Why would anyone check out the effort to make their own cigarettes? While 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 even though instructed me in precisely how to choose many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another by the top to produce help of tobacco. My father, being from upstate Nyc where propane was employed by 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 from the auction season still lingers with me as Chance back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out of the curing barns.
Maybe from that subjection I was exposed for appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as I became given a lecture relating to 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 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 sometimes 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 decrease 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 even a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and flavors.
Maybe it is an individual 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 already gone. With the hundreds of additives now the standard, are we using tobacco or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad components?
When I first looked upon Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were belonging to the old men I accustomed to see who fascinated me with their dexterity though they hand rolled a smoke from one of numerous over the counter varieties found in many groceries and pharmacies. For myself, this meant something that can 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 net I soon found generally there were indeed alternatives. After looking at in RYO Magazine so 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 choice of 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 we have since experienced. Now, our home no longer has that foul reek of inferior tobaccos, in fact, brand new 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 we now 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, as 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 an extremely the enjoyment of a superb Turkish blend or just a dessert blend with just slightly of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and more times more of an English blend. The fun part is that along with own custom made cigarettes we now have the opportunity 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 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 much more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170