Why would anyone check out the effort to make their own cigarettes? Because i can only answer personally the reasons are many. Coming from a low-country town in Carolina, I can still very well remember the sweet and pungent aromas of the tobacco auction season and the myriad sights and sounds that accompanied the auctioneer and buyers as they walked among the beautiful rows of golden leaves.
Due to my age, I can also recall sitting in the company of many others once they instructed me in just how many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another upon the top to produce help of tobacco. My father, being from upstate Nyc where propane was useful for many purposes, owned a propane gas company and very quickly afterwards invented the system that inaugurated the move from wood to propane in flue curing bright tobacco. Those many aromas and the bustle belonging to the auction season still lingers with me as Chance back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out of your curing barns.
Maybe from that subjection I was exposed for appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as I was given a lecture for a differences between our fine Carolina brights versus those “other” tobaccos that were left in the land. the burleys of the up-country. To even further educate me, I was once given a demonstration of how burley was soaked in the solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then reconstructed as a twist for drying out. Back then chewing tobacco was sometimes similar twist or a plug, not the subtle stuff of today’s highly cased bags.
Years later, when I was grown, I was confronted with many of the “store bought” cigarettes that rarely had filters. Lucky Strikes, Home Run, Camels, Chesterfield, Phillip Morris and individuals. Eventually, the American taste turned to filtered cigarettes and professional compensation of intense toasted flavors and Turkish blends. However, as cigarette tobaccos were more and more enhanced with additives better transportation and communications led into the growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to a huge selection of pipe shops which includes rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and different ways.
Maybe it is an individual recollection as many belonging to the older ways seem better, but it seems that in now having a lot of options among cigarettes today, much of the flavor and aroma has left. With the hundreds of additives now the standard, are we using tobacco or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad chemicals?
When I first deemed Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were belonging to the old men I did see who fascinated me with their dexterity due to the fact hand rolled a smoke from one of the numerous over the counter varieties found in many groceries and pharmacies. For myself, this meant something that inevitably leave you along with a mouth full of bitter shreds and a smoke that was dry, harsh, and packed the subtlety of a mule knock.
However, after a moment of exploration on the net I soon found right now there were indeed alternatives. After looking at in RYO Magazine in addition a quick call to D&R in Smithfield, North Carolina, I was soon eagerly awaiting a shipment of an injector, some filter tubes and a wide choice of blends. Upon their arrival, my wife and I spent a few days sampling and experimenting.
I am now glad to say that we were both thrilled with our purchases and what has actually since experienced. Now, our home no longer has that foul reek of inferior tobaccos, in fact, the actual blends actually are more a fragrance than what previously was more that foul stench of stale cheap tobaccos. Too, has got both rediscovered the overwhelmingly pleasant taste and aroma of great tobaccos. However one totally unanticipated side benefit is that almost any smoke far fewer cigarettes as the wonderful D&R and other blends are infinitely more satisfying. Even more, there is no longer that coughing and congestion that used to accompany each morning’s waking.
Today, we have come a long way, as we now experiment with many of our blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is a lightweight blend, but sometimes put on pounds . the enjoyment of a solid Turkish blend or obviously any good dessert blend with the of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and for other times more of an English blend. The fun part is that with own custom made cigarettes we now have the chance to enjoy the finest quality in an incredible involving styles. Sometimes a thin, rolled smoke, other times a thicker injected smoke, with NO additives.
When we once tried the premium brand of pre-made commercial cigarettes, the two of us looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, an awful bitter residual, and it sounds too familiar stench up. As though an interesting spin on an old commercial, we are now smoking far less, but enjoying it so substantially more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170