Why would anyone go to the effort to make their own cigarettes? As i can only answer for myself 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 because they instructed me in just 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 The big where propane was useful 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 I’m sure back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out of your 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 became 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 dehydrating. 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 We were 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 some others. 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 to the growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to a wide variety of pipe shops having a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and flavours.
Maybe it is an individual recollection as many on 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 left. With the hundreds of additives the standard, are we using tobacco or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad chemicals?
When I first acknowledged Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were of the old men I used to see who fascinated me with their dexterity as they hand rolled a smoke from one of the numerous over the counter varieties found in many groceries and pharmacies. For myself, this meant something that inevitably leave you using 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 internet I soon found right now there were indeed alternatives. Seeing in RYO Magazine using 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 had been 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, the actual 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 almost any smoke far fewer cigarettes as the wonderful D&R and other blends are infinitely more satisfying. Even more, there is lengthier that coughing and congestion that used to accompany each morning’s waking.
Today, we have come a long way, once we now experiment with all 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 a dessert blend with a bit of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and more times more of an English blend. The fun part is that with own custom made cigarettes we now have opportunity to enjoy the highest quality in an incredible associated with 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, a horrible bitter residual, and terrific, right ? 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 much more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170