Why would anyone go to the effort to make their own cigarettes? Because i can only answer for myself 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 as they instructed me in just how many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another around the top to produce help of tobacco. My father, being from upstate Miami 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 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 publicity 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 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 in a solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then changed 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 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 decrease of intense toasted flavors and Turkish blends. However, as cigarette tobaccos were more and more enhanced with additives better transportation and communications led to your growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to an array of pipe shops having a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and flavours.
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 left. With the hundreds of additives the standard, are we smoking tobacco or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad chemicals?
When I first acknowledged Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were in the old men I did see who fascinated me with their dexterity as 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 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 net I soon found that there were indeed alternatives. Reading in RYO Magazine in addition to 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 actually 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, we have 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 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 light-weight blend, but sometimes put on pounds . the enjoyment of a great Turkish blend or obviously any 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 our own own custom made cigarettes we now have the chance to enjoy the top quality in an incredible array 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, the two of us looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, a terrible bitter residual, and it sounds too familiar stench up. 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