Custom made Cigarettes and Fine Tobaccos – Smoking Less and Enjoying It More
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 after they instructed me in to select many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another around the top to produce a hand of tobacco. My father, being from upstate New york where propane was employed by many purposes, owned a propane gas company and very quickly afterwards invented the system that inaugurated the move from wood to propane in flue curing bright tobacco. Those many aromas and the bustle for the auction season still lingers with me as I’m sure back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out for this curing barns.
Maybe from that publicity I was exposed a good appreciation of what tobaccos SHOULD smell like. In fact, I even remember watching once as Applied given a lecture on the differences between our fine Carolina brights versus those “other” tobaccos that were left in the land. the burleys of the up-country. To even further educate me, I was once given a demonstration of how burley was soaked in the solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then converted to 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 exposed to 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 huge selection of pipe shops which includes rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and ways.
Maybe it is an individual recollection as many belonging to 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 gone. With the hundreds of additives the standard, are we using tobacco or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad components?
When I first acknowledged Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were of the old men I used to see who fascinated me with their dexterity due to the fact hand rolled a smoke from one of numerous over the counter varieties found in many groceries and pharmacies. For myself, this meant something that 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 conquer.
However, after a moment of exploration on the online world I soon found generally 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 associated with 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 has actually since experienced. Now, home no longer has that foul reek of inferior tobaccos, in fact, the actual 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 but today 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 some of our blending and have studied the many varietals, variations, and characteristics. For general smoking there is a mild blend, but sometimes presently there the enjoyment of a wonderful Turkish blend or a good dessert blend with just slightly of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and for other times more of an English blend. The fun part is that our own own custom made cigarettes we now have the opportunity to enjoy the finest 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, the two of us looked at one another with a grin. No taste, no flavor, a terrible bitter residual, and that all too familiar stench up. As though an interesting spin on an old commercial, we are now smoking far less, but enjoying it so quite more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170
