Blog greetings from gloomy London… what happened to summer?!

At least it was warm and dry on the Boisdale cigar terrace in Belgravia on Tuesday evening where I herfed with Brian, Zaff, Chris and Craig- steadily blasting through a humipouch full of piramides 🙂 still the best spot for a smoke in London (well – I am biased but its certainly one of the best spots!)

Our West Hampstead shop finally had its finishing touches this week including a comfortable outdoor smoking area – plants and tables and chairs as well as great big cigar ashtrays and yes its covered so you can even smoke in the rain 🙂 (or you can sample/smoke inside the shop with pleasure). I’ll shoot some photos and add them to the blog in the next day or two. So finally I have indoor and outdoor smoking areas in London !

Our business has always sold tons of Cuban rum and I am often asked’ what’s the best?’ well…. the answer is simple: Vigia 18 year old Cuban rum is THE best. We are the sole UK distributor so I have to say that! but its is indeed the truth and having drunk my way across Cuba for the last 14 years I am exceptionally qualifies in matters of rum drinking 🙂 Try some,you won’t be disappointed as it compliments a Cuban cigar to perfection.

Our next most popular enquiry is what cutter should I use? Another easy one: Palio. I have been using Palio cutters forever. The style and design is perfect (slips in your jacket pocket and its light) and most important of all- it’s sharp and I mean very sharp. No snags to the cigar head just a clean cut. C.Gars Ltd are sole distributors of Palio products in Europe and they are highly recommended. Oh and the cutter come in a neat little pouch too 🙂

This week I have been totally hooked to Vegas Robaina Unicos initially as a change to my usual Partagas P2’s, Montecristo No. 2’s, Bolivar Belicosos and the fabbie Punch Serie D’Oro no.1 (get the picture of my favourite sizes/shapes?!) but it looks like these are now on my rotation.

Unicos are full flavour and medium strength but they have a sweetness that I don’t experience with the other cigars mentioned. The flavour is unique to the brand and having smoked some 20 Unicos this week from 4 different boxes I can confirm that the blend is absolutely consistent and complex. So yes – I know its not a sexy recommendation but the fact remains these are a seriously great smoke.

Aged recommendation of the week Punch 1960’s Air France case great value vintage cigars.

Something sexy? Check out this beauty sold at our last auction – would you like one to try? or perhaps like a full beautiful humidor? drop me an email 😉

So another week done and I’m off home with the company of some UK regionals for the weekend El Rey del Mundo Choix De L’Epoque for the mornings and Punch Serie D’Oro no.1 for the afternoons/evenings ….with some Vigia rum of course – you have been tipped off!

Have a great weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

New cigar releases are almost monthly this year and the latest if the enormous Romeo y Julieta Wide Churchill which came out this week (available in 10’s and 25’s as well as singles) I tried this cigar in Havana in February and whilst impressed with it wondered how popular a cigar of this size would be? I need not have worried as they have been selling like crazy since they arrived.

Tested the Wide Churchills out whilst herfing with friends at the Lanesborough cigar terrace one evening and was not disappointed. Matched up with a few bottles of Tattinger Rose, some good food and the best of company – this could become one of our regular herfing smokes ☺

I zipped over to La Casa del Habano – Hamburg for lunch with Christoph on Tuesday as I wanted to try out the German regional edition Ramon Allones. But we had sold out! Unbelievable – hoping for more to arrive any time now and that gives me a good excuse to go back to our, lovely Hamburg store.

2010 UK regional Por Larranaga Regalios de Londres expected in the next 6-8 weeks and the Flor de Cano we are all waiting for is not likely to make an appearance till much later in the year.

Busy weeks herfing in the London office with friend from New York popping in on Thursday and friend from Texas on Friday – the house champagne was going down fast and well matched up with Cohiba BHK 54’s 🙂 Looks like Cohiba Behikes are more or less unavailable now and never really reached the rest of the world (or not yet as far as we can tell) we are hoping the UK market will get a further allocation in August. We have a few sticks stashed away if you haven’t tried these incredible smokes yet, you are really missing out!

Just heard that James Suckling has retired from Cigar Aficionado last week. I like James and I thought his style of writing about Havanas really developed over the years. For me, James really was ‘The’ Cigar Aficionado – enthusiastic and passionate about Cuba and Cuban cigars. I wish him well and am sure the cigar world has not heard the last from him.

Just read that Cubatabaco lost the appeal case in the USA regarding the Cohiba brand dispute with General cigar co and this coincided well with a few of my clients asking me ‘what will happen when the embargo ends’ so as well as my stock answer of ‘I honestly don’t know’ I think it’s safe to say that the trademark/brand disputes for just about all but the new brands should keep the lawyers and the court systems busy for some years to come.

Have a smokey weekend.

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Time to drool over some Havanas- take a look at the photo’s below 🙂 we’ve been specializing in Vintage Havanas for many years and built up quite a substantial Directors Reserve. Carefully and slowly maturing the cigars and releasing some of them for sale from time to time.

Most of our aged and rare Havanas are never advertised on our website for sale as it would be hard to cope with the demand of a massive client base when we have say between 1 and 5 boxes only available. Who do we upset ?

So we like to match smokers with the cigars of their dreams. Sometimes this requires some time and patience but generally over a reasonable amount of time we come across or source most cigars you can think or should I say dream of. Feel free to email me your wish list – I may just surprise you.

If you would like to be kept up to date with details of our vintage cigars, auctions and news you need to subscribe to our weekly email newsletter  [email protected]

For those of you that wish to sell, we do offer a free valuation service and being experts in these types of cigars we are usually right on the prices as we have so much experience buying and selling. Word of caution though, we are not interested in recent production Havanas just brought back from Cuba! Or glass top Cohiba Esplendidos!

Tip of the week El Rey del Mundo Tainos –  a most delicate and sophisticated Churchill sized cigar.. In fact one for the connoisseur and my favourite Churchill for as long as I can remember.

We are planning the next Orchant Seleccion release with Hunters and Frankau with these wonderful mature Havanas. This will be a very strictly limited edition of just 64 numbered and signed boxes with double banded cigars. It would be a good idea to email me if you want to be put on the pre order waiting list. [email protected]

I have been firmly stuck in the loop of UK regional Punch Serie D’Oro no. 1 and Partagas Serie P no.2  for the last week. I smoked so many I was just waiting for one to disappoint but not one cigar fell short of a great smoke, perfect construction and great appearance.

Last week I took the Squeezy jet up to Scotland and checked out our Robert Graham stores in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Now these are cool places to find the finest single malts, Cuban rums, Havana cigars and some delicious chocolate. I had to have a thorough sampling session obviously and as I have almost reached my target weight on my diet I thought- why not ? 🙂 Do I have the best job or what?!  Treat yourself to a dram of my cigar malt –  This should be an award winner, it’s just perfect with a good full flavoured Havana

Next week I’m off to our La Casa del Habano in Hamburg  and looking forward to a little herfing time with Christoph is our lovely cigar lounge – could be worse !

Have a sunny weekend…  if it stays this warm it will be garden herfing for the next few days !

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Took a trip up North to my Turmeaus Tobacconist shops in Chester and Liverpool yesterday. Embarrassed to say its only my second trip up North this year but to be honest our retail Team does a better job without me around so I thought best to stay away 🙂

As I spent the day sampling Havanas (well Punch Serie D’Oro no.1 – 4 in fact back to back!) it made me think how sad it is that there are so few specialists cigar retailers around these days.

Clearly the demand is there, as both shops were a hive of bizziness with customers coming and going all day as well as enjoying the fact that they can sampler cigars and pipe tobacco on the premises.

It was particularly nice to hear so many customers commenting on how great it was to be able to sample a cigar instore. The smoking ban whilst annoying has been fabulous for business. I think it’s a bit like Prohibition- tell the person you can’t do this or that and they just want to do it more. So my thanks to the last stupid government and ….good riddance.

Managed to find some golden oldies stashed in the humidor including Por Larranaga Magnificos and Bolivar Centenary Royal Coronas and Belicosos Finos — yummmmmmm

Laura and her team are busy moving in to their new purpose built offices in Norfolk and we hope to stock the office up with all best selling Havanas during July which no doubt will be welcomed by our clients in Norfolk who are welcome to collect their cigar orders

I’m looking forward to heading up to our Robert Graham cigar and whisky stores in Glasgow and Edinburgh next week as I understand we are doing a special on a rather delish single malt this month check it out whilst stocks last – great with a Havana cigar

Have a great weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Our Vintage Cigar Auction held in London last week was a great success. Thanks to all our bidders. James Suckling did a great article on Cigar Aficionado website

We had a great crowd at the fabulous Boisdale cigar terrace including Jemma Freeman and Simon Chase from Hunters and Frankau, Edward Sahakian from Davidoff, Adrian Leslie from Cigars Unlimited, Ajay Patel from La Casa del Habano as well as many bidders from the UK and overseas.

Our VIP dinner at Boisdale was a delight as always and my thanks to Ranald and his team for all their kind support

To say the last week was the busiest week so far this year is an understatement! our offices have been crammed with clients and friends inspecting auction cigars and the lucky winners – collecting cigars.

We have been offering our usual hospitality of copious quantities of our delicious house champagne as well as mountains of smoked salmon sandwiches, snacks of course plenty of cigars to sample. Indeed not all cigar merchants are the same !

We are aiming to settle with all auction sellers early next week unlike other auctioneers who I understand can take substantially longer !

Last night I had dinner with clients at the Ritz Club Casino (has to be one the finest restaurants in London) and found out they have a fabulous terrace for cigar smoking (as long as the weathers good!)

Our London cigar and whisky shop is now larger than ever as we bought the shop next door and we have added more tables and chairs and very large ashtrays for cigars smokers to enjoy an outdoor smoke whilst the weather so nice. Shoot me an email if you plan on visiting as my office is only round the corner so I can always pop over for a sampling session 🙂

Whisky and Cigars
by Robert Graham Ltd
4 Broadwell Parade
Broadhurst Gardens
London
NW6 3BQ
Tel: 0207 624 3351

I’m making a few more custom blend Havanas available , recently rolled at our London offices. Maximum 10 cigars per order – sorry!

Lots of requests for the 2010 UK regionals but I’m sorry to say you will have to be patient till around September when we expect them to be released- they will be worth the wait 🙂

Have a great weekend.

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Thanks to Tillmann U. Pretscher for the photographs – http://www.pretscher.com/