Our summer cigar auction was held on a very sunny and warm evening at Boisdale Canary Wharf and a great evening was had by all !

Starting off with a whisky tasting hosted by Ron Morrison of Robert Graham Ltd and featuring 5 of our range of award winning single malt whiskies. These were matched up with some splendid English Market Selection Juan Lopez seleccion no.1, San Cristobal La Fuerza and Punch Punch

Brian Ebbesen conducted the auction to a jam packed cigar terrace of over 80  cigar aficionado’s, connoisseurs and collectors. Despite the venue being noisier than our usual Boisdale Belgravia auction venue Brian managed to hear all of the bids and knock down all but 16 of the 259 Lots entered in the sale. 94% sale rate was a very satisfactory result.

A good range of limited editions, pre embargo. mature, Davidoff and Dunhill cigars were offered and clearly some prices were great value whilst others were higher than expected

Dinner followed with  fabulous music by Manolo and the Gypsies. The food and service at Boisdale was top notch as always.

We also launched the superb Fuente brand of cigars in the UK at the dinner following the auction and were delighted to welcome Josh and Jeremiah Meerapfel to our event.

Josh took apart an Opus X double corona (!) demonstrating that 10 leaves made up the filler of this delicious cigar. Guest were all treated to an Opus X DC on the cigar terrace after the dinner.

These winning bids are being brought to you live as the auction happens but please treat them as preliminary and subject to final verification (E&OE)

Lot 1 – 500
Lot 2 – 520
Lot 3 – 600
Lot 4 – 1700
Lot 5 – 1650
Lot 6 – 1650
Lot 7 – 580
Lot 8 – 600
Lot 9 – 230
Lot 10 – 230
Lot 11 – 600
Lot 12 – 380
Lot 13 – 1400
Lot 14 – 650
Lot 15 – 600
Lot 16 – 650
Lot 17 – 450
Lot 18 – 450
Lot 19 – 480
Lot 20 – 360
Lot 21 – 400
Lot 22 – 1150
Lot 23 – 920
Lot 24 – 1150
Lot 25 – 400
Lot 26 – 700
Lot 27 – 380
Lot 28 – 380
Lot 29 – 420
Lot 30 – 340
Lot 31 – 820
Lot 32 – 2100
Lot 33 – 1200
Lot 34 – 500
Lot 35 – 152
Lot 36 – 650
Lot 37 – 680
Lot 38 – 1500
Lot 39 – 850
Lot 40 – 550
Lot 41 – 1100
Lot 42 – 920
Lot 43 – 950
Lot 44 – 820
Lot 45 – 1000
Lot 46 – 920
Lot 47 – 550
Lot 48 – 2700
Lot 49 – 2300
Lot 50 – 4500
Lot 51 – 480
Lot 52 – pass
Lot 53 – 1750
Lot 54 – 1050
Lot 55 – 2400
Lot 56 – pass
Lot 57 – pass
Lot 58 – 1700
Lot 59 – 950
Lot 60 – 1450
Lot 61 – 3000
Lot 62 – 3500
Lot 63 – 7200
Lot 64 – 360
Lot 65 – 4300
Lot 66 – 1200
Lot 67 – 5200
Lot 68 – 4600
Lot 69 – 3400
Lot 70 – 1500
Lot 71 – 7500
Lot 72 – 4300
Lot 73- 3500
Lot 74 – 1600
Lot 75- 360
Lot 76 – 980
Lot 77 – 2300
Lot 78 – 1650
Lot 79 – 260
Lot 80 – 250
Lot 81 – 550
Lot 82 – 270
Lot 83 – 300
Lot 84 – 140
Lot 85 – 140
Lot 86 – 340
Lot 87 – 250
Lot 88 – 3400
Lot 89 – 300
Lot 90 – 280
Lot 91 – 280
Lot 92 – 290
Lot 93 – 290
Lot 94 – 270
Lot 95 – 270
Lot 96 – 300
Lot 97 – 700
Lot 98 – 700
Lot 99 – 160
Lot 100 – 140
Lot 101 – 140
Lot 102 – 1850
Lot 103 – 1300
Lot 104 – 710
Lot 105 – 600
Lot 106 – 400
Lot 107 – 400
Lot 108 – 400
Lot 109 – 240
Lot 110 – 150
Lot 111 – 150
Lot 112 – 380
Lot 113 – 220
Lot 114 – 400
Lot 115 – 450
Lot 116 – 830
Lot 117 – 830
Lot 118 – 920
Lot 119 – 280
Lot 120 – 360
Lot 121 – 300
Lot 122- 280
Lot 123 – 135
Lot 124 – 2100
Lot 125 – 120
Lot 126 – 120
Lot 127 – 160
Lot 128 – 240
Lot 129 – 230
Lot 130 – 600
Lot 131 – 600
Lot 132 – 600
Lot 133 – 900
Lot 134 – 4600
Lot 135 – 2100
Lot 136 – 450
Lot 137 – 550
Lot 138 – 560
Lot 139 – pass
Lot 140 – 280
Lot 141 – 350
Lot 142 – 600
Lot 143 – pass
Lot 144 – 600
Lot 145 – 400
Lot 146 – 310
Lot 147 – 300
Lot 148 – 330
Lot 149 – 300
Lot 150 – 450
Lot 151 – 600
Lot 152 – 160
Lot 153 – 180
Lot 154 – 90
Lot 155 – 100
Lot 156 – 100
Lot 157 – 100
Lot 158 – 100
Lot 159 – 950
Lot 160 – 600
Lot 161 – 1000
Lot 162 – 780
Lot 163 – 450
Lot 164 – 600
Lot 165 – pass
Lot 166 – 440
Lot 167 – 2000
Lot 168 – 220
Lot 169 – pass
Lot 170 – pass
Lot 171 – pass
Lot 172 – pass
Lot 173 – pass
Lot 174 – 400
Lot 175 – 280
Lot 176 – 290
Lot 177 – 290
Lot 178 – 340
Lot 179 – 300
Lot 180 – 170
Lot 181 – 4800
Lot 182 – 6000
Lot 183 – 360
Lot 184 – 650
Lot 185 – 320
Lot 186 – 400
Lot 187- 580
Lot 188- 700
Lot 189- 600
Lot 190 – 700
Lot 191 – 80
Lot 192 – 800
Lot 193 – 440
Lot 194 – 300
Lot 195- 440
Lot 196-  420
Lot 197 – 450
Lot 198 – 340
Lot 199 – 340
Lot 200 – 185
Lot 201 – 1250
Lot 202 – 90
Lot 203 – 320
Lot 204 – 105
Lot 205 – 290
Lot 206 – 360
Lot 207 – 360
Lot 208 – 380
Lot 209 – 800
Lot 210 – 360
Lot 211 – 4200
Lot 212 – 300
Lot 213 – 650
Lot 214 – 750
Lot 215 – 2000
Lot 216 – 660
Lot 217 – 600
Lot 218 – 600
Lot 219 – 2800
Lot 220 – 750
Lot 221 – pass
Lot 222 – 2400
Lot 223 – 120
Lot 224 – 880
Lot 225 – 805
Lot 226 – 2150
Lot 227 – 140
Lot 228 – 140
Lot 229 – 820
Lot 230 – 805
Lot 231 – 805
Lot 232 – 1500
Lot 233 – 300
Lot 234 – 320
Lot 235 – 750
Lot 236 – pass
Lot 237 – 380
Lot 238 – pass
Lot 239 – 350
Lot 240 – pass
Lot 241 – 1000
Lot 242 – 160
Lot 243 – 140
Lot 244 – 140
Lot 245 – 1400
Lot 246 – 450
Lot 247 – 450
Lot 248 –  pass
Lot 249 – 300
Lot 250 – 200
Lot 251 – 800
Lot 252 – 1250
Lot 253 – 1050
Lot 254 – 1000
Lot 255 – 1150
Lot 256 – 1050
Lot 257 – 1100
Lot 258 – 1000
Lot 259 – 1450

Winning bidders will be emailed in the next 24 hours with their invoices and sellers will be accounted to a little later this week

We had a great crowd including Julian Dicks ( great footballer and cigars smoker!) Simon Chase from H&F, My business partners, Ron Morrison from Robert Graham Ltd, Christoph Wolters from La Casa del Habano – Hamburg and Guy Hancock from the Decent Cigar Emporium – Dublin.

My thanks to Brian Ebbesen for such a marvellous auction, Ranald from Boisdale for all his support, my wife Karyn for table plan organization ! my daughter Tasha for her photography skills ! and of course Michelle and her London Team for all the administration and Laura and her Norfolk Team for all their hard work on the Auction website.

We are now accepting entries for our Winter auction which will be held at the end of November

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell Orchant

I should probably be blogging about the 4th July auction as I started with Going going gone but I think it’s even more appropriate for the La Flor de Cano short robustos which could well be the fastest selling Havana cigar I can ever remember.

Only 1200 numbered cabinets have been made as the UK exclusive regional edition. This cigar should have been out in 2009 but it was finally released at a fabulous Hunters and Frankau Summer cigar party last Thursday evening at the Langham hotel. Thankfully it was almost summery weather so the evening went with a swing

Click here for the singles here and here for the cabinets  

No sign of the Partagás Serie E No. 2 as yet- delays from Cuba and in fact we are waiting for the full allocation of Flor de Cano short robustos to arrive still although we are cautiously optimistic that they will arrive in July. So our shipping Team have been busy packing a zillion back order for these great cigars but if you ordered late you may have to wait just a little bit longer for your delivery. Trust me – it’s worth the wait. These cigars are great smokes, floral and almost perfumed in character, mild to medium strength and flavour, perfect construction and silky smooth wrappers.

Instead of the new Partagas Serie E we were given 2 Por Larranaga Regalias de Londres and despite mine having rather bland looking wrappers, they were in fact splendid cigars. Appearances can be deceptive! Another fine UK regional edition.

Yoel Diaz the roller from  Partagas was rolling some great ‘freshies’ to some great background Cuban music from the band. I still have a few of his cigars available from when Yoel recently rolled at our London office    

Simon Chase gave a speech about the history of the La Flor de Cano brand but sadly I couldn’t hear much as a lot of people were umm rather loud and drowned him out ( maybe they had drank too much champers?!)

Armed with our baggies of LFDC’s I zoomed over to the Lanesborough with 8 cigars smoking pals for some Tatinger and dinner on the cigar terrace till…..rather late

Next morning and it was off to New York to have a change of pace and enjoy some Fuente Opus X with my American chums doing the usual Friday herf at Grand Havana Room Saturday night crawl to Carnegie Club and then Club Macanudo- very civilized indeed. I may have to move to New York as it’s a seriously cigar friendly city.

…and now for the rest of the news ☺

Tomorrow evening I’m doing a cigar tasting ( with some whisky so I am told) at the fabulous Boisdale Canary Wharf  I think Ranald told me it would be Hoyo Epicure 1’s- nice choice,always a reliable corona gorda

We finally signed our deal for our new Mayfair Turmeaus Tobacconist shop last week and the builders should start work on it next month with a planned opening late August. Our Robert Graham clients who remember Lawrence from when he worked with us up in our Scottish cigar stores will be pleased to hear that he has crossed the border and will be setting up the Mayfair cigar store, working there for a while before he becomes our new Operations Manager. Welcome back Lawrence. 

Oh and we have our Summer cigar auction on Monday 4th July which should be a memorable evening starting off with a whisky and cigar tasting, auction and then dinner with some great music. Viewings of auction Lots this Friday all day as well as Sunday 1-5 pm. More details on the auction website

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Yes its true, demand for our incredible regional editions exclusively made for the UK market in limited edition is at an all time high

I have never quite known so much interest in our cigars as the last 6 months.

Punch Serie D’Oro No.1 (one of my favourites) has more or less sold out by Hunters and Frankau, luckily we have laid in fairly deep stocks so we should be able to supply them for a few more weeks.

La Flor de Cano Short Robustos will I reckon be sold out before they are even released if pre release demand is anything to go by. Sorry to say but if you haven’t pre ordered these cigars you will be at the back of the queue at this stage of the game.

El Rey Choix de L’Epoque are selling like crazy this month and I can’t see them lasting too much longer

Still reasonable stocks of Juan Lopez Seleccion Suprema and La Gloria Cubana Gloriosos

The other cigar that is being hotly pursued and stocks are very low is the 2006 limited edition Cohiba Piramides. I always rated this cigars and a lot of aficionados seem to have suddenly woken up to it.

My opinion? Smoke less but smoke the best and that can only mean EMS (English Market Selection) supplied by Hunters and Frankau. Life’s too short not to smoke only the best cigars 🙂 so check your boxes of cigars – no EMS label ? you need to find a better cigar merchant !

Spent the weekend in New York again and smoked some fabulous Fuente Opus X at Grand Havana Room as well as Club Macanudo, not my usual smoke, granted but I have to admit the construction and appearance was first rate and the blend a very good alternative indeed to my usual Havanas. Variety is the spice of life as they say. I may have to sample a few more over the coming weeks.

Auction time is fast approaching and we have over 250 Lots on the website already tickets available for a wonderful evening for the cigars and whisky aficionado There may well be some bargains to be had on the evening. If you can’t attend, you can always bid online up till 24 hours before the actual auction.

Lots available for viewing by appointment at our London offices… simply drop us an email at [email protected]

Yoel from Partagas was rolling fabulous fresh robustos in our offices last week to sample them click on this link

…and Jimmy from H&F popped in to see our new humidor- check out his piece on the H&F website

Have a smokey week 🙂

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Just arrived back to London after 10 long days and nights of herfing in the USA. together with my friend, smoking buddy and business partner Guy Hancock from Decent Cigar Emporium. The trip started in style as Richard Branson was on my Virgin flight and it was a pleasure to shake his hand and meet him briefly as I admire him immensely.

Of course our plans of world cigar trade domination include the USA! so we love spending time in the States meeting up with friends and suppliers as often as possible for the best smokes, drinks and generally herfing in as many cigar friendly values as we can find (trust me there are loads!)

Our schedule started in Chicago where we made Chicago Cut our base camp for daily herfs.

The weather was not great but we still managed to herf on the terrace and were treated to the best of hospitality at this superb restaurant overlooking the water.

We also visited Hubbard State cigar shop and enjoyed some great smokes with owner Raki, who has also been the maitre D’ of Mortons in Chicago since it first opened 35 years ago.

Then we moved on to Up Down Cigar which was very cool and had a coffee and a cigar with owner Diana who is a bit of a star in the cigar business.

More smokes and drinks at the fabulous Iwan Ries which has an enormous range of premium cigars and accessories as well as a huge smoking lounge then even more smokes at the beautiful Jack Schwartz cigar shop

To end my trip one of my good friends organized a behind the scenes visit to a Chicago police station where I locked Karyn in the jail (I let her out just before the next flight) and took an amphibian boat (owned by my friend) ride round the Chicago river which was outrageously good fun.

Chicago is a very cool city with the most hospitable cigar crowd and we are looking forward to returning again next year.

Fast forward to New York which I reckon may still be one of the most cigar friendly cities in the world.

We started with smokes and drinks at Carnegie Club and moved on to see our friend Maurizio, the manager at the beautiful Club Macanudo Decent Cigar Emporium are the Macanudo importers for Ireland and we always get star treatment at Club Macanudo. Many of our friends from the old ASC days joined us for a long afternoon of nonstop herfing.

Morning smokes were at de La Concha which is a fine location to watch the world go by whilst enjoying a fine cigar from their range (in my case always a Padron which were remarkably good)

One of the finest cigar venues in the world has to be the Grand Havana Room where manager Randall always takes the best of care of us. The view is amazing as is the service.

As a thank you to so may of our friends and colleagues in the industry we threw a New York City Cruise Herf 🙂 and the ‘Rendezvous’ with over 100 friends joining us for dinner, drinks and smokes on a beautiful hot evening whilst cruising up and down the east River listening to Sinatra music in the background.

The boys from Smokes Mag were on board and it was great to see a review of my book in the current edition.

Italian food compliments of our friend Giancarlo and sushi bar from our friend Jack Brach. The best Fuente cigars were enjoyed by all (Hemmingway and Opus X) thanks to Decent Cigar Emporium being the importer for Ireland ! and copious quantities of Wild Geese Irish whisky (as well as some fine single malt thanks to Yehudah and great wines thanks to Josh) All the guests were handed goodies bags by Karyn who did a great job with the guest list and Tasha who was the official photographer 🙂 For more details on Wild Geese Irish Whisky visit their website at  www.1691.ie.

Apologies if I have missed off thank you’s to anyone as so many of the crowd were so gracious.

To say a great night was had by all would be an understatement 🙂 and to think….we have to do it all again next year

Our last evening herf was at GHR with a bunch of friends and I should mention a big thank you to Jeff for the Dom Perignon 2000 champagne which was a great way to finish a long 10 days of herfing 🙂

So it’s nice to be back in sunny London and we have a crazy busy month ahead of us starting this week with a first rate cigar roller in our London office ….

Señor Yoel Ulacia Diaz is a 9th grade torcedor (cigar roller), the highest achievable grade within the Cuban industry structure, meaning he is capable of crafting any size or shape cigar within the Habanos S. A. portfolio.

He began his career in 1998 as a student roller at the world famous Partagás factory and, in recognition of his outstanding talent, he attained his 9th grade status in just two years.

He remains with the Partagás factory to this day but is now a Maestro de Calidad, or Master of Quality Control,and supervises the work of some 350 cigar rollers within one of Cuba’s most iconic cigar factories. If you would like to meet him and have a fresh cigar or two rolled for you, drop me an email so we can welcome you [email protected]

Hunters summer party is on the 23rd June and there may be a few tickets left although you will have to hurry ! Flor de Cano short robustos will be available following the release at the party and we are taking pre orders now. This is the long awaited 2010 exclusive UK regional edition. I think this may well be the fastest selling Havana in our history. Only 1200 cabinets have been made. In fact it would not surprise me if they are all pre ordered before they are released.

Finally our cigar auction catalogue is now online and we are taking bookings for the actual auction event. All details on our dedicated auction website

I’m off for a de jet lagging cigar or two 🙂

Have a smokey weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

My week started in style with a couple of friends at the Lanseborough cigar terrace on Monday. Premier Cru Chablis, Bolivar Belicosos, Smoked salmon – a perfect combo 🙂

Tuesday and I was back at the Lanesborough again with more friends (Ash, Alan, Tom, Zaff, Mike, Ricky and Chris) for an adios drink with my long-time friend and colleague Mike Mirecki of Cuba Welcome Travel who is off to Cuba shortly to get married (is he mad ?!) Long story short 20 odd bottles of Tatinger Rose Champagne later and a considerable quantity of Monte 2’s, BBF’s, Partagas P2’s, PSD4’s later and I think we all agreed that we gave Mike a good send off! does anything come close to the service or comfort of the Lanesborough? I think not.

The rest of the week was a continuous sampling herf session at the office with friends and clients… it’s a tough job and all that.

Next week we expect some fabulous branded Cohiba and Montecristo humidor to be delivered from Hunters and Frankau. Due to UK legislation we have to sell the humidors complete with a cabinet of cigars but we are going to include the humidors at such a low price I dare not even publish it so you will have to email me for details ! [email protected] (see photos below) Sorry but these are strictly on allocation so first come first served.

Forgive my awful photos of the new London walk in on my last blog! And see below some proper photographs from our resident photographer Blanka who did a far better job than me.

Lockers space always available to clients either in London or our other locations for short and long term cigar storage so if you are being ripped off by your existing cigar merchant remember you can get a locker from C.Gars Ltd free of charge if you are purchasing 5 boxes (of 25) Havanas a year. A locker takes 12-15 boxes comfortably and if you want to move your stock we only charge £250 a year. Rest assured as professional Havana cigar specialist we know how to look after cigars – correct relative humidity and temperature 24/7.

Cigar auction fever is hotting up 🙂 and auction Lots will be online next week. More details here

Have a smokey weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell