Why would anyone go to the effort to make their own cigarettes? While i can only answer for myself the reasons are a large number of. 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 to select many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another round top to produce help of tobacco. My father, being from upstate Brooklyn where propane was used 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 Individuals back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out on 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 Applied to be given a lecture relating to 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 converted 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 We were 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 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 for the growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to a plethora of pipe shops which includes rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and likes.
Maybe it is a personal recollection as many belonging to 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 the standard, are we smoking cigarettes or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad additives and preservatives?
When I first thought of Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were among the old men I did 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 would inevitably leave you using a mouth full of bitter shreds and a smoke that was dry, harsh, and packed the subtlety of a mule start.
However, after a moment of exploration on the online market place I soon found presently there were indeed alternatives. After looking at in RYO Magazine using 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 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 blends actually are more a fragrance than what previously was more that foul stench of stale cheap tobaccos. Too, has 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 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 some of our blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is the light blend, but sometimes presently there the enjoyment of the best Turkish blend or obviously any good dessert blend with tiny of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and more times more of an English blend. The fun part is that the own custom made cigarettes we now have the opportunity to enjoy the finest quality in an incredible involving 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, an awful bitter residual, and that all of the 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