Why would anyone pay a visit to the effort to make their own cigarettes? Because 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 as they instructed me in precisely how to choose many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another by the top to produce help of tobacco. My father, being from upstate New york where propane was used for 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 in the auction season still lingers with me as I’m sure back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out on the curing barns.
Maybe from that subjection I was exposed to an appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as I was given a lecture inside the differences between our fine Carolina brights versus those “other” tobaccos that were left in the land. 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 dehydrating. Back then chewing tobacco was sometimes 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 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 plethora of pipe shops even a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and ways.
Maybe it is a personal 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 died. With the hundreds of additives now the standard, are we smoking cigarettes or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad additives and preservatives?
When I first deemed Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were belonging to the old men I comfortable 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 that can inevitably leave you using 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 generally there were indeed alternatives. After reading in RYO Magazine in addition to quick call to D&R in Smithfield, North Carolina, I was soon eagerly awaiting a shipment a good 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 i was both thrilled with our purchases and what we have since experienced. Now, the house no longer has that foul reek of inferior tobaccos, in fact, the blends actually are more a fragrance than what previously was more that foul stench of stale cheap tobaccos. Too, have got both rediscovered the overwhelmingly pleasant taste and aroma of great tobaccos. However one totally unanticipated side benefit is that we now 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 our own blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is a mild blend, but sometimes there is the enjoyment of a superb Turkish blend or just a dessert blend with the of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and more times more of an English blend. The fun part is that along with 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, the two of us looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, a terrible bitter residual, and terrific, right ? 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 substantially more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170