Why would anyone pay a visit to the effort to make their own cigarettes? Because i can only answer personally the reasons are different. 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 round 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 belonging to the auction season still lingers with me as I’m sure back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out from the curing barns.
Maybe from that direct exposure I was exposed a good appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as I used to be given a lecture relating to 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 in a solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then reconstructed as a twist for drying. Back then chewing tobacco was sometimes similar twist or a plug, not the subtle stuff of today’s highly cased bags.
Years later, when I am grown, I was confronted with many of the “store bought” cigarettes that rarely had filters. Lucky Strikes, Home Run, Camels, Chesterfield, Phillip Morris and some other. 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 to the growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to a wide variety of pipe shops and a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and flavors.
Maybe it is a personal 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 left. With the hundreds of additives the standard, are we cigarette smoking or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad coloring?
When I first acknowledged Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were on the old men I did see who fascinated me with their dexterity though they hand rolled a smoke from one of the numerous over the counter varieties found in many groceries and pharmacies. For myself, this meant something the objective inevitably leave you with 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 internet I soon found right now there were indeed alternatives. After reading in RYO Magazine in addition to quick call to D&R in Smithfield, North Carolina, I was soon eagerly awaiting a shipment of an 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 had been both thrilled with our purchases and what we since experienced. Now, the house 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, right now 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 much that coughing and congestion that used to accompany each morning’s waking.
Today, we have come a long way, once we now experiment with this blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is the light blend, but sometimes there is the enjoyment of a great Turkish blend or just a dessert blend with the of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and solutions on times more of an English blend. The fun part is that with own custom made cigarettes we now have likelihood to enjoy the highest 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, both of us looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, a horrible 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 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
