Back at last after almost 6 weeks in sunny Los Angeles and suffering from the jet lag from hell. My body just doesn’t want to reset its time clock back to the UK despite getting back to my early morning espresso and BBF routine, I’m still whammed tired!

I had such a great time herfing with friends from all over California and of course at the trade show in Las Vegas. Despite all the crazy FDA laws which I still can’t quite get my head around, I dare say the cigar industry in the US will continue to survive and thrive. That’s good news for Inca Secret Blend cigars sold in the USA of course . I smoked my way through the range (repeatedly) during my LA trip and I think I love this cigar more than ever. Sweet taste characteristics throughout, light on strength and medium to full on flavour. I can just smoke them back to back. I’m looking forward to doing an Inca Secret Blend tasting evening in Chicago in a few weeks’ time (oh-oh… more jet lag).

Whilst in LA I was terribly sad to hear of the passing of Carlos Fuente Snr. C.A. mag published a very comprehensive article, our thoughts are with the Fuente family at this sad time.

Plans for my new super duper architect designed Turmeaus shop in Old Hall street were going exceptionally well until I heard that we are waiting for someone at Liverpool council to confirm our new post code for the address so we could get our new electricity supply turned on. Conventional wisdom would dictate that this should be simple two minute job and indeed my understanding is that it is. However, that assumes that the person at the council actually replies to phone calls, letters and email… which he does not. Even funnier is that there is only one person in the council who can do this monumental task and he has been on holiday. When he got back over a week ago, he has still not been able to fathom out how to reply to us.

So, the raspberry of the week goes to Zika at Liverpool council. The man allegedly responsible for not doing a tiny job that would enable us to open our new cigar and whisky shop on time. In fact, this chap is responsible for holding up 10 new local jobs as well as rather substantial business rates being paid on what was a derelict grade 2 listed building. There is another chap at the council called George, but he also doesn’t believe in replying to emails. As we say ‘you couldn’t make it up’.

Not to worry useless people in Liverpool council, we will somehow get our business open on time on the 30^th August regardless of your rubbish non-existent service. I’ll be coming to Liverpool on Tuesday and will sit outside your office until you sort this out.

Thereafter I can get back to work at finishing off our latest flagship store which so many of our clients are looking forward to enjoying.

Useless council aside, Liverpool is such a cool city, beautiful architecture, great bars, restaurants, hotels and shopping. Super friendly people and of course Turmeaus was established in Liverpool almost 200 years ago. I can’t wait to be up North again.

Following on from my last blog and my advice about minor wrapper foot nicks may I offer a word of advice regarding shipping? If you place an order and it has not arrived in the allotted time schedule ( i.e if you ordered overnight or 2-4 day delivery) please let us know straight away and my shipping team will always be delighted to assist 24 hours a day. If you enquire a month later we are still happy to help but no need to send a screaming email because before you contact us and let us know the order has not arrived, we would have no idea. We are good cigar merchants but our mind reading skills are not up to scratch these days 🙂

Lots and lots of emails over the last week (some rather irate too!) questioning ‘why have I received a box of Havanas that is not sealed?’ So, for those who do not know, there are no sealed boxes of Havanas in the UK and have not been for the last 40 odd years. All boxes of Havanas are opened and thoroughly quality controlled by Hunters & Frankau the sole importers of Havanas to the UK. One of the reasons why we have such high quality Havanas and why EMS (English Market Selection) Havanas are so desirable in the collectors market. On arrival in C.Gars walk in humidors my team do an additional quality control check as well. Yes, we are terribly professional cigar merchants.

No sign of any more Montecristo 80^th at this time but we are still ever hopeful and we are utterly sold out of all sizes of Cohiba Behike, still though I may release a few more of our reserved boxes in a week or two. As the supply situation worsens I understand that El Rey Demi Tasse and Choix Supreme are not available and I understand that a lot of Continental cigars are being discontinued in the next few weeks (I am guessing perhaps due to range rationalisation or the new health warnings that come into play next May.)

To combat the stock outs expected we have increased our stocks to fullest capacity which should iron out a few rough spots. Regrettably there is a price increase on Havana cigars of up to 7% from the 1^st of September. I think this is probably due to the decline in the value of Sterling since Brexit. I will hold my prices at current levels for as long as possible but be advised to top up at current prices while you can.

I’m hopeful that the 1966 edition of Cohiba 50^th anniversary humidors will be out sometime soon though nothing has been confirmed yet. In the meantime we have released a few more boxes of the delightful 1966 and a couple of Orchant Seleccion jars crammed full of them too 🙂

Righto, I’m off to celebrate Team GB being 2^nd in the Olympic medals table after the US with a Bolivar Belgravia. What an amazing achievement.

Have a smokey week and hope to see lots of friends of Turmeaus up North when I visit next week 🙂

Peaceful puffing.

Mitchell

Here I sit in my rather comfortable London office sampling a Cohiba Robusto Supremo in the middle of July and I am watching the most torrential amount of rain through the windows, just unbelievable. I love London but this weather is too bad for words (very British to complain about the weather!) hey ho, nothing I can do about it… or can I? Yup, I’m the hell out of here till the end of August, heading for a deckchair in the sunshine and some non-stop herfing and R&R 🙂

And I will need that R&R because when I get back to Blighty I’ll be working very hard up North as we will be opening the new Turmeaus flagship store in lovely Liverpool on the Tuesday 30^th August. Long time in the planning but I’m a bit of a tortoise in business and have that OCD thing going on so I have to have everything perfect of course. Located at The Albany in old Hall Street, our latest expansion will provide our Merseyside and Lancashire customers with an all singing and dancing cigar, tobacco, accessories and whisky retail store together with cigar sampling lounge and whisky tasting bar.

But dear blog reader, that’s just the first phase as I expect to start developing the second phase soon after which will provide an additional Turmeaus cigar store and sampling lounge open till 11 pm and a drinks and tapas lounge as well as the hugest whisky bar in the North West. Splendid 🙂 that should keep me entertained for a little while I reckon.

I have to laugh when I think back to buying the original Turmeaus shop on Water Street many years ago. So many people asked me ‘why?’ and inferred that it was a daft place to have a cigar shop. Righto, proved them wrong (no surprise). I thought, and still think, that Liverpool is a super cool city. Trendy bars, excellent hotels and restaurants and very friendly people. I’m looking forward to some splendid tasting events with old and new Turmeaus – Liverpool clients.

This is the first development that we used architects for and it’s been a wonderful experience. I expect this premises to be one of our finest. The humidor room will have an insane selection of premium Havana and New World cigars as well as an incredible range of the finest humidors and cigar accessories. The bar will have a delightful range of premium spirits to sample and the cigar sampling lounge will be super comfortable with excellent smoke extraction. Our legendary customer service ensures a warm welcome and the best of advice.

Whilst up North last week I zoomed into Turmeaus –Knutsford which was looking lovelier than ever except it was a warm day and I thought the cigar sampling lounge was a tad too warm. No problem, air conditioning is now ordered and my clients will be chilled accordingly in a few week’s time!  Always good to see Andrew, Sue and Liz who manage the Knutsford store for me, I can’t think of a friendlier team in any cigar store in the UK, just super customer service. Magnificent range of cigars and whisky and Andrews prize and joy wine room is awesome (as is his knowledge of wines!). I found this review from a customer on Google today:

I visited Turmeaus Tobacconist for the first time today, and it definitely won’t be my last. The gentleman that served me was wonderful; great customer service skills and very knowledgeable about all the products. The shop also had a lovely warm and inviting atmosphere. I think my husband is going to be delighted with his birthday gift of cigars and rum! He’ll also be visiting to sample more of the delights offered by Turmeaus. It’s been a very nice shopping experience indeed. Thank you!

Next stop was Turmeaus – Chester which incorporates our La Casa del Habano. I would say that this place is cool but on this particularly hot day I can honestly say the lounge was freezing due to the over effective aircon lol. Clients seemed to be enjoying sampling as the lounge was jammed full as was the whisky sampling bar area. I mooched around the humidor which is crammed full of gems from Havana. We really do have an incredible range of boxes and cabinet selection Havanas as well as huge range of singles.

I also managed to have a herfette in Turmeaus – Mayfair last week, it was our friend Eric’s birthday (perfect excuse) and he enjoyed a Cuaba Distinguidos birthday smoke whilst I puffed away on another Cohiba Robustos Supremo. I just love these gobstoppers!

My assistant David at Mayfair got a bit of a shock on Saturday when a car crashed right through the front of the shop next door. Thanks to all my friends on Facebook and Twitter for all their funny comments!

At last! My Inka – Secret Blend import has arrived and we will be back to full range next week. The popularity of this range is quite breath-taking. Great blend and great value, who could ask for more?

Okay so I’m off Havana cigars and on to New World cigars for the next month or so and I’ve selected a bunch of my favourites whilst I top up my tan, they include:

Inka Secret Blend,
Regius Orchant Selection,
Orchant Seleccion by Oliva,
Macanudo Inspirado.

That should keep me going!

Next blog from the swimming pool!

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell

Back to normal, if life is ever normal in the C.Gars world! We have almost finished all of our Summer auction work (some huge task!) and some 300 Lots have either been collected or are in the shipping process so I can finally see my London humidor again, which comes as some relief.

We outgrew our original London office/warehouse some years ago and expanded into the building next door 3 years ago which was brilliant but alas the time has come around again that we are bursting at the seams due to the huge increase in business. So, the other day I was chatting with Michelle and saying “if only another building would become available alongside” lo and behold, one did! Terms rapidly agreed, architect instructed, builders quotes awaited and we hope to move in by late September.

One issue is that we have utterly run out of humidor space and our auction and vintage cigar business is now so huge it needs a home of its own. I’m building a massive walk in humidor in the new premises that will just house our client lockers and rare and vintage Havana cigars. This will make the mooching around the humidor experience a lot more pleasant for my clients as its not much fun battling around 10 of my team as they run in and out the current walk in humidor nonstop!

The other issue, (nice one though it is) is that we are experiencing unprecedented growth in sales and our London warehouse team is ever expanding so we can provide on time deliveries to our zillions of clients. Thankfully the new premises will help us cope for the foreseeable future. All exciting stuff.

Continuing the Cohiba 50^th anniversary celebrations this week, I enjoyed an evening at Mark’s Club in London’s Mayfair where Zenith watches presented their stunning Cohiba edition.

Nick Foulkes gave a wondeful talk about watches and cigars in his inimitable witty and knowledgable manner and Cohiba Siglo III and Robusto Supremo paired up with Ruinart champage were enjoyed by all. Great to bump into Reinhold Widmeyer from Cigar Journal and we’re planning a decdent vintage Havana cigar tasting in Austria in the near future.

The big news topic this week though was of course the Brexit referendum. From my perspective I can tell you I enjoyed watching TV till ridiculously early in the morning and herfed my way through 2 Cohiba Robusto Supremo, 1 Cohiba 1966 and a few shots of Stalla Dhu to keep my spirits up so to speak. Thanks for all the emails asking what effect I expect this to have on business. I’m not certain but genuinely doubt it will make any difference whatsoever. That said the weaker Pound has caused a bit of a jump in export business 🙂

Still a few places available for our wine and cigar tasting event at Turmeaus Knutsford on the 13^th July unfortunately I can’t be there as I’m jetting off to the sun for Summer (severe lack of it in London today!) but my assistant Andrew assures me he will be taking extra good care of all attendees. We have a super comfortable sampling lounge in Knutsford and a huge range of cigars, whisky and wine.

Macanudo Inspirado is selling like bonkers now that we have added two more sizes to the range. Check it out on this link, premium cigars and very good value indeed!

The Inka Secret Blend cigars success story continues with mega record sales last month. Apologies for the odd size stock out as I am still trying to cope with the sales growth of this brand. Good news is that I have another huge import from Peru due to arrive on Monday.

Last chance to get your hands on Orchant Seleccion Bolivar Royal Coronas as we only have a few boxes left. 2014 was a true return to form for this cigar and the blend is very earthy and full flavoured yet refined and smooth. Not for the beginner!

Also last chance to get the lovely cigar case with Winston Churchill robusto cigars and Winston Churchill petit coronas. Fabbie cigars from Davidoff and a lovely case to store them in 🙂 Last 10 of each and then they are done.

If you like a full flavour Nicaraguan cigar you can’t go wrong with the Regius range (exclusive to C.Gars) they are just superb value for a premium smoke.

I’m still having fun adding to our booze range. Checkout Drinks by the Dram sampler packs. These are perfect to try all different types of whisky and other premium spirits, most of them have tasting note cards in the box which adds to the fun. They also make brilliant gifts.

I hear that my rather cool marketing Team at Turmeaus Norfolk are rolling out some PRICE THRASHER promotions from Monday… look out, there should be some great deals.

That’s half a year done and did it ever zoom by for me! I’m seeing Carole King in concert in Hyde Park on the weekend (I wonder if cigar smoking will be allowed?)

Have a smokey weekend,

Peaceful puffing.

Mitchell