Why would anyone check out the effort to make their own cigarettes? While 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 because they instructed me in just how many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another located on the top to produce help of tobacco. My father, being from upstate Nyc 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 for the auction season still lingers with me as Individuals back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out for this curing barns.
Maybe from that getting exposed I was exposed for appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as I became given a lecture throughout 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 from a solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then made into a twist for drying. Back then chewing tobacco was whether or not similar twist or a plug, not the subtle stuff of today’s highly cased bags.
Years later, when I was grown, I was exposed to 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 towards the growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to an array of pipe shops even a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and flavors.
Maybe it is an individual recollection as many belonging to 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 left. With the hundreds of additives the standard, are we smoking cigarettes or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad coloring?
When I first imagined Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were belonging to the old men I did see who fascinated me with their dexterity due to the fact hand rolled a smoke from one of numerous over the counter varieties found in many groceries and pharmacies. For myself, this meant something that can inevitably leave you having 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. After looking at in RYO Magazine in addition to 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 both thrilled with our purchases and what has actually since experienced. Now, the house 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, right now 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 lengthier that coughing and congestion that used to accompany each morning’s waking.
Today, we have come a long way, as we now experiment with all of our 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 solid Turkish blend or obviously any good dessert blend with just slightly of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and for enhancing times more of an English blend. The fun part is that along with own custom made cigarettes we now have likelihood to enjoy the top quality in an incredible selection 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 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 quite more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170