I’ve been in the lovely sunny USA now for over a month and spent most days and nights herfing with all different friends, clients and crowds, – cigar tastings – wine tastings – herfs – crawls – dinners, quite a relentless schedule that I have nevertheless thoroughly enjoyed. I think I need a holiday now!

I’ve been smoking  my way through tons of Fuente cigars and can’t wait to expand the range over the next month. If you want to try some great NC alternatives you have to try Fuente.

I’ve been watching the news about the riots in London on American TV news channels. If I would not know better from friends in London and around the UK I would have thought that the entire country was engulfed in flames. Talk about rubbish misleading journalism.

As ever I have been very busy buying and selling some of the collectible top end St DuPont lighters which is always good fun and wrapping up final details on some of the massive orders I placed at RTDA/IPCPR in Vegas last month. Looking to buy or sell? Drop me an email and let’s do some bizz.

We are as expected once again completely and utterly out of space in our London warehouse and no doubt will end up expanding yet again in London or Norfolk fairly soon. We are going to be all set for our Christmas season early this year and in some style 🙂 Undoubtedly the largest range of cigar smokers accessories in the UK and more locations to buy them from than anyone in the UK. Add to that the best prices and the fastest delivery and we think we have finally found the recipe for customer satisfaction  (and shareholder dividends!) well done to Michelle, Laura and their respective Teams – how on earth do we manage to ship so many orders every day??!!!!! Come a long way since 1997 !!!

It’s almost impossible to keep up with the explosion in humidor sales, the more I increase our range the more we sell. My personal favourites are Daniel Marshall I don’t think you can find better quality or value. Unique styles designed by Daniel and made in Beverly Hills.  Of course I’m bias ! especially as I met up with Daniel at Grand Havana Room in Beverly Hills last week for a smoke or two 🙂 Daniels humidors can of course be found on our website and will soon be stocked in our Hamburg and Mayfair cigar stores.

Our pipe shop clients will be happy to hear we have some fabulous new Meerschaum pipes on the way to all the shops in a couple of weeks time and we have just commissioned a new range of our own brand budget pipes to be made.

I couldn’t understand why I have received so many emails from clients chasing me for release dates for new cigars such as Partagas Serie E, Montecristo Gran Reserva, Cohiba 1966 LE as I checked with Hunters and Frankau and we understand that Cohiba  may be released in September and Monte Reserva in November but fear not as they seem to be all over the USA already !!! and I have seen loads of them.

Quite incredible if not shocking how many people can be duped into buying fakes.

Some actually look quite good and others rather awful. The usual story is ‘ I have a contact who knows someone in the factory and he / she gets me bundles ( no boxes of course as they are ‘pre release’) of these cigars and they are only $12 Bucks a stick’ I mean seriously, give me a break. Need I go on further? Call me old fashioned but I don’t by my Louis Vuitton bags on the streets if you get the analogy. Why do people take a chance and buy these fakes. If something seems to be too good to be true – trust me, it is too good to be true. lol

Winter cigar auction http://www.cigarauctions.co.uk/ date now set for 28th November in a private dining room at Boisdale Canary Wharf and should be the usual exciting event. We are accepting Lots from Tuesday of this week onwards. Always happy to advise and give free valuation service, simply drop me an email on [email protected] as ever bidding will be available online if you can’t make the auction.

OK so time to sign off and pack my suitcase ready to head back to Blighty where at least I’ll be able to smoke some great Havanas again 🙂 not sure when I’ll get back into the office, maybe Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on jet lag but I’m always on the end of an email for advice or just a chat about the last cigar you enjoyed… or didn’t !

Have a smokey weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Greetings from sunny California ! yes I’m still chilling out herfing with my old smoking buddies day and night 🙂

Markets may be tumbling but the quality of my Havanas can always be relied upon ☺ so a treat for our export customers this week…. 

Recent production – first rate quality –

ROBUSTO AND PIRAMIDES ON SPECIAL OFFER whilst stocks last – all boxes of 25.

Montecristo no. 2 £199
H Upmann No. 2  £199
Diplomaticos no.2 £199
Vegas Robaina Unicos £199
Bolivar Belicosos Finos £189
Romeo Belicosos £179
Sancho Panza Belicosos £179
Partagas SD no.4 £169
Hoyo Epicure no.2 £169
Juan Lopez seleccion no.2 £169
Ramon Allones Specially Selected £169
Romeo short Churchills £169 

UK REGIONAL EDITION CIGARS

Checkout our range on this link but please note many of the cigars are at the end of the line now such as Punch Serie D’Oro and La Gloria Gloriosos so order soon or they are gone!

Limited editions

Still no sign of this years limited editions, as ever newsletter subscribers will receive details of release date the minute we do. There seems to be a ton of interest in the new Montecristo Gran Reserva and Partagas Serie E but don’t believe any people that offer you ‘pre release cigars’ we don’t really believe they exist – you have been warned.

MAKE AN OFFER

Selling on behalf of one of our clients- no reasonable offer refused !

H. Upmann Sir Winston code ECA JUL 01;
Cohiba  Piramide LE Maduro. Code POS NOV 06;
Trinidad Robusto Extra from the original release. Box code MK0 DIC 03; 

Good luck with your offers!- email in to [email protected]

Aged and Rare

Next auction is early December but the vintage cigars just keep rolling in daily. Here are a few of the new arrivals:

Cohiba Lanceros- part cabinet of 15 cigars in cello ( from original 25) mid 1980’s vintage
Partagas Sobrasalientes Antique Replica humidor
Partagas 165th anniversary humidor
Montecristo B humidor – 1980’s
Bolivar book
Davidoff Dom Perignon box of 25 cigars
Davidoff 80th Aniversario box of 20 cigars
Davidoff Chateau Lafite part cabinet of 46
Montecristo no.2 – early1980’s
St DuPont Taj Mahal lighter
St DuPont Coleccion Habanos lighters

 C.Gars Ltd coming to Mayfair

Our little Mayfair outpost is scheduled to open on the 6th September and already we have our next retail shop under offer 🙂 its shaping up to be a busy 2nd half of the year.

Have a great smoky weekend!

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Greetings from sunny Los Angeles ! could be worse places to herf for a month but this is where I have settled, and am holding court round the swimming pool bar 🙂

I arrived in LA after a week in Las Vegas, staying at the fabulous Cosmopolitan Hotel and attending the IPCPR trade show at the Venetian / Palazzo convention centre. What an incredible week of meeting literally 100’s of friends and industry colleagues many of whom I have known for years and years.

The trade show is huge and showcases every cigar smokers accessory you can dream of as well as every non Cuban cigar you could wish. 

The show is my opportunity for purchasing massive quantities of accessories for the rest of the year at advantageous prices and then passing the savings on to our customers. Could this be one of the reasons why we sell so many humidors and accessories ?!  I also top up stocks of all our premium accessory and humidor ranges such as Daniel Marshall and Eli Bleu and make sure that we are selling the up to date and hot ranges of brands such as DuPont and Xikar.

If you haven’t seen Daniel Marshall humidors, you should check out the range on the website, Daniel has some beautiful designs and the humidors are great value too.

I spent time at the Cigar Family booth and met bumped into Josh Mirapfel and Carlito Fuente – I think we are in their good books as we were smoking Opus X at the time!

Always great to catch up with Marc and Mike from Palio – our recommended cigar cutter. We are very excited for the Palio lighter launch  expected in the next few months or sooner.

Bumped into old friend Gary Hyams, now working with Gurkha cigars. I think Gary was one of my earliest contacts when I came into the cigar industry so it’s always good to catch up and talk about the almost ‘old days’ !

Bobby from Fujipub newsletter was a good daily pit stop for a scotch and a chat- decadent way to start the day 🙂

Vito from the Sopranos was at the show again and we are importing his ‘gun’ cigar ashtrays which are very cool for Sopranos fans ( see photo!).

Cigar Journal made a splendid awards party which was great fun. Colin Ganley looked super smart as he announced a load of industry characters to present awards as well as receive them.

Vegas seems to have become cigar friendlier and smoking was of course allowed at the trade show as well as in the casinos and bars.

Herfing at the Venetian blackjack table with me were some of my usual crew including George, VV and Barry. Free Scotch all night= loads of smokes and we had some pretty decent winnings too 🙂

So after 5 days in Vegas with miles of trade show walking, scotch drinking, Opus X smoking, Blackjack playing….it was time to slow the pace down a little. We had flights booked to Los Angeles but decided to trash them and do a ‘road trip’ instead in  Blues Brothers style ! ‘ It’s 8 a.m. we have a tank of gas, half a box of cigars, its 110 degrees and we’re wearing sunglasses’ ! so off we went on a 5 hour chain herfing roadtrip to Los Angeles 🙂

I’m at the usual hotel and it’s as cigar friendly as the last few years, out almost every evening with clients and/or suppliers. Great to have a change of pace as well as some good al fresco cigar smoking.

Last night’s herf was at the Beverly Hills Gran Havana Room, this venue is soooo cool, I just love it. Great service and ambience and the food is pretty good too.

Meantime back at the London headquarters it looks like entries have started to arrive daily for our Winter auction ( date not even set yet!) and I’m looking forward to this event as they are always such good fun.

La Flor de Cano short robustos are still arriving in tiny allocation from Hunters and Frankau/Habanos so my apologies to the chaps on back order- we will fill soonest. Trust me this cheeky little smoke is well worth the wait.

I’m out of the UK for around another 3 weeks but I am always on email and friends are always welcome to email for any advice [email protected] or if you are in Los Angeles, you could always meet me for an Fuente Opus X by the pool 🙂

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Just back from a sunny weekend in Amsterdam where we celebrated the wedding of Brian Ebbesen our consultant and auctioneer to his beautiful bride, Barbara.

Arriving on Friday I headed straight to the superb Hajenius shop which has to be one of the most beautiful cigar stores in the world, very classy and always the best professional service. I treated myself to Juan Lopez No.3 which was a cheeky little number bursting with flavor but pleasantly light in strength profile and also bought a gorgeous colorado maduro wrapper box of Ramon Allones Gran Robustos – the Benelux Regional Edition that is a great cigar for long term maturing. 

Brian and Barb’s wedding was held in a very romantic castle located in Baarn and Brian’s friends arrived in a procession of Super cars (Lambo and Ferraris etc ) all with ‘Bar and Brian’ number plates – very cool ! we had a wonderful weekend and smoked a load of fabulous mature Monte 2’s with a great crowd of friends. So BIG congrats to our auctioneer and his wife. The bachelor days are ‘going – going – gone’ !

Back in the UK for a few hours and a quick repacking of my case before I head to Vegas in the morning for the biggest tobacco trade exhibition of the year (IPCPR previously RTDA) which I always look forward to.

I meet up with many old friends and make a lot of new friends. I’m doing all the buying for the next 4 months and hope to find lots of great new lines of humidors, lighters, cutters, ashtrays and so on as I always make sure we have the latest lines to offer our clients online and instore at the lowest prices possible in the UK.

Have a smokey week…. I know I will in Vegas!

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Quite relived that it’s the end of ‘Summer Auction’ week which is one of our busiest weeks in the year in terms of accounts and admin that seems to be never ending. The days turn into nights and our London Team seem to be wading through a never ending pile of auction buyers and sellers invoicing- kept going by a constant supply of espresso and cigars.

But it looks like everyone is happy, buyers got they wanted and sellers what they wanted –  winning Lots are already being shipped like crazy to clear out space for more arrivals of vintage Havanas that come in almost daily.

I was looking through the auction photos again on the auction website   and had to smile when I came across this one as I think it may be the first time that my 3 business partners have all been together in a photo with me. I am privileged to have three business partners whom I consider by dearest friends, I make a living with these Guys and I have had some of the best laughs with them too. I think the four of us are lucky guys …. Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

– Confucius

We are already taking in Lots for our Winter auction and of course I keep myself busy selling vintage Havanas all year round. Sadly we reject more cigars than we actually accept. Mainly due to condition, as many sellers come to our offices with cigars that expired long ago due to lack of humidification or because they suddenly realised that cigars need humidification so they over humidify already expired cigars which then look and smell awful !

I actually can’t think of many other cigar merchants that deal with much more than the odd box of aged Havanas from time to time, possibly the reason why I am always so busy! It’s been a steep learning curve though, tons of reading and research, many meetings with collectors round the globe and an ever increasing collection of old publications on cigars used for reference. Most of my time these days is spent on vintage cigars although I do still race around the world being the “face” of the business and still enjoy doing some of the buying with our larger suppliers… and so, I’m off to Vegas!

This year’s IPCPR trade show (we always used to call it RTDA!) is being held in Las Vegas and as ever I will be spending a few days at the show looking for interesting new products to import into the UK so I can continue to offer my clients the most comprehensive range of humidors, lighters, cutters and cigar related ‘toys’ at the best prices in the market. Best prices because we buy MASSIVE volume as we are lucky enough to have 2 massive warehouses in London and Norfolk.

It’s also a great opportunity for me to herf for the week with old and new friends. The show is so large by UK standards its mind boggling, imagine a few soccer pitches in size! And of course you can smoke whilst you are going round the show – could be worse ways of spending a few days ☺

…the rest of the news :

–  LFDC short robustos are now officially our fastest selling cigar ever ( and they are a fabbie smoke!)

–  Plans agreed for design of our new Mayfair shop due to open end of August- I think that will make me the largest player in the UK specialist cigar market by volume of trading units as well as value- I could be wrong but don’t think so which is a bit of a laugh considering we only really got established in 1997 and caught up with other merchants who had been around for the odd 200 years or so ….terribly easily.

– Lawrence starts working at London office this Monday – first chap to be employed at London offices in many years. Lucky him working with 8 girls !

– I have now switched my Monte 2 rotation to Edmundo for the next month as I absolutely love the blend of the 09 vintage ( not many left now)

– Partagas petit coronas 1998 vintage EMS totally rock- email me if you want a box

– Fuente stocks should be ready to go on our websites this week and throughout our retail chain in the next few weeks

That’s all Folks!

Have a smokey weekend, I’ll be herfing LFDC’s back to back I reckon 🙂

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell