Is it the weekend again? Good grief last week flew by or perhaps it was me flying all over my empire that made the week go so fast:-)

My travels included a visit to our associates in Dublin, The Decent Cigar Emporium,undoubtedly the best Havana cigar merchant in Ireland. The owner Guy Hancock always seems to have some interesting/unusual cigars in his selection ( largest selection in Ireland ) and we enjoyed a few of the Baltic regional edition El Rey Del Mundo Vikingos which were simply incredible smokes.

Decent Cigar Emporium
46 Grafton Street
Dublin 2
IRELAND
Tel: +353 (1) 671 6451
Fax: +353 (1) 671 6451

Lunch was at Georges Bistro which has onw of the the best smoking terrace areas I have ever seen. Heated,waterproof ( although it was in fact a glorious sunny day) and comfortable this is a must visit for anyone wanting to have a nice cigar in Dublin. Oh…and the food,wine and service were also first rate. I think we will be planning a group herf there is Autumn as they have a lovely hotel attached as well : http://www.trinitylodge.com/

Georges Wine Bar and Bistro
29 South Frederick Street Dublin 2 Dublin City
Tel:+353 (0)1 679 7000

Also visited my shops in Glasgow http://www.globalwhiskyshop.com/ and Edinburgh http://www.whisky-cigars.co.uk and sampled some of our Robert Graham whisky with my partner Ron ( I know it’s a tough job!) whilst rummaging around my humidor where I was delighted to find a little stash of Monte sublimes and Monte D’s as well as a few other gems 🙂 My manager Fraser tells me our luxury food range is now so successful he is adding a whole load of new products in the next month…yum !

Mishie has timed her holiday to perfection and whilst she will be sunning herself in Barbados, Hunters and Frankau will be finally releasing the UK regional editions or at least we are fairly certain the Punch Serie D’Oro no.1 leaving me to deal with 15,000 clients chasing very few available boxes !…have a great vacation Michelle!

Check out the full details here http://www.cgarsltd.co.uk/punch-serie-doro-p-6441.html Only 1210 boxes made. I reckon I could sell all 1210 boxes to just one or two clients…and they know who they are! So get your pre order in fast if you want to be assured of allocation!

If you want to know what the original Punch Serie D’Oro no.1 looked like,here’s a box (full of course) in our museum http://www.cgarsltd.co.uk/product_info_previous.php?products_id=4475 on which the new UK regional has been based. Please,please no more emails as to what the identity of “Ming” of the “Ming collection” is and no I can confirm I am not Ming! For fans of Top Gear like me, I can only tell you that Ming is a bit like The Stig ! …so no one will ever know his identity ….except me 🙂

I am still mortified that the original UK regional Ramon Allones Belicosos have sold out. This was my favourite cigar and Hunters even kindly allowed me to commission 2 master cases ( 64 boxes ) of an “Orchant Seleccion” version. Perhaps the Ramons were just withdrawn in readiness for the new UK regionals launch ? ;-)….of course we will never know. If you want a treat,I have a few Orchant Seleccion singles available here http://www.cgarsltd.co.uk/ramon-allones-seleccion-orchant-belicosos-p-5645.html

Next weeks travels take me to my La Casa del Habano in Hamburg where we have a dinner herf to attend …all welcome! http://www.thecigarsmoker.com

Have a lovely weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

So I’m leafing through my Financial Times today sipping an espresso with my Partagas Shorts and read a most excellent letter written by Michael J. McFadden (Author of Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains…highly recommended)

Anyone else see the letter? talk about “hit the nail on the head”

Here are some good links from Michael as well

www.Antibrains.com
www.TheTruthIsALie.com
http://pasan.TheTruthIsALie.com

They make good reading and certainly give some food for thought.

He has a new book coming out soon that I’m looking forward to http://www.amazon.com/TobakkoNacht-The-Story/dp/B001O0ED0S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229673890&sr=8-1

Have a great weekend and …peaceful puffing

Mitchell

I had the pleasure of welcoming my dear Friend Kiminori Yagi from Tokyo to our London office today

Mr and Mrs Yagi as well as my smoking buddy Zaff enjoyed Davidoff Mouton Rothschild cigars with some excellent pre embargo Cuban rum

Welcome to London Yagi-san 🙂

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

International Herf

Just arrived back from 2 weeks of herfing in sunny Miami Beach 🙂 Perfect sunny and hot 80F weather every day.

My New Years Eve smoked ended up to be a Dunhill Estupendos followed by a Davidoff 80th anniversario …it was a long night!

Met up with many old friends and new and with the weather this good was not short of places to smoke a fine cigar

My favourite hang out is still deco Drive cigars on Lincoln,the perfect place to watch the world go by and I certainly did….having spotted Louis Walsh, and Jackie Mason strolling past! I even spotted Trevor McDonald at the airport!

From the desk of Smokeymo - Miami Herfing

No real signs of recession on South Beach, in all honesty the malls such as Bal Harbour and Aventura seemed busier than ever and Lincoln road as well as Ocean were packed nightly. Plenty of cigars smokers around and no one seems to bat an eyelid… joys of living in a warm sunny climate perhaps.

We enjoyed a sublime dining experience with clients at Barton G where we smoked some fabulous custom blends in the garden dining area after the most incredible dinner, nothing like this presentation of food anywhere I can think of in the world.

So, now back to freezing but at least sunny and dry (today) London and of course a little taste testing. Simon from Hunters kindly gifted me a Ramon Allones Phoenicios which I tried this evening. First class smoke, a bit like an overblown Specially Selected. I think I may have been expecting a bit more “zing” in the blend but nevertheless I did enjoy it immensely.

Where oh where are the UK regionals? First person to email me with the correct date of release to the UK market gets 3 cigars free ! [email protected] Will let you know when they are out and who the winner is 🙂

Peaceful puffing in 2009 🙂

Mitchell

It’s been a great year at C.Gars Ltd 🙂 I’ve been as busy as ever travelling the world, holding cigar dinners, herfing with numerous friends on numerous occasions and taste testing the finest mature and vintage Havanas. I attended the February Festival del Habanos and November Partagas Festival in Havana.

I was particularly impressed with the limited edition Montecristo Sublimes and Partagas SD5 and particularly disappointed that the 2008 UK regional editions were not released although we are hopeful they will be available in January of 2009. Trust me… they are worth the wait.

The UK exclusive Ramon Allones Belicosos was my favourite cigar of the year (Hunters and Frankau now out of stock! eek…did I smoke that many?!) followed closed by Partagas P2 and Bolivar Belicosos.

The UK smoking ban is now well over a year old and whilst I am not sure (nor do I particularly care) how it has affected cigarette smokers, clearly it has had no affect on cigar smokers as we have just completed our best year ever. No doubt an Englishman’s home is still his castle!

Congratulations to my London sales team (Michelle, Elishka, Marci, Mirka and Lucy) for their incredible work and dedication over the Christmas season. Multi thousands of orders and not a single back order. Hopefully all our clients have their cigars in time for Christmas and of course there’s still time to order for your New year celebrations

Well done to Laura, my long suffering I.T. manager (long suffering as not a day goes by when I am not bombarding her with more ideas, corrections, additions, deletions, moans and groans!) for managing our growing cigar & whisky empire online. I don’t think we ever dreamed we would be this big!

Thanks to Christoph and his team at La Casa del Habano in Hamburg for making 2008 such a great year and well done to our teams at Turmeaus retail cigar and pipe shops in England and of course Ron, Fraser and the team at Robert Graham cigar shops and Global Whisky shops in Scotland

Last but not least my thanks to Hunters and Frankau, the UK Importer and distributor of Havana cigars who have been so supportive of C.Gars Ltd over the last year

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah 🙂

…peaceful puffing

Mitchell