Why would anyone pay a visit to the effort to make their own cigarettes? Because i can only answer personally the reasons are different. 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 to select many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another round top to produce help of tobacco. My father, being from upstate Nyc where propane was employed by many purposes, owned a propane gas company and soon afterwards invented the system that inaugurated the move from wood to propane in flue curing bright tobacco. Those many aromas and the bustle from 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 direct exposure I was exposed to an appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as I became given a lecture relating to the differences between our fine Carolina brights versus those “other” tobaccos that were left in the derricks. 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 reconstructed as a twist for blow 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 am 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 for the growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to a huge selection of pipe shops having a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and likes.
Maybe it is an individual recollection as many with 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 cigarette smoking or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad chemicals?
When I first thought of Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were of the old men I did see who fascinated me with their dexterity whenever they hand rolled a smoke from one of a lot of 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 online world I soon found that there were indeed alternatives. After reading in RYO Magazine and 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 choice 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 got since experienced. Now, the house no longer has that foul reek of inferior tobaccos, in fact, fresh 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 supermarket 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, as we now experiment with many of our blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is a lightweight blend, but sometimes there’s the enjoyment of a great Turkish blend or a good dessert blend with the of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and solutions on times more of an English blend. The fun part is that along with own custom made cigarettes we now have opportunity to enjoy the finest 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, an awful bitter residual, and it sounds too familiar stench uphill. 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