Greetings from sunny London where I’m puffing an Trinidad La Trova and having a wee celebratory dram of Orchant Selection Cigar Malt J I’m celebrating because we have recently signed the contract to open our second La Casa del Habano Knutsford, Cheshire on the 24^th July.

La Casa del Habano Knutsford,
10 Minshull Street,
Knutsford,
Cheshire,
WA16 6AG
UK

We look forward to welcoming the Cuban Ambassador as well as Jemma Freeman of Hunters & Frankau as guests of honour to the to the opening event. Tickets are available on this link, but book up fast as there is limited availability already! Cigars, rum, whisky, wine and great food… should be a splendid event 🙂

The premises comprise of a ground floor cigar shop and walk-in humidor with client lockers and a first floor comfortable sampling lounge. The full range of La Casa specialities including Coleccion Habanos books and limited edition humidors will be well represented.

LCDH Knutsford will be managed by Turmeaus tobacconist trained team Andrew, Liz and Sandra under the guidance of Sara and Calum (Master of Cigars) from LCDH Chester.

Opening a second La Casa del Habano is very important and allows us to continue our substantial growth in Havana cigars sales. It will enable us to have additional availability of La Casa specialities to satisfy our customers insatiable demand.

My journey with La Casa del Habano started quite some years ago with LCDH Hamburg which I owned a 50% share until around 5 years ago. I learned a lot about the business, made some great friends and enjoyed some brilliant events. We sold our stake in the business to concentrate all of our efforts on the UK market which we completely dominate, We have the best specialist cigar shops, the most highly trained staff and of course the largest and most well-kept stocks of Havana cigars in the UK. I’m very proud to have two La Casas in our Group and my thanks to Yadira from Hunters and Frankau for all of her support.

In other news this week…

The launch event for the long awaited El Rey del Mundo La Reina was a great success and a lovely surprise when Chris Eubank popped in to say hello! He was certainly very popular with Sara and Michelle! The cigars were as wonderful as expected and our complete first allocation was in fact pre-ordered and shipped out pretty fast so I dare say we have a lot of happy cigar smoking customers out there 🙂

This is the fastest selling regional edition that I can remember and we are hoping for a second allocation to be delivered in the very near future.

Hunters & Frankau also displayed the cigars for their Aged and Rare releases. Allocations will be very tight as availability is very limited but we hope to be able to make a few boxes available.

The other star of the show was the 1790 humidor. A limited edition of 30 magnificent numbered humidors containing 10 each of all of the UK regional editions from 2005 until 2017 including the La Gloria Cubana Britanicas which no one had seen yet! I understand that all of the humidors sold almost immediately at an eye watering retail price of £58,800. We hope to be able to satisfy our customer but this is a strictly allocated humidor so I fear many will be disappointed.

I enjoyed a lovely evening at Boisdale Belgravia on Tuesday (wow… is that place busy!) with James Leavey (cigar journalist), Paul Futcher (Cigar Club), and Philip Shervington (JJ Fox). The weather has been pretty amazing in London and it was very relaxing to herf on the terrace.

My business partner, Ron Morrison, is heading back to London on Monday so I think we’ll be doing some serious herfing on Monday and visiting Turmeaus Mayfair as well as the other super cigar shops and lounges in Town.

On Tuesday I’m heading to Turmeaus Liverpool for the first release tasting event of Drew Estate Orchant Seleccion cigars… A very very sold out event indeed!

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell

Can’t wait for the El Rey del Mundo launch event at The Churchill Hotel this evening. I can’t remember such a buzz about a cigar release since Talisman. We always get a generous allocation from Hunters & Frankau as we are of course the most successful cigar specialist in the UK, but even with a generous initial allocation its looking like we will be sold out before the cigars even reach our humidors!

These splendid El Laguito rolled Lanceros are presented in cabinets of 24 and we offered for pre-order around 10 days ago making this one of the fastest selling cigars we have ever known. Our La Casa del Habano will have them a day before our Turmeaus shops and C.Gars mail order and we will be shipping out as fast as we possibly can!

The event this evening will also introduce the H&F aged cigars releases as well as a super special limited edition humidor containing all of the UK Regional Editions (apart from La Reina) since the program started. It is indeed a work of art and beauty and I’m looking forward to getting these into our humidor.

I’ll be heading over to the lovely Garden Room at The Lanesborough to smoke a few more of them after the event 🙂

Our Summer auction was a great success with a 99% sale rate and some very robust pricing achieved for our sellers.  I think the main factors for the strong pricing is the weakness of Sterling as well as strong bidder interest from the Far East. The catalogue was splendid in terms of range and quality and estimates were reasonable with motivated sellers. Congratulations to all of the winning bidders. For those who have not collected… please do as we are running out of space! For the bidders we are shipping to, thanks for your patience, we will be clearing through all auction shipping over the next week or so.

Our next vintage cigar auction will be held at the end of September and we are already considering lots for eligibility. Email the Auction Team for advice at [email protected] and check out the comprehensive FAQs page on the auction website.

I spent a lovely afternoon and evening at Turmeaus Late Hour Cigar Shop & Sampling Lounge Liverpool on Sunday for a Davidoff staff event where members of our retail and warehouse teams were presented with certificates for completing the second part of the Davidoff academy course. Well done team! We paired up Davidoff Entreacto and Millennium Robusto cigars with Remy based cocktails and then moved on to Puffin’ Rooms for the Sunday Blues set and an excellent lunch laid on by our head chef Chris and his assistant Matt.

I can’t wait to get back to Liverpool for the next event I’m attending on the 16^th July our guest of honour is Jonathan Drew and we will be sampling pre-release Drew Estate Orchant Seleccion cigars paired up with a flight of the finest Stalla Dhu single malt whiskies. It will be an evening to remember!

Quite a crammed program of events this month; details on this link.

If the weather forecast can be believed we are in for a few weeks of warm sunshine… perfect herfing weather 🙂

Have a smokey week,

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell

The Regional Edition Havana program has been fascinating since its inception in 2005, or was it in 2004 as I’m sure we had the rather amazing Ramon Allones Belicosos in the UK as a first release in 2004. (There was even an Orchant Seleccion Ramon Allones Belicosos!). No matter, some of the regional cigars worldwide have been iconic including the Ramon Allones Phoenicios for Lebanon and Dante 109 for Mexico.

Some of the later regionals were a tad on the ‘average’ side with many saying that there was little in terms of blend differentiation or integrity. The UK has had its fair share of absolute winners including the incredible Por Larranaga Magnificos, Punch Serie D’Oro No. 1  and Flor de Cano Short Robustos to name a few.

Last year’s regional… didn’t arrive, in fact we are still waiting for the 2017 La Gloria Cubana Britanicas Extra but we are still hoping it will arrive this year so it’s only 2 years late 🙂 The good news is we will actually receive the El Rey del Mundo La Reina 2018 UK Regional Edition next month! I’m looking forward to the launch event on the 1^st July and stock available at our La Casa del Habano Chester on the 2^nd of July with stocks on C.Gars websites and Turmeaus shops a few days later.

The Lancero sized cigars will be presented in numbered cabinets of 24 cigars and availability is expected to be fairly limited initially as our importers H&F wait for deliveries from Cuba. I was one of the lucky cigar specialists to be on the tasting panel at Hunters & Frankau and have also tried out the finished product a few weeks ago at our London offices. The cigars I understand were roiled at El Laguito and they are as good as we hoped they would be, well worth the wait!

We have a full schedule of tasting events across Turmeaus shops. Check them out on this link. I’m looking forward to the Drew Estate event on the 16^th July at Turmeaus- Liverpool as it will be the pre–release of the Drew Estate Orchant Seleccion range with Johnathan Drew as our guest of honour! Book up fast as this will be a very popular event.

It’s been a London office week for me so far (though I’m off to Turmeaus Knutsford tomorrow) and the schedule included an excellent event in the Long Room at Lords for the Tobacco Trade Charity lunch. Guest speaker was Henry Blofield OBE. I know less than zero about any sport, but I’m sure it was very interesting for cricket fans though, the Belgian chap sitting next to me seemed a bit confused about what it was all about! Retailer of the year award went to Gauntleys of Nottingham… well done chaps 🙂 Paresh Patel of Havana House did his usual excellent job as Chairman and a great time was had by all.

I bumped into just about everyone in the UK cigar trade and it was good to catch up with Steve Johnstone from Robert Graham Ltd. He has the most insane event coming up – check it out on this link should be amazing!!!

My thanks to Tor imports for the invite, we had a great table and a lot of laughs together 🙂

I moved on to Turmeaus Mayfair to sample a Quai 54 paired up with some Mulata 15yo which worked very well. On release I didn’t reckon the Quai but they are smoking like a dream now, tons of flavour and very light on strength. Just what I love as a day time smoke, Mulata 15 year old has to be the best value Cuban rum available and its perfect with this cigar. Next stop was The Garden Room at The Lanesborough for smokes and supper 🙂 Cuaba Salamones, Partagas Salamones and a Serie P No. 2 with a glass or two of Chablis and a Glendronach to finish the evening. All in a day’s work…

Our Summer Auction catalogue will be online tomorrow. I think this will be our largest auction sale with over 450 Lots being sold on the 23^rd June. A very impressive catalogue to say the least. Some breath-taking Havanas from the 1960’s as well as Pre-Embargo and a fair quantity of Davidoff, Dunhill and other delightfully rare Havanas.

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell

I remember when I started selling Havana cigars back in the mid 1990’s like it was yesterday (time flies when you’re enjoing yourself!) and I would receive non stop requests for Partagas SD No. 4, Montecristo No. 2 and Romeo Belicosos.

Problem was that these three cigars were in very short supply and H&F didn’t want to supply a young upstart like me with too many of them, understandably so. In fairness they did give me small and regular allocation but it was never enough to satisfy the demand. As fast as they came in my clients ordered them. I even imported them from all over Europe in an attempt to satisfy demand and build the business.

Things of course changed over the years and  allocations grew as C.Gars grew into the giant in the UK cigar trade that it is today. Fortunately we don’t have supply issues on these three cigars anymore and their quality is generally very consistent. The one that is interesting to me is the Romeo Belicosos because it was insanely in demand in the 1990’s but seems to have fallen out of favour thereafter. I’m not quite sure why… It could be that the blend went a bit ‘off’ from 2000 – 2005, but then so many others were also off during the same time period. It could be that so many new sizes were introduced and it just wasn’t sexy anymore; (although Bolivar Belicosos remain ever popular).

Over the last year I have noticed a lot more interest in this cigar. I have been sampling them on and off but they have now gone back into my daily rotation as the blend is right back to 100% form. This is truly an old style Romeo blend with a layer of sweetness and cedar throughout. They are exceptionally well constructed with an excellent draw. The wrappers are a smooth Colorado shade and for a medium strength campana format I think they are quite a stunning smoking experience.

I’ve been smoking the Romeo Belicosos during the days over the bank holiday weekend and finishing with my favourite Bolivar Belicosos in the evenings. The weather has been surprisingly good (doesn’t it always rain on bank hols?!) so it’s been a garden herfing and car herfing few days 🙂 I could get used to three day weekends…

I paired up the smokes with some Stalla Dhu Saorsa (Freedom) and a few drops of water to open it up. A perfect combo! I’m sure this single cask exclusive whisky will win some international awards this year to add the the multiple awards we have won for others in the Stalla Dhu range.

I’m heading to Turmeaus Liverpool on Tuesday and Turmeaus Late Hour Cigar Shop & Sampling Lounge in the evening for an Avo cigar and Amrut whiskey sampling event followed by dinner and jazz at Puffin’ Rooms. If you’re in town, come and join me for a memorable evening at the best venue in the North!

Back to the London office late Wednesday to close off the Summer auction catalogue. Looks like we won’t be far off 500 Lots making it the largest stock we have ever offered at auction. Lots of interesting bits and pieces, one of the reasons I love the auction business as every sale is so different… from inexpensive sample packs of a few aged cigars though to mega rare and expensive humidors and rare cabinets.

There was a great article in the Robb Report last week which featured none other than yours truly. There’s a bit of info on which cigars I enjoy and a few other tips. Check it out here.

I’m often asked what are the future classics and good investments. Realistically it’s hard to have a crystal ball and obviously we are not investment advisers. Cigars should be bought for smoking pleasure in the first instance always. I can’t help but think that Bolivar Super Coronas look like a good long term hold. A limited edition that’s already 5 years old as they are from 2014, a very decent smoke and they look like good value to me.

Businesses these days seem to live or die by review sites. I know Karyn and I use a few of them like TripAdvisor and TrustPilot for just about everything. We put TrustPilot on the website a couple of months ago and it’s good to see that we have excellent ratings and reviews. We also have around 5,000 great reviews directly on our website. If you have enjoyed our products and customer experience we are always grateful for reviews. If you have not… email me personally on [email protected].

Have a smokey week,

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell

Just back from a herfing visit to New York City 🙂 lucky enough to have 5 very sunny days and just a couple of rather wet London style days, but fortunately NYC is very cigar friendly with no shortage of indoor smoking lounges.

My morning smoke was at Davidoff on 6^th Avenue (previously De La Concha) where Kevin the manager made me feel very welcome indeed. I herfed a variety of Davidoff 702 and Winston Churchill as well as Avo cigars over the week that were all as good as they are in the UK 🙂

I also visited Grand Havana Room, Nat Sherman , Club Macanudo, Carnegie Club and Hudson Bar and Books… like I said, no shortage of great places to smoke or great pals to herf with. I herfed through Davidoff mainly as well as Padron and Fuente cigars. Splendid week and I can’t wait to visit again. Thanks to all my ‘Rat Pack’ herfing crew for such a brilliant week. More photos in the gallery below.

Back to the very sunny UK and a 300 mile round trip in the car to Turmeaus -Norfolk for a Team meeting. Perfect roof down car herfing weather with Romeo Wide Churchills (a very good return to blending form for these splendid cigars) and H. Upmann Magnum 54’s (wow… whatta smoke, the Mag 54’s have in fact really turned into super smokes now)

Apart for a couple of flags to be installed at the front of our HQ we are finally completed with this expansion with the last major job of air conditioning in the building having been completed last week. Just in time for the good weather (hopefully).

We enjoyed a whisky tasting of our Stalla Dhu Saorsa (Freedom) paired up to a cigar sampling of Juan Lopez Seleccion Superba, the 2016 UK regional edition, with Sean and Tim from Hunters & Frankau. The choice for the pairing worked very well, good timing too as the Juan Lopez are almost sold out. We hope to have our long awaited next UK regional edition in the next 6 weeks (give or take!)

Finished the week with a herf with a crowd of my London smoking chums with a BBQ herf where I treated myself to a Montecristo Gran Reserva… and it really smoked a treat!

Taking it easy this week at the London C.Gars office putting the finishing touches on to our Summer Aged, Rare & Vintage Cigar Auction. This will be a huge sale with over 400 Lots of aged, rare, mature, limited edition, Davidoff, Dunhill and Pre embargo cigars. All brands, sizes, vintage going back to the 1950’s and price ranges for all collectors pockets.

Have a smokey week

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell