Why would anyone check out the effort to make their own cigarettes? As i can only answer personally the reasons are a large number of. 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 after they instructed me in just how many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another located on the top to produce a hand of tobacco. My father, being from upstate Brooklyn where propane was employed by 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 belonging to the auction season still lingers with me as I’m sure back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out of the curing barns.
Maybe from that publicity I was exposed a good appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as Applied to be given a lecture inside 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 converted to 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 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 other ones. Eventually, the American taste turned to filtered cigarettes and the decline 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 plethora of pipe shops having a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and flavours.
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 left. With the hundreds of additives now the standard, are we smoking cigarettes or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad chemical products?
When I first acknowledged Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were of the old men I did see who fascinated me with their dexterity though they hand rolled a smoke from one of the many over the counter varieties found in many groceries and pharmacies. For myself, this meant something made use of inevitably leave you by 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 online world I soon found generally there were indeed alternatives. After looking at in RYO Magazine so 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 associated with 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, the 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 and thus 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 some of our blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is a mild blend, but sometimes an extremely the enjoyment of a wonderful Turkish blend or even a dessert blend with a tiny bit of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and tips times more of an English blend. The fun part is that our own own custom made cigarettes we now have likelihood to enjoy the highest quality in an incredible range 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, an awful bitter residual, and that all 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 more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170