Why would anyone pay a visit to the effort to make their own cigarettes? As i can only answer personally the reasons are nearly all. 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 even though instructed me in precisely how to choose many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another round top to produce help of tobacco. My father, being from upstate Brooklyn where propane was used many purposes, owned a propane gas company and very soon 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 Individuals back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out from the curing barns.
Maybe from that publicity I was exposed a good 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 in the 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 We were grown, I was subjected to many of the “store bought” cigarettes that rarely had filters. Lucky Strikes, Home Run, Camels, Chesterfield, Phillip Morris and some other. 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 an array of pipe shops having a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and different ways.
Maybe it is a personal recollection as many on 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 now the standard, are we smoking tobacco or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad additives and preservatives?
When I first imagined Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were belonging to the old men I which are used to 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 the objective 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 start.
However, after a moment of exploration on the net I soon found right now there were indeed alternatives. After studying 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 selection of 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 have since experienced. Now, 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 and thus smoke far fewer cigarettes as the wonderful D&R and other blends are infinitely more satisfying. Even more, there is a lot more 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 the light blend, but sometimes an extremely the enjoyment of a great Turkish blend or a good dessert blend with a bit of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and for other 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 top 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, we both looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, a horrible bitter residual, and that all of the too familiar stench over the cargo box. 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