I think I have enjoyed this year and this particular Christmas season more than any in my memory. Simple reason is that more people seem to be enjoying a good stogie and a wee dram than ever. To forget recession? to give that “feel good factor” at home? yes probably both and add to that the favorable exchange rate, the quality assurance of English Market Selection cigars and we now know why we are busier than ever 🙂

This seasons best sellers have been the fabulous cigar cases. Beautiful presentation, first rate cigars and limited edition. It was obvious to me that these would be very popular from the start. My personal favorite is the Cohiba Siglo VI case. Here’s a link to the whole list of gift best sellers Christmas Gift Best Sellers

The years success story has been the exclusive UK regional edition cigars of 08 and 09. The release timing may have been a bit ‘all over the show’ but there is no denying these are excellent cigars. I think the Punch Serie D’Oro No.1 are likely to be sold out fairly soon.

El Rey 2009

Juan Lopez 2009

Punch 2008

La Gloria Cubana 2008

Our best selling whiskies have been our award winning independent bottlings (no surprise!) so if you enjoy a single malt with a good cigar you will, be hard pressed to find a better match.

At this time Robert Graham cigar and whisky stores are operating in Glasgow, Edinburgh Rose Street, Edinburgh Royal Mile, Edinburgh Highland Village on East Princes Street and Broadhurst gardens, West Hampstead in London. All of our shops have a great range of Havanas, Whisky and Chocolate

Turmeaus Tobacconist shops in Chester and Liverpool have enormous ranges of Havana cigars as well as pipes and pipe tobaccos. Contact details on this link and if you are visiting Dublin, please be sure to stop by the Decent Cigar Emporium on Grafton street… the best place to buy your Havanas and other fine cigars in Ireland

I’m off to Robert Graham Ltd in Scotland for a few days to check out our new stores and leaving C.Gars Ltd in the capable hands of Mishie and Laura and their sales team. Looking forward to seeing friends old and new in Scotland and then back to London for Christmas 🙂

Happy Chanukah and peaceful puffing to all

Best

Mitchell

Our first auction was held at Boisdale in Belgravia and was a resounding success.

The auction was conducted by Brian Ebbesen (previously of Christies) on the splendid cigar terrace (so cigar smoking was allowed if not actively encouraged!) at Boisdale in Belgravia

Despite the cold weather, the heaters kept the auction bidders warm enough to keep raising their paddles to bid

Around 50 bidders attended the event and enjoyed UK exclusive regional edition El Rey del Mundo Choix de L’Epoque and Hoyo Epicure no.2’s (finest English Market Selection of course)

Lots were sold to commission bidders from all over the world

Many Lots sold for bargain prices whilst other mouth watering Lots sold for… mouth watering prices including:

Cubatobacco 1492 £16,000

Hoyo limited edition humidor £3,600

Punch Presidentes jar £2300

Davidoff Chateau Latour £1850

Dunhill Atados £1450

Partagas Selection Suprema no.154 £3200

Por Larranaga Dunhill Selection no.33 £3700

Bolivar Corona Grandes £3,600

Dinner at Boisdale for 24 guests after the auction was a delight and we enjoyed the company of Jemma Freeman and Simon Chase of Hunters and Frankau, Albert Stagnetto from the famous Gibraltar cigar merchants, Simon Speller owner of the splendid Simply Cigars cigar merchant, Edward Sahakian from Davidoff of London amongst other friends.

We are now planning our next auction for June 2010 Buyers and sellers welcome to register with us by emailing [email protected]

My thanks to Brian Ebbesen for conducting the auction as well as my sales team, Michelle, Marci and Eli for all their help organizing the event

Finally many thanks to Ranald Macdonald, Nathan and his team at Boisdale for allowing us to use the cigar terrace and for all their support for our event.

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell Orchant

Photographs by Tillmann Pretscher (www.pretscher.com)

Arrived back from Havana on Monday and went straight to the office for a sip of rum and a BBF….. no reason to stop the party 🙂

Seems I beat jet lag for the first time this year which was just as well as we completed on our new London shop (Whisky and Cigars by Robert Graham) and I needed to have my head straight to deal with the builders who I can now confirm have started and yes …we have a floor! Well that’s a good start at least. If all goes to plan, we will open on Thursday. I’ll pop some photos on the website as soon as we have the shop merchandised. I’m planning on opening till 8 every night as I don’t think there is any cigar specialist in London where you can buy your boxes of Havanas from in the evenings. Oh! and we will be open Sundays as well 🙂

Also opening on Thursday at The Treasurer by Robert Graham – 254 Canongate Edinburgh (Royal Mile) worth a visit if you are in the area as we will have a mouth watering selection of product.

Sorting through some of the old photos and price lists in our collection last week it was great to dig out a pre war Robert Graham catalogue of Havana cigars and hand made chocolates! I’ll get some scans done and put on the website, it’s pretty cool.

And we are now open (till the start of next year) at the Edinburgh Highland Village drop by for some whisky infused hot chocolate 🙂

Had a very late night last Wednesday at Boisdale with my friend Jay from the US who popped over for a quick smoke and a dram or two and my partner Ron Morrison (the whisky connoisseur) The smoking terrace was packed till closing time and I think the restaurant was too, this has to be one of the most successful venues in London and it deserves to be, great food (at reasonable prices) splendid scotch and its cigar friendly who could ask for more?

Hmmm… losing count of all the locations we are trading in…. does that make us the biggest cigar retailer in the UK ? by trading units? I think so…. by value? …I think so…. by volume? …I think so. Hey, I could be wrong but I reckon we are the largest Cigar merchant in the UK ! I guess there has to be a reason (or a few reasons) why more cigar aficionados prefer C.Gars Ltd and Robert Graham Ltd.

Cigars seem to be a booming industry in the UK, maybe I’ll open more retail stores in some other busy locations in 2010, I’m having great fun developing different retail concepts with Ron

Christmas season seems to have suddenly started with an upsurge in orders that is quite staggering, I sometimes wonder how everyone decides to order on the same day?! Our London office/warehouse is so full of stock I don’t think we could squeeze another item in! Michelle has 6 girls in her team this year and expects to have 100% order fulfillment on time this year.

Karyn and Laura are busier than busy with their new website Great Gifts and I have been “told” to mention the new puppet toys that have just arrived in stock 🙂

This Tuesday evening the C.Gars Ltd auction will be held at Boisdale from 7 p.m and it already looks like it will be a great success. There are a variety of different Lots from the rarest of the rare to some more recent limited editions. The C.Gars sales team are looking forward to the event and very pleased to be having famous ex Christies auctioneer Brian Ebbesen conducting the auction.

So Mish and I are at the office Sunday preparing the commission bids for the auction and Lotting up the final boxes of cigars, it could be a long day!

Have a wonderful weekend.

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

This blog comes to you from the Hotel Nacional in sunny Havana where I have been enjoying the annual Partagas Festival week.

I decided to take a bunch of friends to meet Alejandro Robaina on Thursday (with the kind assistance of my friend Amir) but thought as we are travelling quite a distance we would also take in The Indian Caves, Viniales and a few other stops on the way…. it was a long day but with a comfortable minibus and a few bottles of Santiago rum in the bus as well as some great smokes, a great day was had by all. I have some great photos for the website in a couple of days time.

Robaina seemed to be in good spirits considering he is over 90 and as he lit up a rough looking little cigar that looked like he had just bunched it, he quipped that he is “proof that you live a long life if you smoke Havana cigars”!

Friday morning we had the pleasure of a tour of El Laguito where we saw a great deal of Cohiba Robustos and Siglo VI being rolled as well as various other vitolas. Note that code LBT NOV 09 is El Laguito 🙂

The gala dinner was held at the Habana Libre Hotel (Havana Hilton before the Revolution) and it was the best event I have attended in the last 10 years, The entertainment was splendid and the cigars rolled by La China plentiful and quite beautiful (photos to follow as soon as I get back to London) The charity auction raised over 30,000 C.U.C’s and the event was attended by over 300 Friends of Partagas.

The “Amigos de Partagas” were called to the stage to receive goodie bags which included a book of memories from past Festivals. I counted 5 photos of me! (glad I never wore the same jacket twice!)

The Italian contingent was plentiful as usual and it was great to see Massimo, Francesco and friends. Simon Chase from Hunters and Frankau, Ajay Patel from LCDH London and me of course were happy to represent the UK Havana cigar trade. Jemma Freeman and Edward Sahakian of Davidoff were also in Havana for the earlier part of the Festival week.

No sign of any unusual cigars in the stores and HC15 rum seems to have gone up in price to 150 C.U.C’s ! but I still enjoyed hefing in 5th Avenue LCDH, Partagas and the Robaina shop at the Melia Habana. Jemma gave me a UK exclusive Juan Lopez Seleccion Suprema to try ” in Havana” and it was sublime truly a great smoke that I believe will mature into a classic.

Last night in Havana and I’m off to the Jazz Cafe, cigar friendly of course. It may be a communist country but smoking indoors seems so civilized!

Peaceful puffing

Saludos

Mitchell

Humidor photos courtesy of Eric Rigori

After a days herfing in Scotland with my partner Ron on Monday,it was good to relax in the London office for a few days and get in shape for what turned out to be a bit of a marathon herf in Nottingham on Thursday/Friday!

At the kind invitation of one of my clients (now a firm friend!) I zoomed up the M1 smoking a Diplomaticos no.2 on Thursday morning. Met up with my client and checked out his fabulous collection of Havanas. He noticed that I was paying a lot of attention to some old Monte 2’s and promptly told me to grab a handful and we’d smoke them after lunch. Needless to say I didn’t need telling twice! (TY AS)

Off we went to lunch at the delightful Harts restaurant Slick service, chic decor, delicious food accompanied by a 2007 Sancerre and followed by a cheeky Pomerol 2003.Perfect. Highly recommended

But where to smoke after lunch? Easy said my friend,the lovely Harts Hotel is cigar friendly and set us up with a lovely (and comfortable) outdoor covered and heated smoking area.

We sampled a few goodies including Diplomaticos no.2’s Bolivar Belicosos, Monte Edmundos and Punch Serie D’Oro no.1 and yes you guessed it, the Punch was the big winner (every time!)

Friends joined us over the rest of the afternoon and quite a few more smokes and bottles of that cheeky red were put away 🙂

By 9 pm we thought we had better have some dinner and The World Service was just a short walk away. Another thoroughly excellent choice of restaurant that I would highly recommend.

I think we were all kind of herfed out at midnight so a quick gift of a Cohiba Gran Reserva to my friend ended the evening in style.

Great to see old friends and new in Nottingham and I look forward to coming back again in the future.

Laura, Karyn and Mish have worked ridiculously hard on their new website and I’m terribly proud of them. Do check it out Great Gifts. Any constructive criticism always welcomed.

Christmas season is upon us and our retail cigar and whisky stores seem to be busier by the day. Edinburgh Rose street had a madly busy few days as they had a fabulous roller from the El Laguito factory rolling custom blends. Always popular with the customers. I never even got to try one as they all sold out!

The auction catalogues are printed now and looking pretty cool if I do say so myself 🙂 You can view ( and bid) on Lots online or come to Boisdale for the actual auction on the 1st December

Well that’s all the news for now except to say I’m off to Havana next week for the annual Partagas Festival 🙂 this one should be the best ever. The gala dinner is at the Habana Libre Hotel and I’m looking forward to seeing friends from all over the world in sunny Havana

Have a great weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell