Greetings from my smokey office where I am currently revisiting Montecristo Sublimes Limited edition for 2008 

This delicious Havana measures in at 6 1/2″ length and a whopping 54 ring gauge and delivers volumes of rich smooth full and sweet flavoured smoke from start to finish. Beautiful maduro wrapper and a perfect draw.

2 year aged tobacco on release so it’s now getting on for 5 years matured. This is fast becoming my favourite LE and I even prefer it to Cohiba Sublimes plus it’s much better value. Not sure how long they will be available but we have a deep stock in our humidor that should last quite a while

Meantime Michelle and her sales Team have been selling Gil Gonzales  like crazy 24/7 ! pretty good smoke and great value

This week’s herfing activity was at Ten Manchester street for lunch on Tuesday which was very good indeed. The terrace was warm and sheltered and the service improves every time I visit so well done Number Ten J smoked our way through a few cheeky little El Rey Choix de L’Epoque, followed by a couple of evening herfs at the Lanesborough where my homies enjoyed some of the splendid premier cru Chablis with Punch Serie D’Oro no.1’s. Great to see our friends from New York and Texas enjoying some of our British hospitality.

No sooner than we announced the auction date of 11th July and the Lots are already rolling in which is the fastest response I can remember. This is our 4th cigar auction and it promises to be an interesting one with a variety of limited edition,pre embargo,Davidoff,Dunhill and other Havana cigars that you can’t find in the shops any more. Here’s a link to our auction website  to see details of our previous auctions.

Prices are held for this weekend but going up next week I’m afraid. It’s around 5% across the board following the budget but remember we will price match any bona fide cigar merchant in the UK 🙂

Next week will be a crazy one as we make the final arrangements for our cigar party at Boisdale canary Wharf  should be the largest cigar party of the year (so far!)

Have a smokey weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Mitchells diary…

Another madly busy week with sales at an all time high before this week’s UK Budget as smokers anticipated correctly and increase in prices of cigars (and all tobacco products) as our Chancellor desperately tries to punish the smokers and not upset the motorists but still raise enough revenue to correct the terrible financial mismanagement of the last Labour government.

Monday evenings event was at Boisdale Belgravia for a cigar and whisky seminar featuring Orchant Seleccion Bolivar Royal Coronas (a big hit!) and El Rey del Mundo Tainos paired up with some excellent Speyside by Singleton of Dufftown. I had been told that it was only likely to be a small crown but we ended up to be over 30 cigar smokers which may have been a record for a Monday evening cigar tasting ! dinner after the cigar tasting followed by more smokes on the terrace – perfect.

Tuesday I met up with Ranald at the new Boisdale in Canary Wharf which is still being built and starting to take great shape. This is a phenomenal venue for cigar smokers and the walk in humidor will have a huge range of cigars. Our Cigar Party on the 10th April is more or less sold out now so hurry as its last call for tickets for the event of the year (well the first half of the year at least!)

My daughter Tasha had a ‘Take your daughter to work day’ at her school on Wednesday but I decided that rather than have her smoking and drinking in the office with me (!) I would send her to my friend Chris in his fashion business. My wife thought this was terribly politically correct of me. In fact I was worried that Tasha would spend the day teaching me how to run the business ( and probably be right about it too!) so, Tasha had a great day and my thanks to Chris for all his help. The three of us decided to have a dinner herfette at The Carob Tree 15 Highgate Road NW5 1QX where the food, ambience and service were all first rate and better still there’s a great terrace for cigars smoking ( Behike 52’s in our case… and a chocolate cigar for Tasha!)

Thursday was spent travelling to value a delightful collection of vintage cigars- got back to London very late but managed a dram of Robert Graham Hoebeg with a Punch Serie D’Oro no.1 to finish off the day and here we are on Friday was spent planning our next cigar auction which has now been arranged for the 11th July at Boisdale Canary Wharf starting with a whisky and cigar tasting, followed by champagne reception and cigar auction on the smoking terrace.

Full details to follow together with bidder registration on our dedicated cigar auction website.Lots being accepted now but please – nothing that has been brought back from Cuba and bought on the beach! and nothing that is not Cuban as our auctions are for Cuban cigars only. Limited editions that are discontinued, mature, vintage,pre embargo, Davidoff and Dunhill- all welcomed.

I’m off to smoke another Punch SDO No. 1 🙂

Have a great weekend.

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

With fuel prices at an all time high in the UK I can’t help but think that the Chancellor is unlikely to increase tax/duties on petrol and diesel in this week’s budget, not unless he wants a tanker drivers’ strike again or riots in the streets which makes me think the Government have to raise taxation somewhere else and no doubt the easiest way is to clobber the smoker and wham up taxes on all tobacco in order to support our health service (odd situation if ever there was one)

Can’t say I’m bothered about cigarettes as we don’t sell them online and only do the specialist lines and herbal smokes in our retail shops but sadly cigar smoking gets tarred with the same brush as cigarette smokers despite the fact that a good premium handmade cigar once in while is more likely to benefit you with its calming and de-stressing rather than damage your health

So you have been warned in advance ☺ order a top up of cigars at pre budget prices whilst you can. We will try and hold off price increases as long as possible, in fact we never even increased our prices after the VAT increase of 2.5% and whilst cigars may be a luxury product unfortunately they are not a luxury margin product so the prices are going one way-up and soon. Top up the humidors and beat the budget!

I’m looking forward to an great evening at Boisdale Belgravia on Monday where we will be enjoying El Rey del Mundo Orchant Seleccion Tainos and Bolivar Royal Orchant Seleccion Royal Coronas matched up with some great single malt from Singleton of Dufftown. Looking forward to seeing some old friend and making some new friends at my favourite cigar friendly venue in London.

Have a smokey week

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Smokey greetings from sunny London 🙂

New releases finally confirmed for this year by our importers Hunters and Frankau

New lines….

Partagas Serie E No.2 5½” length and 54 ring gauge in 5’s and 25’s due May/June

Partagas Serie D No.5 43/8” length and 50 ring gauge in 10’s and 25’s due October/November

H Upmann Half Coronas 3½” length and 44 ring gauge in packs of 4 due July and boxes of 25 in November

Limited editions….

Cohiba 1966 LE 6½” length and 52 ring gauge in boxes of 10

Hoyo Short Piramides LE 5 1/3” length and 46 ring gauge in boxes of 10

Ramon Allones Allones LE Extra 5 5/8” length and 44 ring gauge with old style bands in boxes of 25

Gran Reserva 2011….

Montecristo Gran Reserva 2011

In boxes of 15 due 6 1/8” length and 52 ring gauge September/October

UK regional editions…..

Bolivar Britanicas 5 3/8” length and 46 ring gauge in boxes of 10 due June/July

Punch Medalla de Oro 6 1/8” length and 50 ring gauge in boxes of 10 due November / December

…and yes we are still waiting for the Flor de Cano UK regional 2010 which we expect before June with any luck!

So loads of potentially great new cigars due to be released this year !

As was say at C.Gars Ltd ‘smoke less but some the best – EMS – English Market Selection’

Have a great week

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Just another crazy busy week in the life of a cigar merchant!

On Monday I had a long but lovely drive to our Norfolk offices and warehouse in blazing sunshine, even had the roof off for the last half hour as I herfed my way through a delicious Vegas Robaina Unicos.

Marketing Director Laura Graham smoked her way delicately through a couple of Upmann Corona Juniors whilst I continued my Robaina sampling with a Famosos. I reckon Vegas Robaina are underrated and interest in the brand is going to increase a great deal this year. Many of the range are well matured and quite delightful complex Havanas. Checkout the range, try them and see if I’m wrong. I am so confident that I will give your money back if you disagree!

Our Norfolk offices must have the youngest Team out of our whole group – they all look about 12 years old to me ( I’m getting old!) but wow – are they switched on and enthusiastic, very impressive indeed.

Tuesday (happy pancake day – there goes my diet again) was some serious office herfing ( Robaina Unicos again !) with friends followed by dinner herf at the Lanesborough, smoked salmon, Chablis and Punch Serie D’Oro no.1, my idea of a perfect combo 🙂

Wednesday and a quick sampling session of Ramon Allones Specially Selected with Simon Chase at Hunters and Frankau, a good mature cabinet selection that was a delightful smoke. Took another one form the drive back to the office which was just as well as the traffic was a complete nightmare as usual in Town.

Thursday and the new bank manager came to the office to introduce herself 🙂 very nice and not what one would expect of a bank manager, pretty switched on and of course had never seen a cigar business before so it was fun chatting with her about the trade. Sadly I don’t think I’ll be converting her into a cigar smoker any time soon but she may tell her friends about C.Gars Ltd !

Friday and finally a ‘quiet’ day in the office to catch up on paperwork. I have finished off the invitation to our Spring Cigar Party celebrating the launch of
Boisdale Canary Wharf and tickets are already selling out fast It will be a night to remember and I’m looking forward to it immensely. Still deciding which ‘Orchant Seleccion’ Havanas to smoke on the evening but I reckon it will be something nice and mature…English Market Selection of course.
Finally, if you want to try something a little different and non Cuban, give these a shot there actually a pretty decent smoke indeed!

Have a smokey weekend.

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell