Why would anyone check out the effort to make their own cigarettes? Because i can only answer for myself 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 even though instructed me in precisely how to choose many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another around the top to produce help of tobacco. My father, being from upstate New york where propane was utilised for 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 of the auction season still lingers with me as I’m sure back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out for this curing barns.
Maybe from that getting exposed I was exposed for appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as Applied given a lecture throughout the differences between our fine Carolina brights versus those “other” tobaccos that were left in the industries. 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 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 I was 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 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 wide variety of pipe shops having a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and likes.
Maybe it is an individual recollection as many on 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 using tobacco or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad components?
When I first imagined Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were of 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 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 knock.
However, after a moment of exploration on the web I soon found presently there were indeed alternatives. After studying in RYO Magazine using a quick call to D&R in Smithfield, North Carolina, I was soon eagerly awaiting a shipment associated with the 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 had been both thrilled with our purchases and what we have since experienced. Now, home 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, right now 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 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 many of our blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is a mild blend, but sometimes there is the enjoyment of a superb Turkish blend or even a dessert blend with the of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and more times more of an English blend. The fun part is that our own own custom made cigarettes we now have the opportunity to enjoy the top quality in an incredible selection 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, we both looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, a terrible bitter residual, and that all those 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 much more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170