
'time' becomes 't' (abbreviation).
'had' becomes 'ate' ('have' can mean 'eat').
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'introduction of smelling' becomes 's' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ace'+'t'+'ate'+'s'='ACETATES'

Can you help me to learn more?