Why would anyone pay a visit 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 even though instructed me in exactly how many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another round top to produce help of tobacco. My father, being from upstate Brooklyn where propane was useful for many purposes, owned a propane gas company and very quickly 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 Think back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out on the 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 used to be given a lecture on 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 from a solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then made into a twist for drying out. Back then chewing tobacco was regardless of whether similar twist or a plug, not the subtle stuff of today’s highly cased bags.
Years later, when Irealised i was 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 individuals. 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 a huge selection of pipe shops even a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and flavors.
Maybe it is an individual recollection as many of 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 gone. With the hundreds of additives now the standard, are we using tobacco or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad chemical products?
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 though 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 can 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 halt.
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 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’ve got since experienced. Now, home no longer has that foul reek of inferior tobaccos, in fact, brand new 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 almost any smoke far fewer cigarettes as the wonderful D&R and other blends are infinitely more satisfying. Even more, there is much that coughing and congestion that used to accompany each morning’s waking.
Today, we have come a long way, once we now experiment with this blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is the light blend, but sometimes there’s the enjoyment of a solid Turkish blend or just a dessert blend with tiny of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and for enhancing times more of an English blend. The fun part is that our own own custom made cigarettes we now have the opportunity to enjoy the highest 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 that all those too familiar stench 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