Bravo Smokes were a nicotine-free cigarette — made out of cured lettuce leaves. They were invented by the chemist Puzant Torigian, who determined that lettuce leaves were the best tobacco substitute, after he also tested kale, grape, cabbage, kohlrabi, spinach, carrot, peanut, tomato leaves, and sugar beet tops. Bravo Smokes went on the market in 1965, but received consistently bad reviews, such as, “worse than dried buggy whip or coffee grounds in a newspaper wrapper.” Torigian’s company went out of business in 1972, but he eventually managed to find new investors and brought Bravo Smokes back to market in the late 1990s. The second-time around, the company stayed in business for over a decade.
Bravo Smokes
