Karyn and I recently arrived back from a week in sunny Tenerife, in fact our first flight in a long long time (due to bloody Covid restrictions/Lockdowns/ etc etc) I needed a bit of sunny herfing weather and this was the ideal destination.

I hadn’t been to Tenerife for around 35 years and I was very pleasantly surprised at how lovely it is especially with long days of blue skies and 25c temperatures. 😊

We opened our beautiful La Casa del Habano shop late last year but this was my first opportunity to check things out. The shop has a rather huge glass fronted walk in humidor with a very impressive range of singles and boxes stored in perfect condition of course.

The shop also sells a select range of premium spirits and splendid accessories such as lighters, cutters, ashtrays and humidors. Best of all we have a super comfortable cigar terrace for sampling cigars and sipping cocktails.

The shop is located in the very lovely Centro Commercial Duke Shops mall in Costa de Adeje. Our manager Antonio is from Havana originally and assures our customers a warm welcome.

I know Tenerife has always been popular with British holidaymakers but I was so pleasantly surprised to see so many of my clients in Tenerife and at the La casa store whilst I was there! Costa de Adeje is quite idyllic, easy to walk miles along the promenade by the beach lines with lovely bars and restaurants. I can’t wait to go back in the near future.

I’m delighted to announce that we have just launched the rather delicious Aladino range of cigars made by the legendary JRE tobacco farm in Honduras these cigars are truly premium smokes at value for money prices. Since they arrived a few days ago I just can’t stop smoking them! Check out the range here. The Cameroon Robusto and Corojo Robustos are my current faves, truly outstanding. Full sweet flavour, medium strength and crafted to perfection for an easy draw.

As has been well reported by the cigar press, Cuban cigar prices have increased substantially on brands such as Cohiba and Trinidad (where supply is very limited to say the least) Not such huge price increases on other brands thankfully but it’s still worth keeping stocked up as there will be a substantial UK duty increase later this year.

On a happy note, I can report that quality is up substantially and box codes of 2020/2021 are shaping up to be some of the best blended Havanas I have enjoyed in quite some years.

Some of my recent favourites that have impressed include:

Ramon Allones Specially Selected

Bolivar Belicosos

Hoyo Epicure Especial

Por Larranaga Petit Coronas

In terms of New World cigars I’m blasting my way through loads of:

Plasencia Dominique London Seleccion Lanceros (very elegant size, super sweet blend)

Plasencia Orchant Seleccion Toros (yep – I love Plasencia cigars!)

Davidoff Orchant Seleccion Toro (expensive but a bit of a treat)

Mitchellero Robustos (ridiculously good value)

Inka Secret Blend red robustos (always a good smoke)

Alec Bradley Chubby (a bit like me!)

I love to pair up my smokes with a good drink, usually Scotch or rum. This rum took me pleasantly by surprise but sold out ridiculously fast, Eminente Reserva 7 Year Old Rum, this should be available again next week. Our Stalla Dhu Glen Elgin is an outstanding dram with a good cigar (try it with a large ice cube)

Weather forecast looks good in London for the next few weeks so I’m looking forward to some garden herfing!

Have a smokey weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Greetings from sunny London 😊 Hope you enjoyed a smoky Easter break and are stocked up for the May bank holiday fast approaching.

This October marks the 25^th anniversary of C.Gars Ltd. A quarter of a century in a very tough and highly legislated industry is quite a milestone! To say it’s gone fast would be an understatement. It seems like yesterday that Laura and I set up the business with very little money but great determination to become the biggest and the best in the cigar business. Fair to say we achieved that dream though we are still super excited for the future growth of the mighty C.Gars! We hope to be announcing a new cigar store and terrace opening in the near future.

C.Gars started as a pure mail order business with what we believe was the first cigar website in the UK and in the early 2000’s expanded into retail cigar shops starting with the acquisition of the last Turmeaus Tobacconist (established in 1817) shop in Liverpool. The shop had been driven into the ground by its previous owners but we believed we could revive the brand and have indeed been doing so ever since.

Our Dominique London Group now operates from 3 mail order warehouses 24 hours a day / every day of the year and 21 splendid cigars and premium spirits shops in 4 countries. I know we dreamt big when we started the business but the business has grown beyond our imagination.

We are planning to celebrate the 25^th anniversary with a Summer party in London in August. If you would like to be put on the guest list, drop me an email we will be releasing 25 numbered and exclusive humidors together with 25 bottles of a very special Stalla Dhu single malt whisky to mark our milestone anniversary.

We also operate our fantastic Vintage Cigar Auction platform and have been conducting incredible auctions since 2009. The next sale will be held on the 21^st of June and I have been very busy taking in some incredible vintage Havanas over the last few weeks. We will be offering 300 Lots of aged, rare and mature Havanas as well as Davidoff and pre embargo cigars and single malt whisky.

Havana cigar supply continues to be very patchy with Cohiba supply all but dried up. Many of our favourite size Havanas from across all brands remain unavailable but I have to say in comparison to other countries our brilliant UK importer Hunters & Frankau have generally kept us well supplied and if you can’t find your favourite Havana available there are always plenty of alternatives that are available.

We are still hopeful that the overdue UK regional edition Ramon Allones Private stock will be released this year but at this stage I think it will be very late this year.

Plenty of news in the press about the Cohiba 55^th anniversary cigars being released but I’m afraid we don’t expect to see them in the UK any time soon (much as I would like to!)

Our New World range of cigars is quite huge and their popularity goes from strength to strength. I think the market has shifted to around 50/50 Havana cigars to New World cigars now.

We recently released 2 incredible exclusive and, limited edition cigars from Plasencia (one of my favourite brands) read all about the Plasencia – Orchant Seleccion and Plasencia – Dominique London Seleccion on this link I selected the blends for these premium cigars and am very proud of this co – branded project.

We have a huge range of exclusive cigars made for C.Gars and Turmeaus cigar shops  I have carefully selected these brands and blends and build the range over many years. A cigar for every smoker and every occasion. Super quality and great value.

Our range of Independent bottled single malt whisky Stalla Dhu continues to pick up multiple international awards. Read about the range here and if you’re looking for the perfect dram with a cigar look no further than our gold medal award winning Orchant Selection cigar malt.

If you’re looking for a great evening of cigars and whisky sampling check out our events page we have around 80 events planned for the rest of this year and I hope to see you at quite a few of them! If you want a really special evening visit Puffin Rooms, live jazz 7 nights a week, fabulous tapas menu and the largest whisky bar in the North.

I’m off to our beautiful La Casa del Habano store and cigar terrace in sunny Tenerife next week if you’re on the island come and join me for a cocktail 😊 and if not you can usually find me sampling and talking all things cigars at C.Gars – St James’s on a Wednesday.

Have a smoky weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

I’m not sure how merry this Christmas will be with the threat of another Lockdown looming but we are trying to stay as positive as possible and working hard at fulfilling a record amount of mail orders as well as serving record amounts of customers across our retail stores.

It has been a crazy fast year and a crazy good year for C.Gars Ltd. Although business has been a bit stop start due to the Pandemic we have still somehow managed to continue with our expansion plans having opened our super popular C.Gars – St James’s store at the beginning of the year and we have another specialist whisky and cigar store opening in the next few days (more details soon!)

C.Gars Ltd merged with our partners in Belgium back in March (La Casa del Tabaco) and formed a new super group called Dominique London. The Group has since opened La Casa del Habano stores in Basel Switzerland and Tenerife as well as Watou in Belgium. By my count and by the end of next week we will have some 21 specialist cigar and premium spirit stores in 4 countries. Needless to say we have some very exciting expansion plans for 2022.

After the craziness caused by the Pandemic in 2020 it almost felt like we were getting back to normal a couple of weeks ago at the Cigar Smoker of the Year Awards event at the fabulous Boisdale Canary Wharf having skipped it last year. Truly a night to remember with the best atmosphere I can remember at any of these events. Great food, wine and entertainment and of course enjoyed in the best of company.

                                                                                                    Awards as follows:
The Cigar Communicator of the Year – Sean Croley of Hunters and Frankau
The Cigar Sommelier of the Year – Slawomir Bielicki of Annabels
The Cigar Spirit of the Year – Flor de Caña 130th Anniversary Rum
The Robusto of the Year 2021 – Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No. 2, Cuba
The Cigar of the Year 2021 – Oliva Serie V Melanio Figurado, Nicaragua
The Cigar Producer of the Year 2021 – Davidoff
The Lifetime Achievement Award 2021 – Scott Vines of Tor Imports
The Viña Carmen Cigar Smoker of the Year 2021 – Rafe Spall

Last week I enjoyed one of the highest points of my career in the cigar industry having been awarded the coveted Davidoff Golden Band Award. We were treated to a magnificent dinner at the private dining room of Fortnum and Mason. Truly a night to remember.

The Davidoff brand goes from strength to strength in the UK (and world-wide) An incredible range with blends for all palates, sizes for all occasions and legendary blend consistency and construction. We were so proud to be able to release our second Orchant Seleccion edition from Davidoff earlier this year. The Liverpool edition Toro is a serious smoke for the connoisseur with an incredible blend. It follows the success of the Davidoff Orchant Seleccion Lancero that was one of our fastest selling cigars in history.

Our exclusive Orchant Seleccion cigars are our most successful range and I have been privileged to work with so many great manufacturers of such wonderful brands. My next release will be an Orchant Seleccion Plasencia Lancero early next year.

We have managed to make a fairly full range of Havanas available throughout the year due to our brilliant UK importer Hunters & Frankau keeping us well supplied, though it has become tough as the year comes to an end. A combination of reduction in supply from Cuba and a substantial increase in demand has seen many lines go out of stock, the worse affected brand regrettably is Cohiba.

We don’t think the situation will improve any time soon sadly but we always have alternatives from our huge range of Cuban and New World cigars (the largest range in the UK without a doubt!)

The new range of Romeo y Julieta cigars have started to appear in Europe so we are hopeful that they may be in the UK early next year. The Dianas, Hidalgos and Nobles are part of the Linea Oro / Gold line and having smoked them at the 2019 Festival I can tell you they are something very special in both appearance and blend.  Something to look forward to…

The big success story of the year was the Mitchellero brand that I created. The popularity of this brand has taken me and the sales team by surprise. We simply can’t make and import them fast enough. We expect to have the full range available again in early January.  I blended them to be a super sweet flavour Nicaraguan cigar at an incredible value for money price.

Our Stalla Dhu range of single cask / single malt Scotch whisky continues to win international awards and we have more stunning cask releases planned over the coming months.

Puffin Rooms reopened after the last Lockdown and clearly, people were ready to enjoy going out again as we have been jam-packed with bookings. In fact the booking backlog was running at around 3 weeks recently. I hope we don’t have to close it due to the current Covid situation. This really is the finest experience of live jazz music, dining and signature cocktails, 7 nights a week. Sumptuous surroundings and 5 star service.

The vintage cigar division had a very busy year and the 5^th auction of the year concludes on the 20^th December. Some great Christmas cigars for the lucky winning bidders!

With over 130 employees in our group I am not sure where to start my thank you! We really do have the hardest working, most skilled, loyal and devoted Directors, Managers and Staff – I thank you all for making C.Gars Ltd, La Casa del Tabaco and Dominique London one of the most successful cigar and spirit merchants in Europe.

My thanks to all of our wonderful customers all over the world, I look forward to serving you and hopefully herfing with you in 2022

Stay safe…keep it smokey and peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Another record-breaking auction last week with Cigar Aficionado Magazine reporting on the £1,100 paid for the sale’s show-stopping Cuban Dunhill Estupendos, with the price well over the expected £700. Other highlights from a monumental few days of bidding also feature in the summary just published here.

I’ve no doubt that, on the auction’s close, there were a lot of very happy and successful bidders, as well as sellers, from this sale, not to mention a few bargains bagged amid the incredible ‘unicorns‘ on offer, ultimately selling for eye-watering prices.

I’m often asked, how someone can smoke a cigar for £100 or even £200? I think the best answer is that it’s like treating yourself to a splendid bottle of wine or a meal out. In fact, the cigar may last as long, if not longer. It’s all relative, I suppose.

Our auctions are not only about the most expensive Havana cigars. We always offer a wide variety of aged, mature and interesting smokes, including singles and part-boxes, so there really are opportunities for most smokers’ budgets.

We did have a staggering number of registered bidders this time and the highest level of website visits – and visitors –  we have ever seen at auction. We certainly have come a long way since our first sale, now way back in 2009.

You can see all of the results of what was sold and for how much in this link.

Over and above the Cuban Dunhill Estupendos that featured in Cigar Aficionado Magazine, my personal highlights include:

A box of 20 Davidoff 80^th Aniversario including one cigar tube signed by Zino Davidoff that made £25,200.

A box of five Dunhill Havana Club that was sold for £3,880.

Cohiba Sublimes Extra Coleccion Habanos that made £15,300.

A cabinet of 50 H Upmann Dunhill Seleccion Suprema no.205, which went for £21,600.

I’m already putting together our next auction catalogue. We plan to hold the sale in late October.

In parallel with this, my – I am very glad to say – highly-popular Orchant Seleccion cigar range goes from strength to strength. I’m very proud to introduce the next in our Davidoff – Orchant Seleccion series.

Our first release was the Davidoff – Orchant Seleccion London Edition which was a Lancero. We have followed this up with the Davidoff – Orchant Seleccion Liverpool edition, which is a Toro.

Our new offering measures an extended 6” length and 54 ring gauge, so is one for the experienced cigar smoker. As well as offering a marvellous smoke for today, I’m also very proud to pay homage to our Liverpool roots  as the city is where Turmeaus Tobacconist started way back in 1817. Celebrating this history, we have what is a full-flavour, medium-strength cigar blended with filler from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua, binder from Mexico and wrapper from Ecuador. In all, an exceptional smoke for now, and the blend will age very well over the next few years.

So you are fully aware, only 300 individually-numbered boxes of this exclusive Orchant Seleccion will ever be produced, so it’s likely to end up a collector’s item in the same way that the Davidoff – Orchant Seleccion Lancero became.

I enjoyed a herfette at  C.Gars – St James’s as usual this week and had my now-traditional Stalla Dhu Glen Elgin over ice – don’t knock it, until you try it! –  paired up with a couple of Cohiba Medio Siglo. This is perhaps not a cigar on my usual rotation but I just love this size, and the blend is right on at the moment. In all, huge volumes of flavour that complement the Scotch perfectly. I love herfing on the terrace at St James’s and watching the world go by. Right now, it’s like a never-ending “super cars” show!

Some more good news; Mitchellero  – are expect back in stock in the next week or so. The popularity of this super-value, best-selling range has taken us by surprise in the very best way.

I was interviewed by Cigar Journal Light ‘em Up on Wednesday, which was a lot of fun, especially as Jose Blanco and Joshua Meerapfel joined the Zoom. If you have an hour to kick back with a good cigar you can share the session. You can read the full interview here.

Whether you do or not, have a smokey weekend.

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell

Greetings from London, amid a heatwave. So perfect, cigar-herfing weather that we expect to continue all week, which I’m especially delighted to say as my new office is relaxing outside the C.Gars shop at 23a St James’s Street. With four shops, including us, now from Piccadilly down to Pall Mall, you might call this stretch Cigar Land. 

From the news of late, you have probably registered that the situation in Cuba is not good at all. I understand that there are quite a lot of fake updates, but also any number of accurate reports about demonstrations on the streets of various cities.

I believe the protests are largely driven by the chronic food shortages on the island as well as the slow vaccination programme.  The economy is facing horrendous difficulties for a multitude of reasons, including the ongoing US Embargo. I don’t recall ever seeing anti-government demonstrations of this nature while the Castro brothers were leading the country, so this is a very serious concern.  It’s a sorry situation for the people of Cuba,  who have my utmost sympathy.

The cigar industry has inevitably been affected by Covid and related issues – logistics and transportation – as well as slowdowns at the factories. We have had to manage stock carefully for the last 18 months. These supply problems are now getting worse by the day. As a benchmark, Montecristo No.4’s are out of stock with our importer.

Tubed cigars are in short supply and the available Cohiba range is pitiful with Siglo IV being the latest casualty of a shortfall. The Cohiba Lanceros, Esplendidos and Coronas Especiales became scarce ages ago, and all sizes of BHK’s and Siglo VI are rarely available at present. The entire Cohiba Maduro range is also incredibly thin on the ground. Last week’s casualties in supply included El Rey del Mundo Demi Tasse and Choix Supreme so I am very sorry to say that there is practically nothing available from the El Rey de Mundo house for now.

There is an excellent article on the Cuban cigar shortage here by Laurent Mimouni. I am very apprehensive about how bad the situation could become with supplies likely to worsen further over the weeks and months ahead. We will, of course, be doing everything we can to ensure that we have the widest possible range for you. At the same time, be assured this is not an effort to bolster sales by suggesting a shortage.  I strongly advise you to top up with your favourites while they are available as we cannot guarantee that stocks will hold up.

The issues we are trying our best to manage are not limited to Cuba. We also face supply concerns of various sizes in brands of cigars from Nicaragua. Honduras and the Dominican Republic, too. Padron cigars are a good example of the struggle we have faced with New World stocks for 18 months, now.

I am glad that we can at least offer you a chance to secure some cigars that would otherwise be in only the shallowest of volumes. By this, I mean our Summer cigar auction, which will be live to bid on our designated auction website hopefully by Tuesday evening and at the latest by Wednesday. For this sale, we have almost 600 lots of aged, rare, mature and unusual cigars as well as single-malt whisky on offer. In all, I hope a welcome opportunity to pick up some of the cigars that are currently unavailable.

The auction will conclude on July 27. Bidders have to register to bid and confirm their credit limit before the sale. My helpful auction team are always available to advise every day, around the clock, at  [email protected]

Some of the Havana highlights include:

–       The rarest of Davidoff 80^th anniversary presentation boxes, with 20 cigars and a cigar tube signed by Zino Davidoff.

–       A Davidoff Dom Perignon box of  25 cigars of impeccable condition and appearance.

–       A Cohiba Majestuosos 1966 humidors.

–       An H. Upmann 160^th anniversary humidor.

–       A cabinet of 50 Dunhill H. Upmann No.205 that are pre-embargo and in pristine condition.

On Wednesday evening, by which time the auction should, as said, be up and running, I am looking forward to our next virtual tasting event featuring Bolivar Belicosos and Glenfiddich single-malt whisky. The brand ambassadors will take us through the event and share their considerable and compelling knowledge with us.

Bolivar Belicoso Finos has long been one of my favourite Havana cigars and we have selected certain vintages of merit over the years to brand ‘ Orchant Seleccion’  that have been terribly popular. It will be interesting how well current-production BBF’s compare.  Please do join me for what is sure to be a memorable tasting. If you, unfortunately, cannot be part of this, please email me and let me know if you are enjoying the blend on the current production cigars.

As well as virtual offerings, I am delighted to say that we have opened all of our sampling lounges at our choice shop locations. With the news about the Covid infection rates, can we, respectfully, please ask all of our valued customers to continue wearing masks when entering our shops and maintain social distancing with a view to everyone staying as safe as possible. Our staff will continue to wear masks, regardless of changes to national guidelines.

Have a sunny, smokey and above all safe week. My personal highlight is a visit to Boisdale Belgravia on Thursday. I have a table outside booked at a place that has long been one of my favourite, cigar-friendly venues and the menu looks better than ever. I dare say I will pop into C.Gars – St James’s for a pre-lunch cocktail before heading across the park to Eccleston Street.

Wherever you are, peaceful puffing…

Mitchell