Why would anyone check out 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 even though instructed me in exactly how many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another by the top to produce a hand of tobacco. My father, being from upstate Miami where propane was utilised for many purposes, owned a propane gas company and very 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 of the 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 I used to be 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 within a solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then made into a twist for blow drying. Back then chewing tobacco was either a similar twist or a plug, not the subtle stuff of today’s highly cased bags.
Years later, when Irealised i was grown, I was encountered with many of the “store bought” cigarettes that rarely had filters. Lucky Strikes, Home Run, Camels, Chesterfield, Phillip Morris and some 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 towards the growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to an array of pipe shops and a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and likes.
Maybe it is an individual recollection as many with 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 smoking cigarettes or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad chemical products?
When I first thought of Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were in the old men I accustomed to see who fascinated me with their dexterity although hand rolled a smoke from one of numerous over the counter varieties found in many groceries and pharmacies. For myself, this meant something that would inevitably leave you having a mouth full of bitter shreds and a smoke that was dry, harsh, and packed the subtlety of a mule conquer.
However, after a moment of exploration on the online market place I soon found that there were indeed alternatives. Seeing in RYO Magazine in addition to 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 i was both thrilled with our purchases and what we’ve got 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, we have both rediscovered the overwhelmingly pleasant taste and aroma of great tobaccos. However one totally unanticipated side benefit is that supermarket 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 our own 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 a good dessert blend with tiny of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and for enhancing times more of an English blend. The fun part is that with our own custom made cigarettes we now have the opportunity to enjoy the highest quality in an incredible array 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, a terrible bitter residual, and terrific, right ? too familiar stench over the cargo box. 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
https://goo.gl/maps/sqMd1YLqExwwJctn9
Posted on:
July 11, 2019