Why would anyone check out 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 once they 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 Nyc where propane was employed by many purposes, owned a propane gas company and 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 think back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out from the curing barns.
Maybe from that publicity I was exposed with regard to an appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as I used to be given a lecture throughout the differences between our fine Carolina brights versus those “other” tobaccos that were left in the virtual farmland. 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 made into a twist for 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 I was grown, I was subjected to many of the “store bought” cigarettes that rarely had filters. Lucky Strikes, Home Run, Camels, Chesterfield, Phillip Morris and some 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 towards the growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to a range of pipe shops having a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and ways.
Maybe it is an individual recollection as many belonging to 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 gone. With the hundreds of additives now the standard, are we cigarette smoking or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad chemical products?
When I first looked upon Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were in the old men I used to see who fascinated me with their dexterity though 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 made use of 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 halt.
However, after a moment of exploration on the internet I soon found generally there were indeed alternatives. Seeing in RYO Magazine in addition a quick call to D&R in Smithfield, North Carolina, I was soon eagerly awaiting a shipment a good 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 we have since experienced. Now, our 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, we have both rediscovered the overwhelmingly pleasant taste and aroma of great tobaccos. However one totally unanticipated side benefit is that but today 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 all of our blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is the light blend, but sometimes put on pounds . the enjoyment of a great Turkish blend or obviously any good dessert blend with a bit 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 the ability to enjoy the highest 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, both of us looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, an awful bitter residual, and that all those too familiar stench uphill. 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