Why would anyone go to the effort to make their own cigarettes? Because i can only answer personally the reasons are several. 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 as they instructed me in just how many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another around the top to produce a hand of tobacco. My father, being from upstate New york where propane was used 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 from the auction season still lingers with me as Think back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out from the curing barns.
Maybe from that being exposed I was exposed with regard to an appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as I was given a lecture on the differences between our fine Carolina brights versus those “other” tobaccos that were left in the virtual farmland. the burleys of the up-country. To even further educate me, I was once given a demonstration of how burley was soaked within a solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then converted to a twist for blow drying. Back then chewing tobacco was regardless of whether similar twist or a plug, not the subtle stuff of today’s highly cased bags.
Years later, when I was grown, I was already familiar with many of the “store bought” cigarettes that rarely had filters. Lucky Strikes, Home Run, Camels, Chesterfield, Phillip Morris and some others. Eventually, the American taste turned to filtered cigarettes and the decline 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 an array of pipe shops which includes rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and flavors.
Maybe it is a personal recollection as many of your 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 gone. With the hundreds of additives the standard, are we cigarette smoking or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad chemicals?
When I first imagined Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were of the old men I which are used to see who fascinated me with their dexterity whenever they 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 would inevitably leave you with a mouth full of bitter shreds and a smoke that was dry, harsh, and packed the subtlety of a mule halt.
However, after a moment of exploration on the online market place I soon found that there were indeed alternatives. Reading in RYO Magazine and a quick call to D&R in Smithfield, North Carolina, I was soon eagerly awaiting a shipment a good injector, some filter tubes and a wide associated with blends. Upon their arrival, my wife and I spent a few days sampling and experimenting.
I am now glad to say that we both thrilled with our purchases and what we’ve got since experienced. Now, home no longer has that foul reek of inferior tobaccos, in fact, the new 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 extended that coughing and congestion that used to accompany each morning’s waking.
Today, we have come a long way, once we now experiment with some of our blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is a lightweight blend, but sometimes an extremely the enjoyment of a great Turkish blend or a dessert blend with a tiny bit of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and for enhancing times more of an English blend. The fun part is that with own custom made cigarettes we now have the opportunity to enjoy the top quality in an incredible selection of 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, we both looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, a terrible bitter residual, and that all too familiar stench in the air. As though an interesting spin on an old commercial, we are now smoking far less, but enjoying it so much more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170