Smokings Turn to a Smokeless Tobacco Alternative
Why would anyone go to the effort to make their own cigarettes? As i can only answer personally 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 once they instructed me in just how 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 Miami where propane was used 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 from the auction season still lingers with me as Think 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 was given a lecture on 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 the solution of sugar, salt and water, wrung out, shaken, and then made into a twist for blow drying. Back then chewing tobacco was regardless of whether similar twist or a plug, not the subtle stuff of today’s highly cased bags.
Years later, when Employed 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 an array of pipe shops which includes rapid growth in new blends, cuts, and flavours.
Maybe it is a personal recollection as many of your 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 left. With the hundreds of additives the standard, are we cigarette smoking or some lesser grade tobacco and myriad chemicals?
When I first looked upon Roll Your Own cigarettes my thoughts were of the old men I accustomed to see who fascinated me with their dexterity whenever 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 inevitably leave you with a mouth full of bitter shreds and a smoke that was dry, harsh, and packed the subtlety of a mule kick.
However, after a moment of exploration on the net I soon found right now there were indeed alternatives. Reading in RYO Magazine using 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 we both thrilled with our purchases and what we’ve got since experienced. Now, our 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, right now both rediscovered the overwhelmingly pleasant taste and aroma of great tobaccos. However one totally unanticipated side benefit is that almost any 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, as we now experiment with our own 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 the best Turkish blend or just a dessert blend with a tiny bit of Latakia. Sometimes a sweet smoke and tips times more of an English blend. The fun part is that along with own custom made cigarettes we now have the chance to enjoy the top 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 that all of the 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 much more!
Smokey Johns Tobacco Company
424 Elmwood Rd, Lansing, MI 48917
(517) 703-8170
