Those that smoke Turn to a Smokeless Tobacco Alternative
Why would anyone go 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 once they instructed me in precisely how to choose many leaves to grasp by their stems while then wrapping another located on the top to produce a hand of tobacco. My father, being from upstate Nyc where propane was useful for many purposes, owned a propane gas company and shortly 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 think back on the many sensory delights of fine tobacco just out for this curing barns.
Maybe from that direct exposure I was exposed with regard 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 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 made into a twist for drying out. 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 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 other ones. 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 for the growth of international blends in pipe tobaccos where Balkan, Turkish, and English blends led to a plethora of pipe shops and a rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and flavours.
Maybe it is a personal 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 already gone. 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 due to the fact hand rolled a smoke from one of the various over the counter varieties found in many groceries and pharmacies. For myself, this meant something the objective 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 halt.
However, after a moment of exploration on the online world I soon found that there were indeed alternatives. Seeing in RYO Magazine using a 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 associated with blends. Upon their arrival, my wife and I spent a few days sampling and experimenting.
I am now glad to say that we both thrilled with our purchases and what we have since experienced. Now, home no longer has that foul reek of inferior tobaccos, in fact, fresh 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 we now smoke far fewer cigarettes as the wonderful D&R and other blends are infinitely more satisfying. Even more, there is lengthier 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 a lightweight blend, but sometimes there’s the enjoyment of a great Turkish blend or obviously any 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 the own custom made cigarettes we now have the chance to enjoy the highest quality in an incredible range 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, an awful bitter residual, and that all those too familiar stench in the air. 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
