DATE ARCHIVES : March 2026

Dominique London Pall Mall Store Now Open! Romeo y Julieta Cigars and Oliva Serie G Belicoso

Hello everyone, I hope you are enjoying the beautiful British weather? I has been all over the place recently!

Monday was slightly different for me. First, the team and I got through all of the online orders – The team work has been second to none and everyone has been helping everywhere! Afterwards,  I became a teacher again – I am going to be away from Monday next week and so I need Lisa to take care of our cigar stock. She is fantastic at everything she does but this is something completely new to her but the bits she has been doing has been correct. So I taught Lisa how to gather the information of all of our out of stock Cuban cigars. Then I showed her what to do with that information. Hopefully we will be able to get your favourite Cuban cigars back, but Cuban cigars have been more difficult to get ahold of but we always try! Afterwards I showed her what we do with cigars that we can no longer get from our suppliers, again she perfected it. 

I also received another press release from the Dominique London Pall Mall store. Dominique London today announces the launch of its stunning S.T. Dupont Le Grand Dupont lighter, you can read it here. I uploaded it immediately as the opening was very soon!

On Tuesday, I focused on uploading articles for the C.Gars cigar library. I’m working through a list of article titles that is designed to be seen on Google searches. This week I wrote two! The first is called Why Robusto Cigars Dominate UK Sales – You can read it here. The second is called Romeo y Julieta Cigars – A Buyer’s Guide to One of Cuba’s Most Famous Brands – You can read it here. As much as I am given these titles, it takes a lot of time to research and then write the article. But I do enjoy it! Afterwards, I completed the finishing touches to the shop newsletters. 

On Wednesday, I started my day with order picking. I noticed a lot of people took advantage of our flash sale, it was a 5+1 on the Oliva Serie G Belicoso Aged Cameroon. It was a fantastic deal, sign up to our newsletters if you want to receive all of our incredible deals. Afterwards I focused on creating the leaflet that goes in my cigar subscriptions. Each subscription gets its own double sided leaflet, this means I have 6 sides to edit, but I have mastered them now. I also worked with my assistant manager Chris on lowering the price of some cigars. It always excites me to lower the price of cigars as usually nothing gets cheaper these days. Keep a look on our website as your favourite cigar may get a price drop.

On Thursday, It was a big day for Dominique London! The Pall Mall Store was finally open! You will find the most amazing cigars, accessories and spirits. I can’t wait to visit there myself. It really is the place to be in London! Here in Norfolk, I was back to being a teacher for Lisa, She practised what she had to do on a Monday. She nailed it perfectly and I am confident that she will stay on top of it whilst I am away. Afterwards, I completed my list of cigars to put on special offer – One the surprised me that I was lowering the price of was the La Galera Maduro Chaveta Robusto, this cigar is surprisingly good if you like a Maduro.

On Friday, it was our quarterly stock count. This is where everyone in our building stops and counts every product in our building. As always Lisa and I were counting cigars, this time though we had the help of 4 other people. Together we counted all of the cigars with plenty of time to pick the whole day’s worth of orders. 

I hope you have enjoyed this weeks goings on. I will be off next week so you will have to wait until the week after. 

So long for now.

Oliver.

New Dominique London Pall Mall Store, Everyday Cigars Explained, Goodbye Drew Estate Acid

Hello C.Gars! I hope you have all had a great week! 

On Monday, we were incredibly busy with online orders. As a team we all got together and picked them all very fast. Afterwards I became a teacher – As my loyal readers will know, I have been doing a lot more computer work since the Norfolk shop closed and I have been loving it. However , I am not going to be working every day and so I need to train someone else to be able to do it whilst I am away on holiday. So I spent time with Lisa, she already knew how to do some of it but there are bits that she finds intimidating and so I walked her through it all – how to create stock reports, how to contact suppliers about products and more. She did a very good job and I am confident she will be able to do it while I’m not around.

On Tuesday, I spent a lot of time creating not one but two articles for the C.Gars cigar library. The first one is called Everyday Cigars Explained – Popular Options UK Smokers Buy Regularly – I feel like this is a great article for those who want to smoke cigars everyday but are afraid of the price tag – You can read it here. The second one is called Cigar Shops in the UK – How to Find Trusted Retailers Near You – This one is a nice generic article about how to find a trusted cigar shop – You can read it here. The brilliant team here took care of online orders but I always like to help where I can. I noticed an interesting order from a customer who purchased some rather special Cuban cigars. He ordered three of each too, which either means he is a great friend to his friends or he knows what he likes and took advantage of our low prices. Either way I’m happy for him.

Wednesday seemed to be a very busy day for me. I started the day by helping the team pick online orders and then afterwards I was making sure all of our stock was online. A few weeks ago I reviewed some cigars that had been out of stock on our website for a while. After speaking with my Yoda Chris, it was decided we must take action, so I contacted all of our suppliers to see if we could get the stock and I also contacted our London Office to see if they had stock of some of the products. I was pleasantly surprised to see that London had some Davidoff Discovery Limited Edition 2022 Gran Toro – This cigar sold very well and to see they had some was very surprising indeed – Get them whilst you can as they have very limited stock! Afterwards I received a very good press release from Dominique London! They have confirmed that our new La Casa del Habano boutique on Pall Mall, in the heart of St James’s, will officially open at 10am on 26 March 2026! This is incredibly exciting as it is the UK’s first Dominique London store! You can read more about it here.

Thursday was stock count day. Lisa and I worked tirelessly to count all of our stock and we did it with plenty of time to spare. Afterwards I received some unfortunate news – Drew Estate have discontinued their Acid range in the UK! This is a massive shame as the Acid Blondie was incredibly popular and in some cases a lot of customers first ever cigar. So if you do enjoy the Acid range from Drew Estate get yours whilst you can! My personal favourite is the Green Candela – I can’t describe the flavour other than sweet, but it was lovely! Maybe I’ll get a few before they all go.

On Friday, After completing all of the online orders I was given a task to consolidate one month’s worth of Cuban out of stock into one handy spreadsheet. This meant going through all my old reports and combining them together, it was tough but I did it in a very good time. Afterwards I re-listed some Chevron cigars. We have always sold the bundles so I thought I would put the singles online to see if they were always wanted as singles. As the singles hadn’t been sold for a while, I had to re-do the pricing on them as the bundles had gone up unfortunately.  

I hope you have enjoyed this weeks going on in Norfolk.

So long for now.

Oliver.

This Woman’s Work

Is This Really a Man’s World?

‘This is a man’s world’, the words vehemently proclaimed by the prolific, enigmatic, culturally defining and captivating ‘Godfather of Soul’, James Joseph Brown.
A powerful, yet controversial statement that outlines the nature of the archetypal society within which many discoveries, developments and accomplishments have been achieved.

Even more commanding than that opening proclamation are the following lyrics that passionately state ‘but it wouldn’t be nothing without a woman or a girl’. In light of International Women’s Day (which in my humble opinion should be celebrated every day) I have decided to share my unpretentious perspective, highlight my appreciation and highlight the crucial and instrumental work being carried out by the great women of the CGars / Dominique London brand.

Yesterday at the St James Street branch of CGars, the company had the honour of hosting a book signing event for the well-renowned and globally celebrated Alexander Groom. The lauded author, researcher and successor to the ‘Cuban Cigar Website’ throne, founded by Trevor Leask, is considered by many within the cigar community to be the leading authority on Havana cigars. His 720-page dissertation, ‘El Habano Moderno: A Collector’s Guide to Cuban Cigars in the Modern Era’, an awe-inspiring body of work, serves as the ‘new-age bible’ for Habanos cigar enthusiasts worldwide. I was fortunate enough to share a brief moment with this ‘legend of the leaf’ and have him sign my own personal copy of his masterpiece publication.

The Woman of The Year.

It was at this event that I had the sincere pleasure of meeting the illustrious, highly decorated cigar expert, first-everHabanos Woman of the Year and founder of Dominique London Ltd, Dominique Gyselinck. A power couple in every sense of the term, the pair exuded an air of majesty and excellence that can be attributed to success — success in business as well as all other integral aspects of life.

I’m not one to mince words so I will just go ahead and say I found her to be a magnificent specimen of the quintessential ‘Boss Lady’. She was elegant, very well presented, stylish, polished and refined with an air of quiet super-confidence. She was far from meek but her comportment, more so than her words, commanded both attention and respect. As a result I paid her the toll of both and it was an honour to offer her the same quality of hospitality that I would extend to CGars customers on her behalf.

As the founder of her brand, she is not only a strategic leader but also a symbol of progressive defiance in a male-dominated industry. That being said, the majority of the employees I met on my travels to the different locations and outlets under the company’s banner were highly motivated, charismatic and influential women. I find it very significant that such an organisation with such a wide reach, that not only survived but flourished during the age of an international pandemic, has at its core a female-dominated workforce that encapsulates the necessity for mutual opportunity and respect between the sexes.

Reflections of a son.

It is by no means a coincidence that I myself was fortunate enough to be raised by a strong enterprising woman who, as well as being the foundation of security and welfare for a legion of family members she left behind in Nigeria in the late 1960s, was able to support my father, a Biafran War veteran and stenographer for General Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, in raising a family of four children.

One of her most impressive accomplishments in my opinion was the success of her own commercial cleaning contractor company, Almo Cleaning Services, that operated as the official cleaning contractor to Lambeth Palace, the formal London residence and administrative headquarters of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Her organisation held this contract and designation for no less than 13 years until her tragic and untimely demise in 2016 in a losing battle with liver cancer. She was however survived by myself and two exceptionally resilient, intelligent and hardworking daughters who embody her legacy.

Before she left this world she imparted her lessons of business management on myself and my partner. Together we continue to honour her memory by adhering to her ethos of decency, morality and hard work being the foundation of a fruitful partnership. It brings me immense joy to see Sadie, the mother of my four children of which three of them are girls, who just recently turned 40, achieving her personal goals, nurturing her children and building an entrepreneurial legacy by fostering a strong enduring culture of accountability and dedicated personal development in our home.

Birds of a feather.

I believe my mother would have greatly admired the likes of Dominique and the rest of the hardworking women of CGars / Dominique London as she would have seen herself and her struggles in these great professionals that remain an integral part of the brand’s success.

I couldn’t help but feel that protective, guiding, motherly energy from so many different women I have had the honour of meeting since becoming a part of this community. Whether it was for the purpose of training or just a genuine natural instinct to want to help me find my way, I’m sure without the excellence and attentiveness of these women, this company wouldn’t be what it is today.

Last thoughts.

It is for this reason that I implore you, all of you reading this humble tribute piece, to celebrate the women of CGars as the cornerstone of this fine company as you enjoy the fruits of their labour. Yes we men are here too, but we would be nothing without our female counterparts to whom we owe an abundance of gratitude.

To the masters of the universe and mere mortals alike, keep your spirits poured, your cigars alight and the continuous appreciation, celebration and liberation of women and their fundamental rights alive.

Joseph Okon

Travel Humidors, Kristoff Cigars, Davidoff Price Drop

Hello everyone! I hope you are keeping well, the weather is brightening up now and we are getting an influx of online orders to enjoy the nicer weather.

Monday was a lot busier than usual, we had a lot of online orders specifically for cigars. It felt nice when we finally completed our order pickings. I certainly enjoyed having the humidor products downstairs in the old shop space. It made picking orders with humidors a lot easier. I noticed a lot of travel humidors were being picked – It would seem like everyone wants their top quality cigars on their holiday (who wouldn’t). Afterwards I created a Cuban cigar order, our stock levels are quite good, a few favourites are out of stock but overall we are doing well. 

On Tuesday, I spent some time writing a new article for the C.Gars cigar library – It’s called Montecristo Cigars: Prices, Formats & What UK Smokers Need to Know – You can read it here. I also spent some time speaking to our SEO specialist to see how we can improve the cigar library software that we use. Currently it’s in a bit of a trial mode as I use it the most, I tend to find out the bugs in the system. However, he has assured me he is working on it for me. Afterwards, I planned my cigar subscriptions. It’s difficult to decide what cigars to use each month as I like to keep it different. Personally I like to try different things and I’d like to think my subscribers feel the same and so when I put something out of the ordinary in there, it’s great to see some good feedback. I also noticed a new cigar selection from Kristoff, It’s a fabulous little box of 8 Robustos. It’s called the Kristoff Robusto Sampler Pack, make sure you get yours now.

Wednesday, Lisa and I decided to do a stock count. You will see why in a moment. Together we started on the Cuban cigars before moving to the New Worlds. I also noted a few brands that have been overlooked and passed them onto our brilliant marketing team, hopefully you’ll see a few on our newsletters and want to give them a go. 

On Thursday, we were slightly short staffed due to some of our management team being on a training course. Once I completed the online orders, I opened a very large delivery of Kristoff cigars! I was very happy to see it but also overwhelmed as to where I would put it! However, I made a space and luckily they all (just about) fitted in our humidor. Afterwards, I looked at our out of stock list going back to last year! This will be where our suppliers haven’t been able to get the stock but we don’t want to take the product offline. I made a large list and asked Chris, if it is worth speaking to our suppliers to see if they have any stock at all or taking some offline. Later in the day, Chris gave me another job of going through a spreadsheet and judging if some products should be on offer. These will be under-performing cigars by the numbers (this doesn’t mean they are bad cigars, as there could be a variety of reasons) that might need a little push in the right direction with a lower price. My favourite price drop so far is the Davidoff Grand Cru Diademas Finas Limited Edition 2024 – I was able to take £13 off the full price! Make sure you check it out as I will be reviewing them next month! 

On Friday, I had a training session about effective communication. I certainly took a lot from our session and will be using it going forward. Afterwards, I helped pick online orders and carried on with my spreadsheet. As you may have noticed, I have been doing a lot more computer work, the truth is I love it! I have been on computers for as long as I can remember and so this is second nature to me.

I hope you have all enjoyed this weeks goings on.

So long for now.

Oliver