Why would anyone check out 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 once they instructed me in to select many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another upon the top to produce a hand of tobacco. My father, being from upstate The big where propane was employed by many purposes, owned a propane gas company and shortly afterwards invented the system that inaugurated the move from wood to propane in flue curing bright tobacco. Those many aromas and the bustle of the auction season still lingers with me as Individuals back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out from the curing barns.
Maybe from that being exposed I was exposed a good appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as I was given a lecture throughout 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 a solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then reconstructed as a twist for 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 I am grown, I was exposed to 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 for the growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to a plethora of pipe shops and a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and likes.
Maybe it is a personal recollection as many with 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 cigarette smoking or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad additives and preservatives?
When I first deemed Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were in the old men I comfortable 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 having 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. 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 selection of blends. Upon their arrival, my wife and I spent a few days sampling and experimenting.
I am now glad to say that we were 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, fresh blends actually are more a fragrance than what previously was more that foul stench of stale cheap tobaccos. Too, right now both rediscovered the overwhelmingly pleasant taste and aroma of great tobaccos. However one totally unanticipated side benefit is that and thus smoke far fewer cigarettes as the wonderful D&R and other blends are infinitely more satisfying. Even more, there is a lot more 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 a light blend, but sometimes there is the enjoyment of a great Turkish blend or a 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 along with own custom made cigarettes we now have the chance to enjoy the finest quality in an incredible range 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, a horrible bitter residual, and that all too familiar stench suspended in the air. As though an interesting spin on an old commercial, we are now smoking far less, but enjoying it so more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170