Why would anyone check out the effort to make their own cigarettes? Because 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 even though instructed me in just how many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another located on the top to produce a hand of tobacco. My father, being from upstate Nyc 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 from the auction season still lingers with me as I think back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out for this curing barns.
Maybe from that publicity I was exposed to an appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as I was given a lecture inside 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 in a solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then reconstructed as a twist for drying. Back then chewing tobacco was whether or not similar twist or a plug, not the subtle stuff of today’s highly cased bags.
Years later, when Irealised i was grown, I was confronted 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 decrease of intense toasted flavors and Turkish blends. However, as cigarette tobaccos were more and more enhanced with additives better transportation and communications led towards the growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to a huge selection of pipe shops even a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and flavors.
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 history. With the hundreds of additives the standard, are we using tobacco or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad chemicals?
When I first imagined Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were in 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 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 knock.
However, after a moment of exploration on the web I soon found that there were indeed alternatives. Reading in RYO Magazine in addition 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 we were both thrilled with our purchases and what has actually since experienced. Now, the house 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, currently has 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 our own 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 a good dessert blend with a tiny bit of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and solutions on times more of an English blend. The fun part is that with our own custom made cigarettes we now have the chance 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, both of us looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, an awful bitter residual, and it sounds 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