Why would anyone go to the effort to make their own cigarettes? As 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 exactly how many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another by the top to produce a hand of tobacco. My father, being from upstate Brooklyn where propane was utilised for 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 in the auction season still lingers with me as Think back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out of 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 Applied given a lecture relating to 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 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 Employed grown, I was encountered with 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 decrease 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 an array of pipe shops which includes rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and different ways.
Maybe it is an individual recollection as many of 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 history. With the hundreds of additives now the standard, are we using tobacco or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad components?
When I first deemed Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were among the old men I used to see who fascinated me with their dexterity as 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 would inevitably leave you using a mouth full of bitter shreds and a smoke that was dry, harsh, and packed the subtlety of a mule knock.
However, after a moment of exploration on the web I soon found right now there were indeed alternatives. Reading in RYO Magazine in addition a quick call to D&R in Smithfield, North Carolina, I was soon eagerly awaiting a shipment of 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 were both thrilled with our purchases and what we’ve got since experienced. Now, the house 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, has got both rediscovered the overwhelmingly pleasant taste and aroma of great tobaccos. However one totally unanticipated side benefit is that but today 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 many of our blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is a light-weight blend, but sometimes there’s the enjoyment of the best Turkish blend or a dessert blend with a tiny bit of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and for other times more of an English blend. The fun part is that the own custom made cigarettes we now have the ability to enjoy the finest 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, both of us looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, a horrible bitter residual, and that all those 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 substantially more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170