Following a short stay in hospital I am pleased to say I am back on my feet (thanks for all the good wishes on Twitter/Facebook/emails) and straight back into routine this week with a cigar and whisky tasting at the Avista bar in the Millennium Hotel on Grosvenor Square ☺

A fun evening with around 35 attendees and organised by Lalla Kaur. We enjoyed English Market Selection Quai D’Orsay Coronas with Chivas Regal, Makers Mark Glenkinchie 12 and Macallan 15. Fabulous canapés and great company on thankfully a dry evening that finished around midnight.

Brian Ebbesen has spent most of the week in the humidor Lotting up the auction entries for our July 2nd Cigar Auction. Over 300 aged, mature and interesting Lots of cigars will be knocked down! We celebrated the completion of the catalogue with a bottle of 1970 Armagnac and some rather large Havanas!

Auction catalogue will be out in a weeks’ time and Lots will be online next week with photos of course. You can see them all on our auction website and there will also be a catalogue PDF online shortly for easier viewing.

The main Auction website is here. The Auction website has all of the selling prices from our last 5 auctions which is a great resource for valuation purposes and it’s interesting to see how prices have changed on many of the cigars over the last 3 years.

Details of the auction events are here.

This should be the best of our auctions so far as we have a pre herf arranged for Sunday 1^st July at Ten Manchester Street Hotel early evening and the main event at the fabulous Boisdale Canary Wharf.

Remy Martin Cognac will be supplying us with some fabulous Cognac as well as French Mojitos, Davidoff are providing us with a cigar roller to do a cigar rolling demonstration and Cigar Journal will be reporting the event in their magazine and on their website. We will be smoking some great Havanas, Fuente and Davidoff cigars on what should be a memorable evening.

The selection of cigars in this auction is great whether you want to spend £50 or £5000- I think there is something for everyone and no doubt some bargains will be had on the night as many of the estimates look very attractive indeed.

Hunters and Frankau Summer Cigar party coming up on the 31^st May and I’m looking forward to the next exclusive UK regional Punch which will make its first appearance and hopefully be released soon after.

I’ll be herfing at Turmeaus Mayfair on Wednesday morning so if you are around… drop in for a drink and a smoke ☺ 

Have a smokey weekend.

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell

It’s been seriously sunny cigar smoking weather in Europe this week (not sure how long it will last!) so I hopped over to Paris for the day on Monday and dropped in on the lovely people at La Civette which is my favourite cigar shop in Paris. I always get a warm welcome and the shop and humidor are delightful. I smoked the French Regional Fonseca and Quai’D’Orsay with a glass of Bordeaux at Café Ruc opposite Hotel Du Louvre and enjoyed both of these fine cigars immensely.

If you are visiting Paris La Civette is a must for the cigar aficionado. Great range of singles and boxes as well as first class service.

You can find them at :

157 rue St Honoré
75001 Paris
Area: Palais Royal – Musée du Louvre

Tuesday I zoomed over to our La Casa del Habano in Hamburg to catch up with Christoph Wolters and herf my way through a load of his stock. Our store not only has an enormous range of Havanas and smokers accessories but we also have a breath-taking selection of rum including most of the fabulous Cuban rum. Our sampling room is a must for the Cuban cigar and rum lover, in fact you may never want to leave!. You can find our gorgeous Hamburg cigar store at:

La Casa del Habano Hamburg
Orchant & Wolters GmbH
Burchardstrasse 15
Chilehaus C
20095 Hamburg

Back to the office for the rest of the week (plus a few visits to our Mayfair and West Hampstead shops in between of course) and I’m getting very excited for the launch of the UK regional Bolivar Britanicas  which are now expected in April ( sooner the better!) we have a little competition going with our sales Team to prove that we can make this the fastest selling UK regional ever 🙂 Just 3000 numbered boxes and the minute they are available we will be selling and shipping them 24/7.

Our mail order division and retail shops have sold huge quantities of UK regionals and it can only be for one reason: the blends are quite superb. Let’s face it the UK is not famous for having the cheapest cigars in the world but we always seem to have the best IMHO. Our esteemed importers Hunters and Frankau are now out of stock of all UK regionals with the exception of El Rey del Mundo Choix De L’Epoque  a most delicious day time smoke. So… when our warehouse stocks are gone on the other UK regionals, I’m afraid there are no more. See the range here >>>

Auction season is soon approaching and we have already photographed almost 150 entries. Catalogue will be online and in print as usual around 6 weeks before the event. More details on the auction website This will be our 6^th Vintage Cigar Auction over the last 3 years and as usual Brian Ebbesen our Director of auctions will be taking the podium and knocking down some interesting smokes and a few bargains for some lucky winning bidders.

Pleased to see many of our clients heeded my advice about stocking up now before the budget increases kick in as prices will indeed be going up on the 1^st April ( not bad for an April Fool’s joke…sadly!)

2 more of my Team are at Hunters & Frankau Cigar School this week. Ian from Turmeaus Liverpool and Danny from Alfie Turmeaus – Mayfair. That means just about all of our sales Team retail and mail order have attended Cigar School and by my reckoning that gives me more trained specialists than anyone else in the UK… by a mile 🙂

So I’m wrapping up today with a Punch Serie D’Oro no.1  paired up with some fabulous Robert Graham  single malt whisky – Auchentoshan 1991  perfect finish to the day

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

This week’s blog comes to you from sunny Havana 🙂 where I am proud to be participating in the 14^th annual Festival Habano.

After a rather bumpy Virgin flight (turbulence seems to be the same in Upper Class – even if laying flat!) I actually managed to zoom through immigration and grab my cases before I had time to herf a Partagas Shorts which is a record for Havana airport arrivals! Headed straight to Palacio for a smoke and to grab some Montecristo Gran Reserva to enjoy over the next few days… may as well enjoy Havana in style.

After a few worries as to whether I would even have a hotel room at the Nacional, it was a pleasant surprise to find I had been booked into a very comfortable suite with fabulous views of the Malecon. Spent the evening on the Terrace with numerous friends from all over the globe and ended the evening having a smoke with the Hunters and Frankau group. Simon Chase kindly gifted me a delicious San Cristobal (new size – looked like a Maravillas) and another friend gave me the new Cohiba Piramides extra which is not only a great size but also an excellent blend. I am looking forward to these cigars becoming available as I am certain they will be exceptionally popular.

Thursday has been a whirlwind days of herfing round the cigar stores starting with coffee and a BHK52 at Miramar LCDH and moving on to the Melia Habana where I hooked up my laptop and emailed the office 17 photos in 3 hours (so much for fast wifi!) but managed 2 BHK56’s whilst going through the painful email process. The cigar stores are well stocked and  there are plenty of the H Upmann Royal Robusto wooden boxes of 10 which I believe are only for sale in Cuba.

I visited the trade fair at the Convention Centre which was the busiest I can ever remember it (as well as the hottest) and collected some beautiful ceramic jars that were made for me. Some will be used to display Havanas in our retail cigar stores and a few may be sold in the future. Found a fabulous original photo of Che that will go nicely in our collection and a few large ‘tronquitos’  then back to the Nacional terrace for more smokes and drinks with Christoph from LCDH Hamburg and friends.

Hunters and Frankau invited the top UK cigar specialists including Eddie Sahakian of Davidoff and Parresh Patel of Regal to the first tasting of the UK regional edition Bolivar Britanicas – a celestiales finos shaped cigar – 5 3/8” length and 48 ring gauge cigar, presented in wooden boxes of 10 and hopefully due to arrive in our humidors this month.

After smoking two of these cigars I can report that this is another winner for the UK regional edition series. The blend is full flavoured, smooth, complex and medium to full strength. The construction was perfect with an even burn and an attractive Colorado maduro wrapper. Only 3000 boxes of 10 will ever be made and they are likely to sell out very fast. Despite having no confirmed price as yet we already have almost 500 orders!

This Festival has a buzz like no other I can remember. Havana seems jam packed this year and there is an amazing atmosphere. The weather is hot and sunny during the day and balmy in the evenings – just perfect.

There are some great cigars being introduced at the gala dinner including this year’s Romeo Gran Reserva which is a Churchill in possibly the most beautiful presentation box yet.

The highlight of the  Gala dinner of course was the Humidor Auction with all proceeds going to the Cuban National Health Service and conducted by Simon Chase. Each auction Lot can only be described as a unique creation. The cigars in the humidors are rolled by the most skilled master rollers and the humidors are quite breath taking.

Lot 1 H Upmann Humidor, ceramic jar and ashtray with 350 cigars, including H Upmann no.3 which has not been made since the 1970’s, as well as grandes and short piramides which are not commercial production vitola.

Lot 2 Hoyo de Monterrey, 350 cigars including specially made Obseqios, Extravaganza,Colosales and Belicosos no.1

Lot 3 Romeo y Julieta, 350 cigars including Fabulosos no.6, Seleccion de Luxe – a vitola not made since the 1960’s, Petit Piramides and Aguilas.

Lot 4 Partagas, 350 cigars including Serie D no. 1 and 2, Serie C no.4, Salmones no.2 and Sobrasalientes

Lot 5 Montecristo, 375 cigars including Gran Reserva, Double Coronas and Maravillas no.1

Lot 6 Cohiba, an incredible humidor of El Laguito complete with 520 cigars including the incredible 2009 Gran Reserva

I’ll scan the brochure and put up on the website soon as I get back to London so you can see the full descriptions.

I have been coming to Havana for 16 years, 54 visits so far! and have attended the last 12 Festivals but I think I have enjoyed this one the most due to the incredible atmosphere and the good times herfing with so many friends from all over the world.

The Gala dinner was a slick affair with nonstop entertainment by singers and dancers over a long evening that finished around 1.30 am. We enjoyed Romeo Exhibition no.4 on arrival followed by the new petit Churchill, Wide Churchill and finally Gran Reserva… with plenty of wine, port and rum served in a red Romeo imaged room at Pabexco that was very impressive.

Ana Lopez (marketing Director Habanos SA) welcomed us and the highlight of our evening was Jemma Freeman winning the Habanos award for business which was richly deserved. The UK market is a mature and sophisticated market and clearly a growing market. This is thanks to the stringent quality control by Hunters and Frankau that we believe make our English Market Selection (EMS) Havanas the finest in the world.
Results now in: Habanos Festival Gala dinner Auction results In Euros

Lot   

1. 60,000
2. 40,000
3. 130,000
4. 60,000
5. 80,000
6. 360,000

Total 730,000 Euros

Peaceful puffing  and best wishes from Havana

Mitchell

The New year has started in style with record numbers of orders so I can only assume our clients had a blast over the holidays and humidors need some serious replenishing 🙂 which works for me!

Our retail cigar and whisky shops  took a good bashing over the hols but we are already restocked and looking as good as ever with our usual humungous range of Havanas and other premium cigars as well as our niche range of single malt whisky and rum. I had a serious herf with journalist James Leavey at our new Mayfair shop  yesterday to test out the sampling room air/smoke filtration- which worked perfectly.

We went through some fab Juan Lopez Orchant Seleccion matched up with our Benrinnes 1998  which made for a great combo. Lunch was opposite the cigar shop at the Kings Arms Great food and great service. Followed by Por Larranaga Magnificos  and some Deanston 1995.

James was in a pretty good documentary on smoking that was on BBC4 on Wednesday evening which was partly filmed at our West Hampstead shop  The documentary had some brilliant old footage. I just wish they would have distinguished more clearly between cigarette and cigar smoking.

You can’t buy our whisky at the Mayfair shop although we are likely to get it licenced in the next month or two as well as our Liverpool Turmeaus shops as we can’t find a specialist whisky shop in Liverpool so that will be a good addition to the range. We will be setting the date for the Summer Cigar Auction later this month and entries are already coming in.

We do of course buy and sell vintage and unusual Havanas all year round so if you can’t wait you can always drop me a line and I’ll be happy to advise [email protected] if you are looking for anything unusual drop me a line as I may have it or be able to source it for you I’ll need to slow down on my smoking UK regionals as stocks are running very low on many of them.

All great cigars and a great range of brands and vitola. I have always thought that the UK market gets the finest Havanas cigars available and still do 🙂 Burns night herf this year will be at Boisdale  as usual although my smoking chums have not yet decided whether we will herf in Belgravia or Canary Wharf. If you would like to join us just email me ! I’m off to La Casa del Habano – Hamburg  next week for some German regional sampling with my partner Christoph Wolters as well as some rum sampling in our amazing new sampling room 🙂

Have a smokey weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Just back to the office after 4 days of holiday herfing 🙂 smoked through a stash of good stuff including some great vintage Davidoff and some of the early UK regionals which are all maturing very well indeed.

Best of all was a Davidoff Dom Perignon 1988 matched with Dom Perignon champagne 1988 – very tasty combo! Por Larranaga Magnificos with Bollinger RD wasn’t too shabby either 🙂

We were of course available 24/7 by email and phone over the weekend and I was surprised how many people were online ! but we love hearing from our clients and I think many of them were happy to have advice available immediately.

Same goes for the 3 days New Year’s weekend- drop us an email anytime [email protected]

All our cigars shops are open as normal if you need to top up for New Year’s eve and we guarantee mail order delivery for next day arrival if you order online before 3pm.

The new Mayfair shop – Alfie Turmeaus Tobacconist has started up in style with loads of local clients happy to have a shop in Shepherd Market. Our sampling area will have its finishing touches completed early in January and our walk in humidor is crammed full of every Havana cigar you could possibly want. My assistant, Lucia who has years of experience at C.Gars Ltd and Robert Graham in West Hampstead is always happy to help you choose the perfect cigar, humidor or gift. We have also now made available a great range of loose and pre-packed pipe tobacco.

OK so friends keep asking me what my favourite cigars of the year have been and here’s the list of my top 5 :

Partagas Serie E No.2 

La Flor de Cano Short Robustos 

Partagas Serie D No. 5 

Cohiba 1966 

Cohiba BHK54

All truly outstanding smokes. The 1966 will age and mature perfectly for many years to come, the LFDC has become my go to morning smoke on the drive to the office, the BHK 54 was the best of the 3 IMHO and I just love the 2 new Partagas cigars.

I’ll be smoking a few of these cigars over the weekend and have 4 Dunhill Cabinetta tucked away for New Year’s eve to enjoy with my Father (together with a Magnum of Pol!)

What a great year for Havanas and what a great year for C.Gars Ltd and Robert Graham Ltd! we now have (far) more cigar specialist shops that anyone in the UK specialist cigar trade and our mail order service has grown dramatically yet again. No sign of recession in this business! We are already planning our next shop opening around Easter 2012 and it will be our flagship cigars and single malt emporium in the UK. 

We’ll carry on trying to give the best service, the fastest delivery, the largest choice and of course the most competitive prices that  are at the heart of our business.

Wishing all of our Staff, Management, Suppliers and Clients a very happy and smokey New Year

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell