Happy Easter / Chag Sameach… whatever you are celebrating, I hope you had a smokey weekend 🙂 I certainly did, whilst enjoying the glorious sunshine which makes a change for a bank holiday weekend! It’s usually an utter washout on BH Monday but I just car herfed a D5 with the temperature gauge showing 25c!
It’s been a busy few weeks (as ever) at the world of C.Gars with a few trips round the empire including La Casa del Habano Chester, Turmeaus Norfolk and Liverpool and Puffin’ Rooms Liverpool. Judging by the huge increase in sales last week everyone had a smokey Easter weekend planned.
Our La Casa del Habano is crammed with Havanas including all the LCDH specials and latest releases including the magnificent El Rey del Mundo Imperio Antique Replica Series Humidor and Montecristo Coleccion Habanos Book. We also have stocks of many of the older releases. Quite a treasure trove of goodies for the Havana cigar aficionado. No fear if you’re into New World cigars as we have a gigantic range in the walk in humidor just next door at Turmeaus… and for the whisky fan we have a magnificent range in the Turmeaus Whisky Shop.
I relaxed (I mean worked!) in the La Casa lounge for a few hours with a couple of drams of Stalla Dhu whilst sampling my current favourite: Hoyo Elegantes. This has to be the best blended Hoyo in years, truly a sweet complex blend that leaves you wanting a second one as soon as the first is finished.
Over to Puffin’ Rooms for some dinner and jazz featuring Matt Shaw who was brilliant… as was supper (there goes my diet) and finishing the evening off with a sampling of Davidoff 2019 Limited Edition paired up with Stalla Dhu Ben Nevis. I reckon this is one of the top 5 cigars I have ever smoked. It was simply sublime from the start to the finish. The flavour development was incredible. A real experience.
Still awfully sad about Simon Chase passing it was good to see Jemma and Sean from H&F at the office to talk about some of our memories of this great man. We sampled the El Rey del Mundo La Reina with a bottle of 2009 Dom Perignon in his honour. We hope to have the new UK RE on our shelves in June.
Davidoff invited me on their table for a splendid evening at Boisdale Canary Wharf featuring Nick Ferrari of LBC interviewing Charlie Sheen. Super cocktails and smokes on the terrace, first rate dinner as always and the best of company. Who could ask for more.
Our sampling event program is crammed full. If you would like to experience the C.Gars life, it’s worth making the trek to our events. The best of cigar sampling paired up with the finest libations. Checkout what’s going at our cigar and spirits tasting events here.
In between herfing around the country I’ve been busy listing Lots for our Summer Online Cigar Auction. Looks like another huge auction with over 250 Lots already listed at this early stage so I reckon it could go well beyond our target 350 Lots. A good selection of mature, aged and rare. Something for everyone and no doubt a few bargains to be found.
I also decided to release some of our Directors reserve including some first rate aged Cohiba Behike, Partagas Lusitanias Gran Reserva and Montecristo No. 2 Gran Reserva. Truly the best from Havana. For more details drop me an email at [email protected]. C.Gars has always maintained a rather breath taking Directors Reserva where we lay down interesting Havanas every year for later release. So much so, that we have actually run out of space! It’s great to be able to make cigars available that cannot be found anywhere else in the world.
Havana supply has improved somewhat with stocks of Cohiba Lancero, Coronas Especiales and Siglo VI making a meaningful reappearance. The absence of Siglo VI for so long seems to have created so much demand for Piramides Extra that these cigars are now out of stock! I expect everyone is now returning to Siglo VI which thankfully are superior quality from the cigars I have tested recently.
This week I’m heading to Turmeaus Norfolk for a board meeting and Marketing Team presentation. I understand we have some very exciting new promotions this quarter. It looks like our Cigar Subscription Service is fast becoming madly popular too. I’ll post up some photos of the latest improvements at Norfolk on Facebook. The premises are really amazing and quite beautiful. I reckon my customers in Norfolk are very happy to say the least!
The success of our Inka Secret Blend brand of cigars from Peru seems to be never ending and remains our best-selling New World cigar. I’m looking forward to meeting Gennaro, from Tabacalera del Oriente who make the cigars for me, at the office for a smoke on Thursday. Popular sizes, easy going blend at unbeatable prices.
For our pipe clients, we reckon we now have the largest range of pipes and pipe tobacco in the UK and of course we have the best prices in the UK. We are literally adding pipes to the online range every day.
Righto… heading back to my deckchair in the garden to chill with another Hoyo Elegantes 🙂
Have a smokey week,
Peaceful puffing,
Mitchell
Problem was that after this liquid breakfast I fancied a smoke and it was of course pouring with rain… no problem! a few shops up the road was J.J. Fox! So we zoomed in to the humidor, selected a couple of splendid 
Our next move was just round the corner to Turmeaus Mayfair where our new chairs had just arrived (we now have 5 chairs in the sampling room!) obviously we had to test them out so we grabbed a couple of 
Our next move was to the Garden Room at The Lanesborough for some supper and a bottle of Petit Chablis with a couple of 
Thursday was a crazy early start to head over to C.Gars Norfolk (thankfully by train) for a senior management and quarterly marketing meeting. Those clever people in our IT and marketing departments have some fabulous new website innovations and promotions about to roll out. All very exciting stuff. I’m often asked how on earth did I build such a huge business? Well, in truth it must be because I work with people far smarter than me 🙂 (Thank you Laura and James and the team!)
Attendees enjoyed music by Victoria Sharp and canapes by Chef Chris both from 
The evening featured tastings by 
My current favourites include:
Our move to our new HQ building in Norfolk is finally complete. Over budget of course and 3 months late…the story of my life lol. Well it was worth the wait and we are super pleased with the results. I think we are the only specialist cigar/pipe/whisky shop in the region so it’s sure to become a destination point. We now have fabulous office suites for our IT, Marketing and sales teams, photographic studio and modern warehouse… we’ve got the lot! Well set up to cope with the unprecedented sales growth 
The 
as we will be holding regular whisky and cigar tasting events. Check out our events 
On a terribly sad note, Simon Chase of Hunters and Frankau passed away this week. Simon was not only the most knowledgeable person I have ever met in the cigar industry but he was also the kindest person. I met Simon 25 years ago when I was starting out on my Havana cigar business journey. He always had time to answer my zillion questions about the industry . legislation and of course vintage Havanas. Sometimes we would chat for ages on a Friday afternoon. Simon also kindly wrote the forward for my photo 
d immensely. The weather in Havana was perfect, hot and sunny days warm balmy night… perfect for herfing. Flight arrived on time, cases came out super-fast and my colleague Roy from Turmeaus – North and I headed straight over to the Packard hotel where we were staying. I had previously stayed at the Manzana which was great but decided to try the Packard which was at least as good but much better value, with breath-taking views over the Malecon.
and bumped into friends and customers just about everywhere! We did the healthy thing and met up every morning for a 5 mile ( rather hot!) walk in old Havana. Detouring down the side streets was quite a sorry site with worse condition that I have ever seen before, crumbling buildings, trash in the streets. Very sad state of affairs.
ice.