Why would anyone check out the effort to make their own cigarettes? While 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 once they instructed me in to select 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 for many purposes, owned a propane gas company and shortly afterwards invented the system that inaugurated the move from wood to propane in flue curing bright tobacco. Those many aromas and the bustle for the auction season still lingers with me as Individuals back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out on the curing barns.
Maybe from that being exposed I was exposed a good appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as I used to be given a lecture on the differences between our fine Carolina brights versus those “other” tobaccos that were left in the fields. the burleys of the up-country. To even further educate me, I was once given a demonstration of how burley was soaked from a solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then reconstructed as a twist for blow drying. Back then chewing tobacco was sometimes similar twist or a plug, not the subtle stuff of today’s highly cased bags.
Years later, when Employed 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 other ones. 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 a range of pipe shops having a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and likes.
Maybe it is an individual recollection as many of 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 died. With the hundreds of additives now the standard, are we using tobacco or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad components?
When I first thought of Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were on the old men I used to see who fascinated me with their dexterity though they hand rolled a smoke from one of 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 kick.
However, after a moment of exploration on the web I soon found right now there were indeed alternatives. After studying 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 had been both thrilled with our purchases and what has actually since experienced. Now, the house no longer has that foul reek of inferior tobaccos, in fact, fresh blends actually are more a fragrance than what previously was more that foul stench of stale cheap tobaccos. Too, we have both rediscovered the overwhelmingly pleasant taste and aroma of great tobaccos. However one totally unanticipated side benefit is that supermarket smoke far fewer cigarettes as the wonderful D&R and other blends are infinitely more satisfying. Even more, there is much 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 light-weight blend, but sometimes put on pounds . the enjoyment of a wonderful Turkish blend or even a dessert blend with just slightly of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and for enhancing times more of an English blend. The fun part is that along with own custom made cigarettes we now have the ability to enjoy the finest 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, both of us looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, a horrible bitter residual, and terrific, right ? too familiar stench up. As though an interesting spin on an old commercial, we are now smoking far less, but enjoying it so quite more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170