Why would anyone pay a visit to the effort to make their own cigarettes? While 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 once they instructed me in just how many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another round top to produce help of tobacco. My father, being from upstate The big where propane was utilised 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 in 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 subjection I was exposed a good 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 derricks. the burleys of the up-country. To even further educate me, I was once given a demonstration of how burley was soaked in the solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then converted to a twist for blow drying. 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 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 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 into 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 likes.
Maybe it is a personal 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 smoking tobacco or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad components?
When I first thought of Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were on the old men I which are used to see who fascinated me with their dexterity although 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 market place I soon found presently there were indeed alternatives. After studying 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 had been both thrilled with our purchases and what has got since experienced. Now, home 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, have got 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 this blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is a mild blend, but sometimes there is the enjoyment of a great Turkish blend or a dessert blend with tiny of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and tips times more of an English blend. The fun part is that with own custom made cigarettes we now have 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, the two 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 over the cargo box. 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