Well TGIF as its been a crazy busy week- as ever 🙂

A spot of dinner with Ranald Macdonald of Boisdale on Monday with a bit of a rum and cigar tasting session in readiness for our official launch of 18 year old Vigia rum

C.Gars Ltd are the official UK importer for this incredible rum which is only available in very limited quantity. If you enjoy Cuban rum…. Vigia 18 is THE best and a perfect partner to a good Havana cigar.

I had a rather lengthy business lunch with a fellow cigar merchant at my favourite hangout Boisdale yesterday and by the 3rd bottle of wine and 4th cigar we were quite certain of our plans for total domination of the UK cigar trade…we must have been drunk as we already dominate the trade 🙂

Our Summer Cigar Auction is confirmed for June 21st on the Cigar Terrace at Boisdale Belgravia and we’re looking forward to the auction being as successful as our December auction but hopefully a lot warmer!

We expect to have over 150 Lots of aged, rare and vintage Havana cigars on offer with Brian Ebbesen (ex Christies cigar and wine department) conducting the auction in his inimitable style!

There will be a Champagne and canapé reception from 6 – 7 PM where we will be enjoying some of the finest English Market Selection UK regional edition Havana cigars

The Auction will commence at 7PM prompt. Bidders will need to register for the event. Sellers should contact Brian or myself at [email protected]

As ever my thanks to Ranald and Boisdale for their kind support and encouragement.

It’s been a smoky week at the offices where I have had the great pleasure of taste testing some rather delicious 1970’s Davidoff Chateau Margaux stored perfectly over the years these fine vintage Havanas are smooth and well balanced with a richness only found in the Chateau series.

If you haven’t already bought my book I’m afraid you had better hurry as they are selling out fast! perfect when you are smoking a Havana !

Have a smokey weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Well this was a nice surprise 🙂

Check out http://nwsix.wordpress.com/

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

The UK regional edition Por Larranaga Magnificos was one of the fastest sell outs we ever saw for a box of 25 cigars. Possibly as only 408 numbered boxes were made which is a teeny quantity.

These splendid cigars are a remake of the legendary Por Larranaga Magnum of the 1970’s and the Magnificos are destined to become a classic

The perfect day time smoke, balanced and complex with probably the most beautiful band I have ever seen on a cigar.

I’m delighted to be able to offer my clients our last few boxes date codes November 2008 and with exceptionally low numbers. Check them out on this link

I had a rather long lunch at Boisdale in Belgravia, my favourite cigar friendly restaurant yesterday. Always great service and a friendly crowd on the cigar terrace. Drank way too much Malbec with Partagas Serie P No. 2’s back to back. Tough day and all that. Check out Boisdale

This week we start planning our June Vintage Cigar Auction and begin to accept entries. If last Decembers auction is anything to go by, this will be another successful and fun evening. Email me if you would like any details [email protected]. I’ll start to build the web pages next week.

Laura and Karyns gift business seems to be getting busier by the day http://www.greatgiftsetc.co.uk/ Well done Girls 🙂

Have a smokey weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

The gala dinner was a celebration of the Cohiba brand and was attended by over 1000 people at Pabexo. We were entertained by fabulous singers and dancers, and most importantly a splendid line up of cigars including:

Cohiba Secretos
Cohiba Corona Especiales
Cohiba Siglo VI
Cohiba Behikes 56

The BHK was of course the star of the show and did not disappoint. A symphony of flavours on the palate 🙂 Can’t wait for these cigars to be released in their beautiful presentation boxes of 10 cigars with the unique and beautiful holographic bands.

Our table (Stuart and Rob Fox, Laurence Davis, Johnny Berman,Paul Gilmour and David Lewis ) attempted bidding at the auction as a consortium but sadly ( or maybe not!) we were not successful !

Simon Chase conducted the auction in his inimitable manner and it was a great success. The results were:

Lot 1 – H Upmann humidor

Containing 25 each:
Magnum 46
Magnum 50
Sir Winston
No.2
No.1
Noellas
Robustos
Magnum 48
Grandes
Sold 55,000 Euros

Lot 2 – Hoyo
Containing 25 each
Epicure Especial
Epicure no.2
Epicure no.1
Piramides
Double Coronas
Extravaganzas
Particulares
Gran Piramides
Sold – 100,000 Euros

Lot 3 – Romeo
Containing 25 each:
Churchills
Short Churchills
Exhibition no3
Exhibition no.2
Exhibition no.4
Julietas (50 of this new cigar)
Wide Churchills
Romeos
Hermosos no.2
Fabulosos no.6
Sold 75,000 Euros

Lot no 4 – Partagas
Containing 26 each
Salamones
Serie P no.2
898
Serie D no.4
Lusitanias
Serie D Especial
Serie P no.1
Sobrasalientes
Gran Piramides
Sold – 65,000 Euros

Lot 5 – Montecristo
Containing 25 each
A
Petit Edmundo
No.2
Eagle
Master
Regata
Edmundo
No.4
Gran Edmundo
Double coronas
Maravillas no1
Sold- 110,000

Lot 6 – Cohiba
Containing
25 BHK 52
25 BHK 54
25 BHK 56
25 Secretos
25 Siglo II
25 Siglo IV
25 Robustos
25 Esplendidos
25 Lanceros
10 Gran Reserva
25 Piramides
10 Sublimes Extra
20 Robusto Especial
Sold- 400,000 Euros

Well done Simon

Back to the terrace at the Nacional – drinks and smokes till 4 a.m. and the crowd was still going strong when I said goodnight!

Saludos from cloudy Havana

For more photos click here

Mitchell

Greetings from cool Havana…. sadly that’s cool in temperature in Havana as it’s been rather wet, windy and not so warm since I arrived on Wednesday evening.

Around 1000 cigar aficionados, distributors and cigar merchants are attending the 2010 Festival del Habanos this week and there’s a fabulous atmosphere as well as a lot of anticipation and excitement for the release of the Cohiba Behikes that is due to be launched at the gala dinner tomorrow evening.

Whilst the BHK line will be a regular line, it will have a limited annual production so basically, when they are gone – that’s it for the year. I think that makes them a candidate for laying down, maturing and collecting and many of my clients are already making 10 year plans for laying down a quantity of BHK’s annually.

The BHK’s have a different blend to the 40th anniversary Behikes (aged 5 years) as well as an extra Medio tempo filler leaf which will give the cigar a very distinct flavour characteristic as this is a dark leaf from the top of the plant.

I joined the Hunters and Frankau group today visiting the La Corona factory and the El Laguito factory where we saw the Behikes or “BHK’s” being rolled. H&F have an enthusiastic crowd of UK cigar merchants which may be one of the reasons why the UK market for Havana sales was one of the most successful in the world in 2009

We enjoyed coffee and Cohiba robustos with factory Director Arnaldo at the Cohiba factory and Eduardo kindly took us on a tour around the factory. I even bumped into Norma, the lady responsible for rolling all the Cohiba 40th anniversary Behikes.

The trade fair at the Convention Centre was exceptionally busy today and I was delighted to find some excellent 1919 cigar magazines as well as 1970’s brand catalogues. Also found a 1956-1958 cigar reference book and some splendid 1950’s cigar cabinets.

I attended the aged cigar blind testing. The cigar was a Romeo Exhibition No.3 and it was easy to guess which numbered cigar was the aged example and which was the recent production example. The panel included Simon Chase of H & F and Colin Ganley of European Cigar Cult Journal.

After a busy morning I herfed at the Melia Habana LCDH, smoking a custom blend “Maravillas” rolled by Yolanda and had a few shots of Vigia 18…. a perfect combo

This evening I went to a cocktail reception at Club 18/30 hosted by Boisdale and smoked a Montecristo Double Corona from the antique replica humidor which can only be described as incredible

Staying at the Hotel Nacional as usual as it’s the best meeting place in Havana for the cigar crowd. Looking forward to the Gala dinner tomorrow!

Some great photo’s to follow as soon as the connection is fast enough to download them!

Saludos from Havana

Mitchell