Why would anyone pay a visit to the effort to make their own cigarettes? Because i can only answer for myself the reasons are several. 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 because they instructed me in exactly how many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another located on the top to produce help of tobacco. My father, being from upstate Brooklyn where propane was utilised for many purposes, owned a propane gas company and very soon 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 I think back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out for this curing barns.
Maybe from that being exposed I was exposed to an appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as Applied given a lecture inside the differences between our fine Carolina brights versus those “other” tobaccos that were left in the fields. the burleys of the up-country. To even further educate me, I was once given a demonstration of how burley was soaked from a solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then changed to a twist for drying out. 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 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 others. 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 into the growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to an array of pipe shops as well rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and flavours.
Maybe it is an individual recollection as many of 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 already gone. With the hundreds of additives the standard, are we smoking tobacco or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad chemical products?
When I first deemed Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were among the old men I used to see who fascinated me with their dexterity although hand rolled a smoke from one of the many over the counter varieties found in many groceries and pharmacies. For myself, this meant something that inevitably leave you using a mouth full of bitter shreds and a smoke that was dry, harsh, and packed the subtlety of a mule halt.
However, after a moment of exploration on the internet I soon found that there were indeed alternatives. After studying in RYO Magazine so 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 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’ve got since experienced. Now, our 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 but today 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, once we now experiment with some of our blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is a light-weight blend, but sometimes there’s 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 along with own custom made cigarettes we now have opportunity to enjoy the finest quality in an incredible associated with 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, the two of us looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, an awful bitter residual, and that all of the too familiar stench up. 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