Still can’t seem to anticipate the demand and stock requirements for our best-selling range of Inka – Secret Blend. The sales are just staggering . Thank you dear customers 🙂

It’s gratifying to know I hit the spot on blend and price for this fabulous range of cigars that I created exclusively for C.Gars customers. We have just received another HUGE import that I hope will last a month or two! Sweet blend and sweet pricing, who could ask for more? If you would like to see a different size or presentation, drop me a line and I’ll work on it . How’s that for personal service!?

Did you see the TV documentary on Amazon.com? I was quite mesmerized and found it terribly interesting especially as my first cigar website (I think the first in the UK) was online back in 1994 and though we ain’t the size of Amazon, our business has become a bit of a giant in the cigar world and is still growing at a rather scary pace.

I have co-director and creator of C.Gars, Laura to thank for this monster creation we know and love as C.Gars because without her genius we would never have gone online in the first place bringing UK cigar clients the best service as well as guaranteed lowest prices. I remember a long, long time ago we used to use ‘never knowingly undersold’ as our marketing line and then we had to remove it when John Lewis legal department wrote a friendly warning letter to us! Have a laugh and read more on this link here.

The business has changed so much over the last 20 years it’s hardly recognizable. We are now working on different pricing structures to bring even better value to our customers and we are looking on further expansion as well as larger sampling lounges at our retail cigar stores in the North of England, where we have our Turmeaus Tobacconist shops (second oldest UK cigar specialist established way back in 1817!)

I remember when we started out only selling Havana cigars and then over the years introducing different ranges of New-World cigars. It was almost unheard of for a Havana cigar clients to try anything else. These days a massive amount of our clients order Havanas and New-World  cigars at the same time and the increase in interest for cigars made in Nicaragua, Honduras, Dominican Republic and other regions seems to be growing month on month. I think it’s great to ‘mix it up’ and experiment with different cigars.

This week didn’t get off to the flying start expected as I missed my Tuesday flight to Italy due to the bloody train strike in London. Oh well , c’est la vie, I spent the day working from home and puffing my way through too many Partagas SD4’s to remember. This is such an awesome ‘anytime’ smoke for me, great size and great blend. Current stocks have fabulous dark and oily wrappers (thank you to those nice chaps at Hunters and Frankau for selecting these dark and oily beauties for C.Gars) they look good enough to eat. 🙂

Wednesday and I hopped on to the Eurostar to Paris for lunch at Café Ruc by Hotel du Louvre. Beautiful sunny and hot day, bottle of wine and herfed through French regional edition El Rey del Mundo and Vegas Robaina. Sorry, can’t remember their names as I gave up trying to memorize all the regional editions a few years ago! The ERDM was a petit piramides and I had to cut it down by almost half to get a draw on the cigar. The Robaina had a perfect construction and they were in fact both very nice smokes.

I buy my lunch smokes from La Civette, beautiful shop and humidor and very friendly service.

Back to the office on Thursday for a filming session for a TV program which was a lot of fun. I’ll blog details if it ever gets on to the TV!

Friday is monthly meeting time with my Partner Guy from the Decent Cigar Emporium in Dublin so we’re having a pre-bank hol weekend herf and sampling session in the office with a few friends. Civilized way to end the week I reckon.

We ran a 48-hour special on Saint Luis Rey Serie A in cabinet selection. New price was just £199 for a half cab of 25 cigars or £399 for a cab of 50. Needless to say that we sold out in around an hour! These are smashing smokes, corona gorda sized 5 5/8” and 46 ring gauge. Well matured from 2001 or thereabouts. I have good stocks of SLR as I have always enjoyed this brand (as does my Father and did my Grandfather.)

I’ve been friends with the owner of the brand for a long time and always like chatting to him about cigars as he’s terribly knowledgeable. SLR is a bit of an anomaly as it’s the only brand that’s sort of independent in the UK market. Quality is good as is blend and construction generally. If you are subscribed to the C.Gars newsletter you can take advantage of the next SLR release which will be at killer pricing again. 🙂

Just wrapping up the next auction catalogue, looks like it’s a huge sale with around 350 Lots being offered from the 19^th May on the auction website. The catalogue will be at the printers early next week so if you want a printed catalogue as well you just need to shoot us an email.

Looking forward to the long weekend and if the weather holds up, we should be able to get a bit of topless motor herfing in as well but it’s the UK so it will likely rain!

My weekend baggie includes:

Partagas SD No. 4’s – see above notes!

Regius Culebras – for a bit of fun and Nic kick with my morning espresso.

Davidoff Puro D’Oro Gorditos – yes, yes I know the big story is Davidoff Nicaraguan! What can I tell you I just love the Puro D’Oro blend.

La Flor de Cano Gran Cano – one of my fave UK Regionals; Tasting notes? fugedaboudit I just bloody love them!

Bolivar Belicosos – I just can’t get enough of them. Well aged stocks that are smoking like a dream. Now this is how a Havana cigar should taste!

Another damn train strike for next week… Hopefully I won’t miss another flight! Oh and a cigar tasting event at our Cambridge store on Thursday… looking forward to herfing with old and new friends. 🙂

Have a smokey holiday weekend!

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

I hope everyone enjoyed the Easter/Passover break… I know I did 🙂 Armed with a rather large baggie of smokes to top up my home humidor the scene was set for some serious herfing! To name a few cigars:

– Bolivar Belicosos 2007 – the best  vintage since the early 1990’s , think sweet, sweet, sweet and complex tobacco flavours.

– Ramon Allones Petit Belicosos – UK regional edition – this cigar has matured to perfection with rich, bold full spicy flavours.

– Punch Serie D’Oro No. 1 – UK regional edition – truly my favourite of all the regional editions I have tried ( and that’s a lot!) one for the connoisseur.

– Partagas SD No. 4 2013 – darkest maduro wrapper leaf, aesthetically perfect with a return to form for this cigar in terms of a true Partagas blend.

– Saint Luis Rey Serie A cabinet selection 2001 – not a good vintage in general but 13 years age on this puppy has done it a power of good and they are smoking like a dream.

– Davidoff Puro D’Oro Gorditos – for a change of pace. I love this range of cigars. Unique in character, strong yet smooth and satisfying.

– Inka – Secret Blend Robustos (rojo red) – handmade long filler Peruvian puros, perfect from the first to the last puff. Part of my best selling range of New World cigars.

– Alec Bradley Prensado – I rarely smoke a Churchill size cigar but this one is the bomb. Full spicy flavoured and beautifully crafted, no wonder it’s so highly rated.

The weather held out thankfully and friends and I enjoyed the new smoking deck at chez Orchant to the max.

Back to work last week and I was on the road again zooming up to Liverpool by Virgin train from Euston. Well done to Virgin for redeveloping the previous awful first class lounge to an excellent standard but a big raspberry to them for blocking my website on their free wifi! What the hell is that all about? Cigars are still legal in the UK the last time I looked!

Turmeaus Liverpool is always such a pleasure to visit and my manager Christine and her Team offer the friendliest of customer service. We enjoyed a delightful cigar tasting evening with friends of Turmeaus from Liverpool at the pub smoking terrace next door to the shop and our thanks go to Scott from Tor Imports for providing such excellent cigars to sample.

Cigars that were sampled:
La Flor de Antillas Robusto (Cigar Aficionado No. 1 Cigar of the Year 2012)
Smooth, medium bodied, handmade Nicaraguan cigar.
La Flor Dominicana Chisel Gorda (Best Dominican Republic Cigar 2013 – Cigar Journal)
Amazing cigars using a blend of Dominican tobaccos for the filler and binder.

The cigars were excellent, the company was just brilliant, we all had a great laugh from start to finish. I really should spend more time up North as the crowd are an absolute riot to herf with. The pub should be pleased with the evening as I drank all of their Macallan and Glenrothes!Turmeaus Liverpool is always such a pleasure to visit and my manager Christine and her Team offer the friendliest of customer service. We enjoyed a delightful cigar tasting evening with friends of Turmeaus from Liverpool at the pub smoking terrace next door to the shop and our thanks go to Scott from Tor Imports for providing such excellent cigars to sample.

Next morning and I was driven over to Turmeaus Chester by Alfie (as in ‘Alfie Turmeaus’) who helped create our new exclusive range of pipe tobacco. Checkout Alfie’s tasting notes on the product notes:

– 1817 Blend (named after the year Turmeaus was established)

– Alfie’s Blend

– Orchant Blend

– Morrison’s Blend

I wasn’t able to stay for the tasting event in the evening at Chester but I understand the cigars were a great success and the long ash contest a lot of fun! Thanks again to Scott from Tor for his support and Bar Lounge for hosting the evening on their delightful cigar friendly terrace.

Cigars that were sampled:
Nub Sun Grown 466
Soft spicy tones, rich, full-bodied Nicaraguan cigar.
Cain Daytona Robusto
Ultra smooth, medium-bodied Nicaraguan cigar.

Friday and it was back to the airport to shoot up to Robert Graham Edinburgh for the day. Canongate, Robert Graham is quirkier than ever as we have put a huge range of one off vintage single malt and blended scotch whisky bottles and miniatures and Rose street is looking very cool now that the walk in humidor has been completed.

My Partner Ron and I sampled our award winning Treasurer Littlemill 1985 which was outstanding with a Trinidad Robusto Extra cigars.

Back to London office for a few hours to meet with colleague Gennaro Lettieri of Tabacalera del Oriente (the factory in Tarapoto, Peru that makes Inka – Secret Blend cigars) we chatted about our plans for International roll out over the next few months of our cigars over a bottle of Dalmore cigar malt and Secret Blend cigars that had been matured for a year since rolling. They were bloody excellent (that’s my official tasting notes!)

So, to our dedicated followers of Inka – Secret Blend cigars from Peru, I find myself once again apologizing that some of the sizes within the range have sold out yet again. We just cannot keep up with the demand for these cigars that I created almost two years ago now. We do have another large shipment flying over as I’m writing this blog so our range will be complete and available again very soon.

Secret Blend will no doubt continue to grow in popularity due to the quality of the tobacco and the rich, sweet, pure taste characteristic of the blend I created. You can only buy Inka cigars from us as we cut out any middle man margin to bring the best possible value to our customers.

Now thinking back to  when I was briefly in secondary school and how useless I was at Geography (as well as most other subjects) it greatly amuses me to award raspberry of the week to HSBC, the bank that continually asks us if our payments to Tabacalera del Oriente in Peru have anything to do with Cuba! Even I know that Peru is nowhere near Cuba lol. Too funny. Actually seems to be a lot of paranoia out there about Cuba at this time which seems a shame. Still nice to know that the UK has a good trading relationship with Cuba.

I’m almost out of breath thinking about what a busy week I had! And I’m doing it all over again this week with trips to Italy and France. Tough life and all that…

Cigar Auction time is getting close with catalogue due to be online and in print on the 19th May and auction finishing on the 1st June. We have just about finished cataloguing almost 350 Lots of aged, rare, mature, limited edition , books, humidors, Davidoff, Dunhill and pre embargo cigars. Something for everyone’s taste and a few outstanding gems. No doubt a few bargains to be won as always.

Plain Packaging! 

You may remember the success of the Hands Off Our Packs campaign which generated a huge response at the time of the original Plain Packaging Consultation.

In advance of the imminent publication of the Consultation with draft Plain Packaging Regulations, and given the Parliamentary process which will follow it, FOREST have now launched another campaign which targets No. 10 directly.

The link you need is http://noprimeminister.org.uk/ and it is very straightforward and can be completed in about a minute.

It would be very helpful if you could send this information on to your employees, friends and family on the basis that the more signatures are generated the better.

Have a smokey week,

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell

Following my last blog and rant about the ‘Chantler report’ on standardized packaging for tobacco in the UK, the results sort of came back like this:

The Minister announced the findings of the Chantler Review and declared the Government’s intention to take the policy of standardised packaging forward.

The Minister said that she is ‘minded’ to proceed with introducing regulations to provide for standardised packaging. However, before reaching a final decision, and in order to ensure that that decision is properly and fully informed, she intends to publish the draft Regulations, so that it is crystal clear what is intended, alongside a final short Consultation in which she will ask, in particular, for views on anything new since the last full public Consultation that is relevant to a final decision on this policy.

Under questioning she said that she will publish the draft regulations and the Consultation document, together with an Impact Assessment, this month and expects that the policy will be introduced during this Parliament. She did however say that there needs to be a sensible transition period and would not be drawn on when Standardised Packaging would actually appear on the shelves.

As ever, none of this make much sense to a simple cigar merchant like me as standardized packaging has already failed abysmally in Australia where tobacco sales have increased. The reality is the UK will just have more illicit trade of tobacco robbing the exchequer of much needed tobacco tax revenue and no doubt many more businesses will go to the wall and many more jobs lost.

Could be a repeat of the UK smoking ban in 2007 which murdered the pub trade just as the recession started to take grip. Pubs closed and continue to do so, jobs were lost, tax revenue was lost. Bravo politicians… Another genius piece of work that has failed. Did the nanny state smoking ban make any difference to the smoker? Not a jot… You couldn’t make it up.

I commend the brilliant politicians that want to reduce underage smoking but I repeat; children don’t smoke cigars or pipes. At least I have never come across a child coming into one of our specialist cigars stores asking for a Monte 4! Under 25’s (we use Challenge 25 scheme) are not even allowed into our shops!

So legislate as much as they want but leave cigars and pipe tobacco exempt and the hell out of this madness.

Michelle, my “Man Friday” returned from a fabulous vacation in Czech Republic with the obligatory cold caught on the plane back just in time for me to head off to New York on Thursday for a long weekends herfing activity. I relaxed in the Virgin lounge and had the usual facial and massage (hey – I’m metrosexual!) and a glass or two of Champagne before hopping on to my Upper Class seat. Now either the seats are getting smaller or I am getting bigger but considering my diet (the 5 + 2) is working very well, I reckon the seats are smaller. Good luck to anyone much taller than me on the flat beds!

I love NYC – so civilized and cigar friendly. I checked into my hotel on the Avenue of the Americas, changed into my smartest suit to look like a toff and headed to Grand Havana Room to meet with a few friends. Well, more than a few friends actually as I reckon there must have been around 15 or so of us doing some serious herfing.

GHR was crammed full, I was amazed at how busy this huge cigar lounge was. Armed with a baggie full of Inka – Secret Blend and Davidoff cigars and having a constant refilled glass of Mac 12 and Balvenie 12, it’s fair to say that a bloody good and late herf was thoroughly enjoyed by all ☺

Friday morning and I settled into my usual routine of herfing at De La Concha cigar shop/lounge. DLC is an “Olde Worlde” cigar shop and a very charming one indeed. Plenty of seating and I always enjoy sitting at the front by the window so I can watch the world go by. It’s so funny as numerous people walk by and look in with either looks of disgust at people smoking, smiles or in the case of a number of Asians; smiles and waves!

I herfed my way through a load of Davidoff Puro D’Oro sizes that we don’t seem to have in the UK (probably due to the barmy taxes that would be applicable on the size/weight of the cigars) such as the Notables and Gigantes. I love the blend of Puro D’ Oro, here are our notes:

Puro d’Oro features 100% Dominican tobaccos to make up its wrapper, binder and fillers. Inside, you’ll find a smooth, elegant blend of Dominican long leaves all bound by a Dominican binder. Davidoff’s exclusive Yamasa wrapper creates a unique flavour of coffee and spicy notes as the oily wrapper leaves a heavy feel on your palate.

Smooth, earthy flavours – medium bodied cigars.

The small range in the UK can be found here.

Saturday and I headed for Carnegie Club for the late show which is a tribute to Frank Sinatra, a couple of friends joined me and we had fun doing a bit of a blind tasting on the planned USA release of Inca – Secret Blend (not to be confused with the UK Inka – Secret Blend cigars) followed by Davidoff Perfectos.  Sinatra music, smokes and Scotch… My kinda evening.

Sunday was time for a chilled out afternoon at Club Macanudo and time to herf some serious Fuente cigars 🙂 In fact I was back to backing Opus X Perfect for a Sunday afternoon.

Headed back on Monday evening after another herfette at De La Concha and then off to the Virgin lounge at JFK for a bit of pre-flight pampering. Fortunately the aircraft was different for the return flight and the seats/beds more comfortable.

So thanks to my bunch of smoking chums that took very good care of me in NYC – Peter, Jay, Jeff, Leo, Rodney, David, Ricky, Howard to name a few. I can’t wait for my next trip.

Back to Blighty and straight to the C.Gars London office for coffee and a Montecristo No. 2 … it tasted sooo good after 4 days of New World cigars 🙂 Sweet and creamy, medium strength and a perfect draw. Still one of my favourite Havanas… After all these years.

Inka Cristales are now re-launched with an even sweeter Peruvian blend that is outrageously good and very cool new packaging – check them out on this link.

Can’t believe it’s Easter/Passover next week! The year is flying by. Looking forward to a little time off and if the weather holds up (it’s beautiful in London now) some herfing on the deck.

Have a smokey weekend,

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell

Bit of a crazy week last week with 2 days in Basel participating in the European Retailers Panel for Davidoff.

Dinner on Tuesday was at the rather splendid Teufelhof with 10 fellow retailers from around Europe and the Davidoff Team.

Of course dinner was followed by some fine Davidoff cigars including the outrageously good Year of the Horse. The boys split  a box of these delicious cigars whilst chatting about the cigar trade on a nice, dry, if cold, evening.

Year of the Horse are a limited edition of just 3000 boxes and made with Dominican binder and filler and are wrapped in a flawless premium Yamasa wrapper.  Well balanced and bursting with flavour from the first puff till I almost burned my fingers!

The next day was filled with presentations and discussions. Top secret I’m afraid and if I tell you I would have to shoot you 🙂 needless to say we recommend Davidoff cigars to our clients and have a huge range not only online but in all of our stores with our flagship Robert Graham cigar shops in Cambridge and Glasgow ready to spoil you with their beautiful purpose built Davidoff humidors crammed with a comprehensive range.

Luckily I made the next flight on time as on Thursday morning I was off again to sunny Paris to indulged in a spot of lunch with friends at our favourite people spotting venue: Café Ruc is situated at 159, rue Saint-Honore, just opposite the Hotel du Louvre. Not sure how this restaurant does it but they always seems to have the prettiest waitresses! Anyway, great service, good food and wine and Bolivar Libertadors from 2006  whilst watching the world go by. My kinda business lunch 🙂

Enough of all that bloody traveling for one week and I’m grounded this week as my Man Friday otherwise known as Michelle is on vacation (scandalous!) so I’m stuck in London office all week. Not to fear, my herfing chums came to the rescue on Wednesday with an office herf in the afternoon followed by a bottle of Dalmore 18  and Bolivar Belicosos 2007 vintage at the delightful Sahakian cigar shop and tasting lounge located at the equally delightful and chic Bulgari Hotel in Knightsbridge.

Mike Choi was at hand to advise our gang of 7 on the next cigar which was a cabinet selection Ramon Allones Specially Selected. To top off the evening we were joined for a smoke by David Lewis – Chairman of Hunters and Frankau… Perfect!

Back to the grind today with a meeting at the magnificent BAT Dunhill shop at 1a St James’s (thank you Robert) with all the cigar retailers in London’s Westminster area including my good friends Eddie and Edward Sahakian. The meeting was  to discuss the Tobacco display ban that will come into play in around a years’ time and the measures that we should take to comply with the latest daft law.

Now I’m not particularly bothered by display bans. Yes they are downright stupid but it’s not likely to stop my customers popping in to any of our shops across the country to purchase or sample their favourite cigars. Legally we won’t be able to show any tobacco product that can be seen from the outside of our shops. Another brilliant piece of legislation… Not.

What does bother me is the proposals regarding the dreaded ‘plain packaging’ which I understand means all of the beautiful cigar boxes and tins/packs of pipe tobaccos that we know and love will become a thing of the past and we will be left with bland/ugly packaging with huge health warnings on and a teeny weeny name of the brand and country of origin of the tobacco.

I doubt that will stop my customers purchasing but what a crying shame to do this to the cigar and pipe tobacco trade. What will it achieve? I understand that politicians want to discourage young smokers but as I have banged on about before, it’s not possible for anyone under 21 to even enter our shops let alone purchase tobacco and in all the years I have been in the cigar trade I have never known a kid to wake up in the morning and think ‘I must pop into my local cigar shop as I fancy a Cohiba robusto!’ – World gone mad?… You couldn’t make it up! Winston Churchill must be stirring in his grave at the absurdity.

If you think it’s as stupid as I do drop a line to your local MP and tell him or her your views… Don’t delay or it will be too late sadly.

Finally the cigar trade lost a legend this week as Desmond Sautter passed away at the age of 83. Desmond was a real Gentlemen cigar merchant and loved by all in the trade. Our sincere condolences to his family. I’ll be smoking a pre embargo Punch Ideales in his memory tonight.

Next week I’m back on my travels!

Have a smokey weekend,

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell

Happy St Patricks Day from sunny London 🙂

My Partner, Guy from The Decent Cigar Emporium spent the morning at our offices where we toasted the good saint with some Alec Bradley Filthy Hooligans and some Jameson’s Irish whisky. When in Dublin, there’s only one cigar store to visit, find us on Grafton street and mention C.Gars for a warm welcome.

I’ve had a crazy busy time since returning from the Festival in Havana especially since our Spring – Online Auction was held on the 7^th March.

The results were amazing with all but 5 Lots being sold  within or above the estimate range. Clearly the market for good quality mature and aged cigars shows no sign of slowing down. Prices were very firm indeed, a few bargains were had, Davidoff and Dunhill prices keep increasing as do pre Embargo cigars.

From all the feedback from bidders and sellers, everyone was happy with the functionality of the site which puts a big smile on my face as we created it completely in house. So well done to Laura and her Team at our Norfolk offices.

We’ve almost completed our auction admin work (quite a task I can tell you!) and we expect that all auction Lots that have not been collected already will be shipped out over the next week… Making way for the next auction!

Our Summer Auction will be held online again on the 1^st June 2014 and we are inviting prospective sellers to contact us soonest as the catalogue is almost full already so we will likely close it in a few weeks’ time. Once again we will offer a fine selection of aged, mature, pre-embargo, limited edition, Davidoff, Dunhill and limited edition humidors, cigars for smoking and cigars for collecting. Always happy to take any enquiries by email at [email protected]

For those who enjoyed our rather outrageous Winter Auction event at Boisdale Canary Wharf (Cigar Smoker of the Year Awards Dinner with Boisdale and The Spectator) you’ll be pleased to hear that Ranald and I had our first planning lunch meeting last week (at the lovely and cigar friendly Boisdale Belgravia) and we are planning another spectacular event this December.

Last week I visited our cigar and whisky shops up in Glasgow and Edinburgh, had a few drams of Robert Graham single malt and smoked a few too many Inka Secret Blend cigars with my partner Ron, whilst reviewing our retail operations.

Our shops are such a delight as are our retail Team. Jo at our Rose street branch is very happy with her walk in humidor which has been refurbished to twice the previous size. We’re expanding our range substantially due to huge demand from many of our clients.

Linda at our flagship Glasgow store is delighted with her additional showcase Davidoff humidor whilst Dougie in Canongate tells me we have a larger and more exclusive range of single malt whisky than we have ever had before.

I love hanging out at retail and chatting to our customers, it’s great to find out what they are looking for so we can make sure we stock the right range for all of our customers. I never know who I will bump in to and at the Glasgow store it was a pleasure to meet some of the guys from Naturally Seven, the group that perform with Michael Buble who were playing in Glasgow.

I also popped into our Cambridge store and herfed Davidoff Puro d’Oro from the new Davidoff walk in humidor with clients in our sampling lounge. Our next tasting evening is on this link.

Back to London and I zoomed round our shops in West Hampstead and Mayfair – small shops, huge range and a warm welcome from our experienced staff. Relatively easy parking and of course cigar sampling encouraged at both locations. Take advantage of our click and collect service by ordering online at website prices (guaranteed lowest in the UK) and collect in store!

Last Thursday I herfed with  a few of my smoking chums at the Edward Sahakian cigar shop and lounge at the Bulgari hotel. Great to see Mike Choi back from Havana with a more than respectable 2nd place in the International cigar sommelier contest. We herfed our way through BHK 54’s matched up with Dalmore cigar malt and then headed back to my smoking deck which is finally complete in my garden. Fire pit, heating, lighting and seating all well tested and working!

It’s that bloody Budget time of year and time for the Chancellor to bash the smoker again no doubt. I’m holding prices as long as stocks last but if you want to beat this week’s Budget get your orders in soonest.

Heading off to Basel for the Davidoff Retail Panel meeting in the morning, will be there for a couple of days and then off to Paris… Back in London office Friday to catch up but always available on email and more than happy to advise.

Have a smokey week,

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell

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