Roll your own?

[Vvalters]

I am a social smoker. I smoke when I drink and socialize. I've been rolling my own cigarettes for a little over a year now. I use:

Zig Zag full flavor rolling tobacco

Zig Zag King Size rolling tubes

Premiere Supermatic rolling machine

I was curious if anyone else here rolled their own cigarettes and if so what your set-up(s) might be?

 

[pablo_h]

Local tobaco brand, local papers and local slim filter tips. (name brands would mean nothing to you since I'm in australia).

I have no idea what a 'rolling tube' is and I think I tried a rolling machine once. Too much of a pain to use and results not really consistant anyway.

 

[Taipei Personality]

I used to roll my own about 30 years ago when I lived in the Netherlands. Pre-rolled cigarettes were expensive, so quite a few people rolled. I used Drum and Van Nelle shag tobacco. No machine - all hand rolled, as shag cut is much easier to keep in the paper than the flake cut stuff popular in the US. I found some good shag in a tobacconist's shop in Phoenix when I came back to the States. I don't remember the brand, but it was golden yellow, Virginian, and in a tin with a green lid. I quit smoking about the same time, so that was my last hurrah.

 

[Millay]

Ive been rolling my own for several years now, to be fair the system of rolling the OP is talking about never really caught on in the UK, although the end results are very clse to a tailor made cigarrette. I currently use golden virginina, red rizla and swan standard filtertips. rolling machines are to much faff as i can roll a cigarrette in about 5-10 seconds..

 

[tsmba]

You gotta try a vaporizer....you get so much more flavor out of the "tobacco"!

 

[tblech]

I tried this once, I thought to myself, it doesn't look all that hard to do...I was a three pack a day smoker and I lit up about every 15 minutes, it took me about 10 minutes to roll the damn things, and when I did get them rolled they looked like pregnet birch twigs with fur hanging out both ends, I never did get the hang of it and when my little container of Drum was up, I went back to Kools...

 

[tblech]

rolling machines are to much faff as i can roll a cigarrette in about 5-10 seconds..

What's your secret man!

see my post above...

 

[Millay]

What's your secret man!

see my post above...

Ermm practice.. is all i can really say. but here are my tips

ensure the tobaccoo is well broken apart, in a pack or tin it can be compressed making little balls that make the roll up un smokable.

Ensure the tobaccoo is spread evenly across the paper and is not tight but nice and loose.

When rolling try not to push the tobacco down to mcuh and roll it between thumb and fingers until it feels nice and circular.

When it comes to the final roll, dont try and push the end of the paper in to the tobacco but using your thumbs roll the paper into the other side, so there is a little overlap.

Lick and smoke.

I reckon it took me a good few months to get good role ups.

I might make a video if it helps.

 

[pablo_h]

Roll with your thumbs
make sure you spread the tobbacco evenly before rolling, knowing that the middle will be rolled the least, don't put too much there.
Use a filter tip. Helps you with deciding the amount to fill the paper with and the distribution, plus makes it easier to smoke and saves a lot of tobacco.
If your skin is dry, give your thumbs a bit of a lick so they grip the paper better when "folding over" and rolling.
I like mine a little loose, which is why I don't like rolling machines.
Looser ones have less chance of going out on their own, saves you money and the pack lasts longer, and of course even a loosley packed rollie takes longer to smoke than a cigarette, tighter packed ones take ages to smoke.

 

[SmoovD]

I used to roll my own about 30 years ago when I lived in the Netherlands. Pre-rolled cigarettes were expensive, so quite a few people rolled. I used Drum and Van Nelle shag tobacco. No machine - all hand rolled, as shag cut is much easier to keep in the paper than the flake cut stuff popular in the US. I found some good shag in a tobacconist's shop in Phoenix when I came back to the States. I don't remember the brand, but it was golden yellow, Virginian, and in a tin with a green lid. I quit smoking about the same time, so that was my last hurrah.

Three Castles by chance? That was some excellent rolling tobacco. When D.E. pulled Drum out of the U.S. back in the early 90's I switched to Three Castles and never looked back. Best rolling tobacco I have ever smoked. Since that time I have given up all forms of tobacco (except the occasional dip of Kodiak, of course).

 

[knlgskr]

Top, Bull Durham used to include papers with the tobacco, Bugler, Yukon (menthol) are all old "roll your own" brands as are the various long cut tobaccos for pipe which can be used for rolling. Top is another old line brand of rolling paper.

 

[Taipei Personality]

Three Castles by chance? That was some excellent rolling tobacco. When D.E. pulled Drum out of the U.S. back in the early 90's I switched to Three Castles and never looked back. Best rolling tobacco I have ever smoked. Since that time I have given up all forms of tobacco (except the occasional dip of Kodiak, of course).

That was it - thankyouthankyouthankyou! I've been searching Google images for the better part of an hour trying to remember it.

 

[Austin]

I used to roll my own when I was a teenager.....................ummmm nevermind.

 

[ClubmanRob]

I used to roll my own when I was a teenager.....................ummmm nevermind.

We don't allow that kind talk in the Speakeasy! Damned hippies...

When I smoked I occasionally rolled my own when I was low on funds. I had one of those little two dollar Zig Zag automatic rollers and would mix a 50/50 mixture of Bugler and Half and Half which gave me something approximating the taste of my Lucky Strikes. When I wanted something a little more Camel-like, I would mix it 50/50 between the Bugler and Bali Shag Turkish. I had to grind the Bali in order to roll it properly.

As for papers, I usually always used Bugler. The packages came with 40 papers and you could get a 100 pack on the side for a dollar. They're too short to use for real hand rolling, but perfect for use in the rolling machine.

 

[GeorgeIV]

I used to enjoy the Bali Shag as well.

Before I quit, I was a fan of Jester with a tiny bit of Captain Black pipe tobacco thrown in. The Jester is super spicy, and the Captain Black is really sweet. The two complemented each other well.

+1 on practicing. When I first started, they looked like garbage. Even though it's been quite a while, I'm almost positive that I could turn one out that looks like it came from a machine. A little bit of manual dexterity is helpful, but since most people here scrape their faces with dangerously sharp objects on a regualr basis, I'm pretty sure we've all got that covered.

 

[tpoof]

one thing about hand rolled cigs is that they make your fingers yellow way faster than store bought

 

[bearbear]

used to roll old holbourn yellow with rizzla ultra thin papers and roll in cotton filters (the ultra fine). I would ocassionally use a rizzla liquorice paper, but they became to harsh for inhale, and smoked more like a mini cigar.

 

[dpm802]

I've been going back to RYO and MYO since taxes have driven the cost of pack of smokes north of $7. I still buy commercial, name-brand cigarettes to smoke at work, because they're convenient, but I've been trying to stick to making my own at home to save money.

I have a Premier Supermatic (the blue, all metal one) and I like to use Vera Cruz tubes. My tobaccos and tubes come from Ryan & Daughters ... Turkish and Perique form the base mixture, and a variety of other blends are added for flavor.

I also use a regular, conventional rolling machine with the vinyl strip and two plastic rollers. For this, I generally put in Drum Halfzwarshag, along with a filter I've cut in half. The only purpose of the filter is to keep tobacco from getting in my mouth, not to lessen the intensity of the smoke. That's why I cut it in half

Bali Shag, Peter Stokkebye, Drum, and Jester are some of my favorite commercial blends for RYO.

Last, but not least ... I can roll a pretty good cigarette entirely by hand. Its one of those skills that I picked up in college, when I wasn't rolling tobacco. But it amazes my friends to this day to see how good a smoke I can produce using digital equipment, just using the ten digits at the end of my arms.

 

[marvin100]

I handrolled for about a decade, first with Drum (back before it changed hands & quality) then Samson or Bali Shag, and then, when I relocated to Portland and the awe-inspiring Rich's Tobacconist, I switched to a variety of locally-blended shags (Norwegian was my staple).

I can roll a perfect cylinder cig one handed driving a stickshift in heavy traffic

 

[dpm802]

I handrolled for about a decade, first with Drum (back before it changed hands & quality) then Samson or Bali Shag,

Drum has regained a lot of market-share, although its still not the same as it was before. Kind of like when Coca-Cola went from Original Formula to the horrible New Coke, and came back with Coke Classic.

I remember when they changed quality ... I had been buying Drum for years, but then it disappeared from the market for about 18 months. As soon as I got one of the new ones, it was unmistakeably disgusting. It reeked like urine, and you could even smell it through the sealed cellophane! I thought I had just gotten a bad one ... so I took it back and exchanged it for another, but it smelled just as badly.

So I stopped buying Drum for about 10 years, and missed it something fierce, as nothing else could copy that rich, pungent, satisfying taste.

Now you can buy it and enjoy it again ... as long as you get a pack that's fresh. Sadly, its not quite the same as before, but its still better than just about anything else out there. Just not by such a wide margin as it was before.