Why would anyone go 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 located on the top to produce a hand of tobacco. My father, being from upstate Nyc where propane was used many purposes, owned a propane gas company and soon afterwards invented the system that inaugurated the move from wood to propane in flue curing bright tobacco. Those many aromas and the bustle in the auction season still lingers with me as Individuals 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 Applied given a lecture throughout the differences between our fine Carolina brights versus those “other” tobaccos that were left in the industries. 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 converted to a twist for drying. Back then chewing tobacco was sometimes a 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 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 to your growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to a wide variety of pipe shops even a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and flavors.
Maybe it is a personal recollection as many with the older ways seem better, but it seems that in now having so many options among cigarettes today, much of the flavor and aroma has already gone. With the hundreds of additives the standard, are we smoking cigarettes or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad coloring?
When I first thought of Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were of the old men I comfortable see who fascinated me with their dexterity though 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 that would 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 halt.
However, after a moment of exploration on the web I soon found that there were indeed alternatives. Reading in RYO Magazine so 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 i was both thrilled with our purchases and what we’ve got since experienced. Now, our home 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 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, once we now experiment with this blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is a lightweight blend, but sometimes there is the enjoyment of a solid Turkish blend or obviously any good dessert blend with a bit of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and tips times more of an English blend. The fun part is that with our own custom made cigarettes we now have the chance to enjoy the finest quality in an incredible range 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, the two of us looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, an awful bitter residual, and that all of the too familiar stench uphill. 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