Why would anyone pay a visit to the effort to make their own cigarettes? As 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 as they instructed me in exactly how many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another round top to produce a hand of tobacco. My father, being from upstate New york where propane was employed by 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 belonging to the auction season still lingers with me as Think back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out of your curing barns.
Maybe from that subjection I was exposed a good appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as Applied given a lecture inside 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 in the solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then changed to a twist for drying out. Back then chewing tobacco was either a similar twist or a plug, not the subtle stuff of today’s highly cased bags.
Years later, when Irealised 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 other ones. Eventually, the American taste turned to filtered cigarettes and decrease of intense toasted flavors and Turkish blends. However, as cigarette tobaccos were more and more enhanced with additives better transportation and communications led for the growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to a huge selection of pipe shops and a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and different ways.
Maybe it is a personal recollection as many with 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 history. With the hundreds of additives now the standard, are we cigarette smoking or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad chemical products?
When I first looked upon Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were of the old men I accustomed to see who fascinated me with their dexterity whenever they hand rolled a smoke from one of the various over the counter varieties found in many groceries and pharmacies. For myself, this meant something made use of inevitably leave you with a mouth full of bitter shreds and a smoke that was dry, harsh, and packed the subtlety of a mule conquer.
However, after a moment of exploration on the net I soon found that there were indeed alternatives. Seeing in RYO Magazine and a quick call to D&R in Smithfield, North Carolina, I was soon eagerly awaiting a shipment associated with the 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 were 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, brand new 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 and thus 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, as we now experiment with many of our blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is a mild blend, but sometimes presently there the enjoyment of a wonderful Turkish blend or a good dessert blend with a tiny bit of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and solutions on times more of an English blend. The fun part is that our own own custom made cigarettes we now have the ability to enjoy the highest quality in an incredible array 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 suspended in the air. As though an interesting spin on an old commercial, we are now smoking far less, but enjoying it so more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170