Here I sit in my rather comfortable London office sampling a Cohiba Robusto Supremo in the middle of July and I am watching the most torrential amount of rain through the windows, just unbelievable. I love London but this weather is too bad for words (very British to complain about the weather!) hey ho, nothing I can do about it… or can I? Yup, I’m the hell out of here till the end of August, heading for a deckchair in the sunshine and some non-stop herfing and R&R 🙂

And I will need that R&R because when I get back to Blighty I’ll be working very hard up North as we will be opening the new Turmeaus flagship store in lovely Liverpool on the Tuesday 30^th August. Long time in the planning but I’m a bit of a tortoise in business and have that OCD thing going on so I have to have everything perfect of course. Located at The Albany in old Hall Street, our latest expansion will provide our Merseyside and Lancashire customers with an all singing and dancing cigar, tobacco, accessories and whisky retail store together with cigar sampling lounge and whisky tasting bar.

But dear blog reader, that’s just the first phase as I expect to start developing the second phase soon after which will provide an additional Turmeaus cigar store and sampling lounge open till 11 pm and a drinks and tapas lounge as well as the hugest whisky bar in the North West. Splendid 🙂 that should keep me entertained for a little while I reckon.

I have to laugh when I think back to buying the original Turmeaus shop on Water Street many years ago. So many people asked me ‘why?’ and inferred that it was a daft place to have a cigar shop. Righto, proved them wrong (no surprise). I thought, and still think, that Liverpool is a super cool city. Trendy bars, excellent hotels and restaurants and very friendly people. I’m looking forward to some splendid tasting events with old and new Turmeaus – Liverpool clients.

This is the first development that we used architects for and it’s been a wonderful experience. I expect this premises to be one of our finest. The humidor room will have an insane selection of premium Havana and New World cigars as well as an incredible range of the finest humidors and cigar accessories. The bar will have a delightful range of premium spirits to sample and the cigar sampling lounge will be super comfortable with excellent smoke extraction. Our legendary customer service ensures a warm welcome and the best of advice.

Whilst up North last week I zoomed into Turmeaus –Knutsford which was looking lovelier than ever except it was a warm day and I thought the cigar sampling lounge was a tad too warm. No problem, air conditioning is now ordered and my clients will be chilled accordingly in a few week’s time!  Always good to see Andrew, Sue and Liz who manage the Knutsford store for me, I can’t think of a friendlier team in any cigar store in the UK, just super customer service. Magnificent range of cigars and whisky and Andrews prize and joy wine room is awesome (as is his knowledge of wines!). I found this review from a customer on Google today:

I visited Turmeaus Tobacconist for the first time today, and it definitely won’t be my last. The gentleman that served me was wonderful; great customer service skills and very knowledgeable about all the products. The shop also had a lovely warm and inviting atmosphere. I think my husband is going to be delighted with his birthday gift of cigars and rum! He’ll also be visiting to sample more of the delights offered by Turmeaus. It’s been a very nice shopping experience indeed. Thank you!

Next stop was Turmeaus – Chester which incorporates our La Casa del Habano. I would say that this place is cool but on this particularly hot day I can honestly say the lounge was freezing due to the over effective aircon lol. Clients seemed to be enjoying sampling as the lounge was jammed full as was the whisky sampling bar area. I mooched around the humidor which is crammed full of gems from Havana. We really do have an incredible range of boxes and cabinet selection Havanas as well as huge range of singles.

I also managed to have a herfette in Turmeaus – Mayfair last week, it was our friend Eric’s birthday (perfect excuse) and he enjoyed a Cuaba Distinguidos birthday smoke whilst I puffed away on another Cohiba Robustos Supremo. I just love these gobstoppers!

My assistant David at Mayfair got a bit of a shock on Saturday when a car crashed right through the front of the shop next door. Thanks to all my friends on Facebook and Twitter for all their funny comments!

At last! My Inka – Secret Blend import has arrived and we will be back to full range next week. The popularity of this range is quite breath-taking. Great blend and great value, who could ask for more?

Okay so I’m off Havana cigars and on to New World cigars for the next month or so and I’ve selected a bunch of my favourites whilst I top up my tan, they include:

Inka Secret Blend,
Regius Orchant Selection,
Orchant Seleccion by Oliva,
Macanudo Inspirado.

That should keep me going!

Next blog from the swimming pool!

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell

Back to normal, if life is ever normal in the C.Gars world! We have almost finished all of our Summer auction work (some huge task!) and some 300 Lots have either been collected or are in the shipping process so I can finally see my London humidor again, which comes as some relief.

We outgrew our original London office/warehouse some years ago and expanded into the building next door 3 years ago which was brilliant but alas the time has come around again that we are bursting at the seams due to the huge increase in business. So, the other day I was chatting with Michelle and saying “if only another building would become available alongside” lo and behold, one did! Terms rapidly agreed, architect instructed, builders quotes awaited and we hope to move in by late September.

One issue is that we have utterly run out of humidor space and our auction and vintage cigar business is now so huge it needs a home of its own. I’m building a massive walk in humidor in the new premises that will just house our client lockers and rare and vintage Havana cigars. This will make the mooching around the humidor experience a lot more pleasant for my clients as its not much fun battling around 10 of my team as they run in and out the current walk in humidor nonstop!

The other issue, (nice one though it is) is that we are experiencing unprecedented growth in sales and our London warehouse team is ever expanding so we can provide on time deliveries to our zillions of clients. Thankfully the new premises will help us cope for the foreseeable future. All exciting stuff.

Continuing the Cohiba 50^th anniversary celebrations this week, I enjoyed an evening at Mark’s Club in London’s Mayfair where Zenith watches presented their stunning Cohiba edition.

Nick Foulkes gave a wondeful talk about watches and cigars in his inimitable witty and knowledgable manner and Cohiba Siglo III and Robusto Supremo paired up with Ruinart champage were enjoyed by all. Great to bump into Reinhold Widmeyer from Cigar Journal and we’re planning a decdent vintage Havana cigar tasting in Austria in the near future.

The big news topic this week though was of course the Brexit referendum. From my perspective I can tell you I enjoyed watching TV till ridiculously early in the morning and herfed my way through 2 Cohiba Robusto Supremo, 1 Cohiba 1966 and a few shots of Stalla Dhu to keep my spirits up so to speak. Thanks for all the emails asking what effect I expect this to have on business. I’m not certain but genuinely doubt it will make any difference whatsoever. That said the weaker Pound has caused a bit of a jump in export business 🙂

Still a few places available for our wine and cigar tasting event at Turmeaus Knutsford on the 13^th July unfortunately I can’t be there as I’m jetting off to the sun for Summer (severe lack of it in London today!) but my assistant Andrew assures me he will be taking extra good care of all attendees. We have a super comfortable sampling lounge in Knutsford and a huge range of cigars, whisky and wine.

Macanudo Inspirado is selling like bonkers now that we have added two more sizes to the range. Check it out on this link, premium cigars and very good value indeed!

The Inka Secret Blend cigars success story continues with mega record sales last month. Apologies for the odd size stock out as I am still trying to cope with the sales growth of this brand. Good news is that I have another huge import from Peru due to arrive on Monday.

Last chance to get your hands on Orchant Seleccion Bolivar Royal Coronas as we only have a few boxes left. 2014 was a true return to form for this cigar and the blend is very earthy and full flavoured yet refined and smooth. Not for the beginner!

Also last chance to get the lovely cigar case with Winston Churchill robusto cigars and Winston Churchill petit coronas. Fabbie cigars from Davidoff and a lovely case to store them in 🙂 Last 10 of each and then they are done.

If you like a full flavour Nicaraguan cigar you can’t go wrong with the Regius range (exclusive to C.Gars) they are just superb value for a premium smoke.

I’m still having fun adding to our booze range. Checkout Drinks by the Dram sampler packs. These are perfect to try all different types of whisky and other premium spirits, most of them have tasting note cards in the box which adds to the fun. They also make brilliant gifts.

I hear that my rather cool marketing Team at Turmeaus Norfolk are rolling out some PRICE THRASHER promotions from Monday… look out, there should be some great deals.

That’s half a year done and did it ever zoom by for me! I’m seeing Carole King in concert in Hyde Park on the weekend (I wonder if cigar smoking will be allowed?)

Have a smokey weekend,

Peaceful puffing.

Mitchell

Our annual summer auction was held again at the Bulgari hotel in Knightsbridge on Monday (20th) night.

Our aged, rare and vintage cigar auctions always include huge numbers of unbelievable lots from pre embargo cigars to vintage Davidoffs, as well as limited edition humidors, and this auction stayed true to form!

The auction started at 2pm with over 300 lots going under the hammer, you can view the items as well as their final sale price on the auction website: www.onlinecigarauctions.com

After the auction ended, guests were invited up to the Sahakian cigar lounge to enjoy post auction smokes, drinks and canapes. The cigars that were sampled were the delicious Ramon Allones Petit Belicoso 2012 Regional Edition and the Bolivar Royal Corona Orchant Seleccion. Both the cigars paired up magnificently with the whisky which was on offer, Stalla Dhu Islay and C.Gars Cigar Malt (coming soon!)

Of course Monday night was also the football match between England and Slovakia in the European Championship which lead to some tense moments as Eli, London C.Gars Warehouse manageress, is from Slovakia!

View the pictures from the event below.

Reporting to you live from Bulgari Hotel with the lots selling live on our website.

Subject only to final confirmation when we are back in our offices tomorrow.

In the meanwhilst, keep a check on all our sold items.

Best of luck to all of our sellers and bidders,

Mitchell, Laura, Michelle, James and Eliska
C.Gars Ltd – Auction Team

This is definitely party (or event!) season kicking off with a brilliant cigar and whisky tasting last week at our La Casa del Habano in Chester. We treated attendees to shoe shines (thank you Paul) with compliments to Loake shoemakers and wet shaves (thank you Elliott) with compliments of Suave Barbers whilst delicious canapes were served by our friends at Bar Lounge. Whiskies included various Glen Scotia’s and Stalla Dhu’s (to name a few) and cigars included Upmann Half Coronas and Por Larranaga Sobresalientes. Rather tasty combo’s. An additional mega whisky tasting session was also being held in the LCDH back bar with a massive selection of Bruichladdich which were quite splendid. I can’t quite remember what we were celebrating but we had an awesome La Casa del Habano cake…as if I need anything specific to celebrate!

Whilst up North I also swung by Turmeaus Knutsford and Turmeaus Liverpool and did a little stock sampling for quality purposes. All was well I am pleased to report. I inspected the works at the new Turmeaus at The Albany in Old Hall street which is coming along very nicely indeed. Can’t wait to get this new premises open.

Tonight is the Hunters & Frankau Summer party at The Corinthia Hotel which I’m looking forward to. Hopefully we may get some new Havana releases finally! More details in my next blog.

The annual tobacco trade lunch at Lords is tomorrow. A few of our managers will be enjoying this event. I attended a few of them but gave up after one year George Galloway was the guest speaker (yes , yes – I should have checked before and then I would not have gone) I figured the organisers must have been complete idiots to invite this bigot so I didn’t want to be associated with this bunch of clowns. I think the clowns have all retired by now thankfully. Must be a good thing for the industry!

So the success story of the year (so far) has to be the Cohiba Robusto Supremo , this Limited edition from 2014. Measuring in at 5” and 58 ring gauge this whopper has bags of sweet Cohiba flavour in a very full cool draw. I reckon we have literally sold thousands of boxes and there seems to be no end in demand. If prices go the same way as other limited edition Cohiba these smokes are looking like great value.

It’s countdown for the Summer Cigar Auction  that will be held at The Bulgari Hotel in Knightsbridge next Monday. If you can’t make the event you can always bid online. Almost 300 Lots of rather sexy Havanas if I do say so myself. The auction is followed by a whisky and cigar sampling which should be at least as much fun as always.

Turmeaus Chester have a great event coming up on the June 23rd check out the details on this link  There will also be a Davidoff cigar roller in store from the 20th June rolling fresh Winston Churchill cigars.

Have a smokey week

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell