Why would anyone go to the effort to make their own cigarettes? While i can only answer personally 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 after they instructed me in just how many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another round 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 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 Individuals back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out of your curing barns.
Maybe from that being exposed I was exposed to an appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as I was 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 in the solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then converted to a twist for dehydrating. Back then chewing tobacco was either a similar twist or a plug, not the subtle stuff of today’s highly cased bags.
Years later, when Employed grown, I was confronted with many of the “store bought” cigarettes that rarely had filters. Lucky Strikes, Home Run, Camels, Chesterfield, Phillip Morris and some other. 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 to the growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to a huge selection of pipe shops and a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and flavours.
Maybe it is a personal recollection as many with 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 smoking tobacco or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad chemicals?
When I first acknowledged Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were on the old men I accustomed to see who fascinated me with their dexterity although 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 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 kick.
However, after a moment of exploration on the internet I soon found generally there were indeed alternatives. After studying 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 selection of 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, our home no longer has that foul reek of inferior tobaccos, in fact, fresh 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 but today 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, once 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 put on pounds . the enjoyment of a great Turkish blend or obviously any good dessert blend with just slightly 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 opportunity to enjoy the top quality in an incredible associated with 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 too familiar stench up. 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