Why would anyone go to the effort to make their own cigarettes? As i can only answer personally 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 around the top to produce a hand of tobacco. My father, being from upstate The big where propane was used 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 for the auction season still lingers with me as I think back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out of your curing barns.
Maybe from that publicity 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 on 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 out. Back then chewing tobacco was sometimes a similar twist or a plug, not the subtle stuff of today’s highly cased bags.
Years later, when Irealised 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 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 an array of pipe shops which includes rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and likes.
Maybe it is an individual recollection as many of your 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 using tobacco or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad chemicals?
When I first imagined Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were in the old men I comfortable see who fascinated me with their dexterity as 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 the objective inevitably leave you along with 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 market place 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 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, the house no longer has that foul reek of inferior tobaccos, in fact, the new 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 we now smoke far fewer cigarettes as the wonderful D&R and other blends are infinitely more satisfying. Even more, there is no longer that coughing and congestion that used to accompany each morning’s waking.
Today, we have come a long way, as we now experiment with our own blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is a lightweight blend, but sometimes there is the enjoyment of a superb Turkish blend or obviously any good dessert blend with tiny of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and for other times more of an English blend. The fun part is that with own custom made cigarettes we now have the chance to enjoy the finest 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, both of us looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, a horrible bitter residual, and that all of the too familiar stench up. 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