Why would anyone pay a visit to the effort to make their own cigarettes? Because i can only answer for myself the reasons are many. 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 exactly how many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another by the top to produce help of tobacco. My father, being from upstate Miami 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’m sure back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out of your curing barns.
Maybe from that subjection I was exposed a good appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as I became given a lecture throughout the differences between our fine Carolina brights versus those “other” tobaccos that were left in the industries. 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 reconstructed as a twist for blow 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 We were 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 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 range of pipe shops and a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and likes.
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 gone. With the hundreds of additives the standard, are we smoking cigarettes or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad components?
When I first deemed Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were on the old men I comfortable see who fascinated me with their dexterity as 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 with 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. Seeing in RYO Magazine so 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 had been both thrilled with our purchases and what has actually 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, 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 some of our blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is a lightweight blend, but sometimes an extremely the enjoyment of a superb Turkish blend or just a dessert blend with the of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and more times more of an English blend. The fun part is that our own own custom made cigarettes we now have the ability to enjoy the finest 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, we both looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, a terrible bitter residual, and that all those 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 more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170
https://goo.gl/maps/sqMd1YLqExwwJctn9
Posted on:
July 11, 2019