Smoking - Rolling your own: thoughts and brand comparisons (USA)

[Dude1234]

Ive been rolling my own cigarettes for the past 6 mos or so. I started doing so because i am broke and cigarettes cost like 6$ a pack or something absurd like that right now.

When i first started i used the prerolled tubes/injector with a filter, but am now just rolling them without a filter. Rolling with the tubes is a real pain in the ass, half of the time i wind up with a gap near the filter where there is too little tobacco, and the cig becomes a real pain in the ass to smoke because it 'limps down' while smoking because of the gap. You really need to put the perfect amount of tobacco in the tube, and despite rolling hundreds of them ive never really perfected it. I also hate preparing them in advance because it is time consuming, so i just handroll without a filter now.

Here is my opinion on the brands ive tried:

McClintlock: Cheap as hell. I spent 7-8$ for a huge bag of this stuff at a ripoff gas station, which way outlasted the 200 papers provided with it. Also absolutely terrible. Terrible quality. Leaves a sour cherry taste in your mouth as you smoke it. Only bought it once, but i think that the batch i bought had been sitting on the shelves for years because it just tasted so stale, but who knows at this price its probably just the way it always is.

Drum: my favorite so far. Only problem with this brand is that every other time you grab a pinch to roll with you wind up with this piece of wood you have to be careful you dont roll into your cig. Besides that, the flavor is dark and rich and i prefer it over any regular premade cigarette. Cost like 14$ for a tin which includes papers.

Bali Shag: Pretty good flavor, but hard to roll with in tubes. For whatever reason i found it nearly impossible to stuff this tobacco into premade tubes. Much better for handrolling without filters. Costs the same as drum at 14$ a tin.

Gambler: 2nd worst ive tried. Very cheap, but doesnt even come with papers. A step above mcclintlock (barely) but the fact that they dont come with papers means i will never buy this again. I think i paid 9$ for 6 oz of this.

Bugler: completely average in every way. Cheaper than drum a little more expensive than mcclintlock. Definately smokeable but nothing to get excited over.

Top: I cannot tell the difference between this and bugler.

Premier: barely a step above bugler/top, pretty expensive, not worth it.

American Spirit: expensive, barely a step above mcclintlock in quality. totally not worth it, very disappointed. I guess they dont use any additives, but maybe they should because this stuff just sucks.


I will probably never buy another pack of regular cigarettes again. For 8(10/w box of filters)-14(16) you can get a carton of cigarettes which cost 50-60$, and with the exception of the very cheap brands taste much better.

I have also found i end up smoking a lot less than i was before. 1/2 pack a day down to 5 cigarettes a day. Perhaps thats just because of the lack of filter increasing the nicotine output, or the fact that you have to spend the time to roll them to smoke them, but either way, im spending 10% of the money i used to spend on cigs and getting the same effect.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Enjoyed your colorful comparison of tobaccos and filter folly. Reminded of time in prison and twisting own 'rollies'. ...

[welshmick]

I roll my own using one of them Automatic tin things,

U put in the baccy and tip, slip a fag paper behind it, close the tin and out pops your fag.

I like Drum Gold and Cutters Choice tobacco

[norami]

swim has also rolled his own cigarettes for a long time, as do all his roommates. he agrees with most of your ratings of tobaccos, with the exception of american spirit. he thinks amspirit is a great tobacco, but if swiy is rolling without filters, he understands why swiy could think it wasnt. its pretty harsh stuff, but with a good flavor, in swim's opinion. it tends to dry out though, and swim has found that buying a packet humidifier solves the problem nicely by making it a little more moist. drum is swim's favorite, with bali shag pulling in a close second.
as for rolling bali shag into tubes with the injector method, swim has encountered the same problem with it being difficult. swim prefers to put a packet worth into two seperate ziplock bags. bali shag is a fine shag tobacco, meaning it is very finely shredded, and tends to stick together in uneven clumps, which makes it tough to put into the injector evenly. when swim puts it into two seperate ziplock bags, he pulls it apart a bit, which seperates the clumps, and allows it to dry a bit, making it easier to handle.
also, swim always rolls with filters, whether its handrolling or tubes. when hand rolling, swim used to get the same problem of the gap between the filter and 'backy. he fixed it by rolling the smoke with only half the fliter in the paper, and once the cig is rolled, he pushes it in the rest of the way to eliminate the gap.
and one last suggestion, swim started using one of those top brand roller machines that use regular papers, that some use for rolling joints. you can put a filter in, its easy to carry on the go, and it makes a perfect cig every time. swim also uses smaller filters than an economy size so he can use less tobacco.

hope some of this helps, sorry if swim rambled, swim has encountered all the same problems as swiy, and these are the solutions he has found. use what swiy will!

and cheers to rolling your own, use swiy money for better things!

[old hippie 56]

This is what I use. Handy as hell.

[Bajeda]

When my monkey rolled his own cigarettes he would just buy tobacco prepared by his local tobacconist. It was a bit more expensive than buying factory packaged stuff, but well worth it. He was never really fond of any one rolling tobacco brand easily available.

The monkey was introduced to Golden Virginia by a friend some time ago, and he felt that it was one of the best packaged rolling tobaccos he has tried. Might be worth checking out if swiy has not heard of or tried it.

[Euthanatos93420]

The American Spirits aren't that bad. What makes them shitty as fuck to smoke is rolling them with those pure flax papers. It's harsh and disgusting but the tobacco itself is actually pretty good if you use better papers. I prefer Bali Sahg as I don't like Top brands and Drum is Top btw. Bali Shag, despite being a Europen cut is actually grown in KY & VA (Though it is shipped to Denmark and back for cutting and packaging! Lol)

The best part about rolling your own is that the reason pre-packaged cigarettes are so expensive is purely tax. Consider that a pack of ciagrettes is roughly just under a Half an Oz. Start doing the math and you'll realize that almost all tobacco costs the same. (~$2/Oz.) The rest is Tax ($3/pack). Cigars aren't taxed the same and this is why they are so cheap but they weigh in and calculate down to $2/Oz all the same.

[Cryptic Concoction]

My platypus says this:

"I tend to avoid mass-distributed brands that are available in gas stops and Safeway, as they tend to be rather harsh and of poor quality.

I prefer gold-leaf tobaccos, though a halfzware is always a good change of pace. D&R tobacco dispenses a wide variety of blends and I have been absolutely enamored with every blend I have tried. Three Sails is particularly exquisite, though I will save my rhapsody. I would certainly recommend that anyone who lives in the States try their tobacco offerings.

I find Orignal American Spirit to be insipid and harsh, though I have never tried the US Homegrown blend, which some have claimed is better.

Bugler is widely available (in the United States), but it offers little in the way of flavor for me and I consider it to be entirely unexceptional, though not outlandishly terrible.

After my experience with high quality tobacco in the RYO market, I simply could not regress to the poor-quality, chemical-laden factory prepared cigarette brands."

[libertalism]

Filters just don't taste good anymore after being use to rolled cigs.
Swim likes belgam 20 but smoked it to much and is tired of it , same for tigra. He is now smoking Rasta tobacco wich has an ok taste and is really cheap (2,30 euro for 33g ). His favorite at this moment is Lucky Strikes Fireleaf.