Why would anyone go to the effort to make their own cigarettes? While i can only answer for myself the reasons are nearly all. 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 as they 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 Miami 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 belonging to 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 direct exposure I was exposed to an appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as I became 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 a solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then changed to a twist for dehydrating. Back then chewing tobacco was sometimes a similar twist or a plug, not the subtle stuff of today’s highly cased bags.
Years later, when Employed 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 individuals. Eventually, the American taste turned to filtered cigarettes and professional compensation 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 which includes rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and ways.
Maybe it is an individual 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 gone. With the hundreds of additives the standard, are we using tobacco or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad coloring?
When I first imagined Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were among the old men I used to see who fascinated me with their dexterity whenever they hand rolled a smoke from one of the various over the counter varieties found in many groceries and pharmacies. For myself, this meant something made use of inevitably leave you having 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 world I soon found that 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 of 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 since experienced. Now, the house 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, has got 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 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 a lightweight blend, but sometimes put on pounds . the enjoyment of a solid Turkish blend or a dessert blend with just slightly of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and for enhancing 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 top 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, we both looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, an awful bitter residual, and it sounds too familiar stench in the air. As though an interesting spin on an old commercial, we are now smoking far less, but enjoying it so substantially more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170