Halloween smokes

What should we smoke for Halloween? It doesn’t make any difference 🙂 however I can confirm that I’ll be smoking the same cigar that I have been enjoying all day every day for the last week.

Yes folks I am hooked on the Por Larranaga Regalias de Londres, these cigars are the bomb 🙂 great smokes that are just flying off our shelves. Could well be the fastest selling UK regional edition so far.

Dark wrappers, complex blend, easy draw and the perfect size (Gordito) I really should stop smoking them as there are only 1200 boxes that have been made (available by the single and box at all of our UK cigar stores)

I just got back from a visit to our Robert Graham Ltd stores in Scotland. Decided to give Squeezy Jet a miss and fly BMI. I can tell you it felt very civilized by comparison. Not sure about the dodgy hats the flight attendants were wearing though!

Our Scottish cigar and whisky stores are in the process of being filled up to the ceiling with whisky and cigars for the Christmas season – the range is already quite breathtaking.

Our Glasgow shop on West Nile street has just been refitted and now features a walk in humidor with a massive selection of English Market Selection Havana cigars in singles and by the box. I am very proud of the Glasgow store as its very small and ridiculously busy, probably due to the fabulous staff there (well done Linda!) and it was our last location without a walk in humidor, so finally job done!

Lemon of the week award goes to the first class train service from Glasgow to Edinburgh as they ran out of water and only had luke warm coffee – totally useless

Amusing video of the week award goes to this one how many out of time sequence shots can you count?!! Just too funny- perhaps they had a little too much scotch.

My Canongate store ‘ The Treasurer’ is probably the place I should base myself in due to the vast range of speciality chocolate they stock there- a dangerous place for a man on a diet! Pretty massive range of cigars too as well as our award winning independent bottled single malt and we are just about to release a Deanston and Tobermory which I can thoroughly recommend with a good Havana. You may have to go on a waiting list fast though as only 180 bottles of each will ever be bottled.

All Turmeaus and Robert Graham cigar stores have all UK regional edition cigars in singles and by the box and if you rummage around you can usually find some other rarer treats, whether it’s a mature box or just something a tad more special like Cohiba Behikes 56 or Ramon Allones Belicosos (both spotted at Edinburgh Rose street branch!) Oh! and a warm welcome back to the family business to Cailin Morrison (Ron’s son)

Eddie Sahakian of Davidoff London popped into the London office for a smoke with me a few days ago, always great to see him. I reckon Davidoff London is probably the best cigar store in central London, always well worth a visit.

Had a good evening at the Lanesborough cigar terrace on Wednesday with Tillman (very famous cigar photographer) Chris (very famous fashion designer) and Nick (very famous banker!) smoked salmon and 1st cru Chablis (rather lots of) and back to back Por Larranaga cigars – perfect evening. Nick told me how his Dupont Extend lighter was confiscated by security at the airport- how sad and pathetic are these security laws, I mean seriously, a little lighter ! Anyway, I sent him a replacement rapido so all’s well 🙂

Interest in our next auction continues to increase as do the Lots that we keep adding ! latest Lots to arrive included Davidoff Chateau Yquem 46 original cigars from a cab of 50 – quite beautiful. Check out the auction website here the catalogue is on PDF but all the Lots in the catalogue can be clicked on to get further details and photos as well as bid online. Very clever stuff 🙂

Turmeaus Chester had Hamlet the roller rolling custom blend Hermosos last week – haven’t tried one yet but I dare say it should not be too shabby as Hamlet is well known as a highly skilled grade 9 roller. A few singles knocking around for clients of C.Gars and can be purchased online.

I’m off for just one more Por Larranaga Regalias de Londres!

Have a smokey weekend.

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Larranaga rocks !

TGIF! and TG PL Regalias de Londres have finally arrived. I was starting to get worried that the 2010 UK exclusive regional edition was not going to make it before 2011!

I was even more worried as to how the blend would stack up against the Por Larranaga Magnificos but I can tell you that whilst the Magnificos is a very delicate day time blend, the Regalias is like a Magnificos on steroids. Yes it has the Por Larranaga flavour characteristic but this cigar has a fuller body and is medium strength profile and not a light to medium as some may expect.

I have now smoked 5 cigars from box number 688 of 1200 boxes made and the blend is perfectly consistent. The wrappers are smooth and dark and the construction is flawless. The draw is easy and the aroma light and pleasant. This is a complex Havana cigar that has the same embossed gold band as the Magnificos and is packaged in an attractive dress box with clasp closer. 5 1/2 ” length and 50 ring gauge of sheer smoking pleasure.The aging potential is enormous in this well balanced blend.

Check them out on this link we will be updating photographs with better close ups in the next few hours,

I visited our Norfolk offices on Wednesday- great range of Havanas available via our click and collect service and mail order via our website of course. Our massive warehouse stores thousands of humidors of every size, shape and finish you can dream of! and we are expecting new range or Elie Bleu and Daniel Marshall to arrive in the next week as well

Michelle’s birthday was celebrated with famous basketball start Mark Blount popping to our London offices for a glass or 5 of our house Champagne matched up with some rather tasty UK exclusive regional edition Punch Serie D’Oro no.1 helluva smoke !

Our Vintage Cigar Auction business looks like it is growing so rapidly that we decided to create a dedicated website so cigar aficionado’s can reference prices from previous auctions as well as bid online for current auction check it out here you can view the catalogue online or of course order hard copy catalogue. C.Gars Ltd Director of auctions Brian Ebbesen (previously of Christies) is happy to take your enquiries by email

So my message of the week is buy less,smoke less but smoke the best- English Market Selection Havanas from Hunters and Frankau are what we sell to our clients in the UK….. and they are without any doubt THE best

Have a smokey weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Welcome: UK Regional 2010 !!!

Delighted to confirm that we will indeed start shipping orders this week of the UK Regional 2010 Por Larranaga Regalios de Londres 1200 boxes limited edition (numbered) 5 ½” length and 50 ring gauge

Singles £15.99

Box of 25 £399

Fabulous cigars as one would expect from importers Hunters and Frankau, splendid packaging, exclusive to the UK – what more could you ask for- get your orders in now and you could be smoking them before next weekend!

No idea when the other 2010 Uk regional Flor de Cano will arrive. Someone mentioned that it was not likely for this year and I think that may well be true now.

Our Winter 2010 – Vintage Cigar Auction is now confirmed for Tuesday 30th November on the splendid Cigar Terrace at Boisdale in Belgravia

The terribly nice ex Christies auctioneer Brian Ebbesen will be offering almost 300 Lots of Mature, Discontinued, Unusual, Davidoff, Dunhill, Pre Embargo and Limited Edition Havanas.

– Cigars, Champagne and canapés from 6.00-7.00pm

– Auction from 7.00pm – 8.30 pm

– More cigars, champagne and canapés 8.30 till 9.30 pm.

Chivas Regal 18 will be offered with the compliments of Pernod Ricard as well as complimentary miniatures of The Glenlivet 12, 15, 18 and Chivas 12 to all attendees

Bidders admitted by pre registration in advance only. Absentee bidding available online.

Online bidding opens Tuesday 19th October and closes 24 hours before the Auction sale

Hard copy catalogue available on request [email protected]

Click here to view our PDF Catalogue

Prospective bidders are encouraged to inspect Lots prior to auction at our London offices and absentee bidders are welcome to email and questions regarding the specific Lots or the auction sale generally.

Ron Morrison of Robert Graham Ltd came down from Scotland this week and we had a great evening at the Lanesborough cigar terrace on Wednesday (Monte 2’s and PSD4’s till 3 a.m. with some great Burgundy) and lunch at Dunhill on Thursday was a treat. We had some great smokes at the London West Hampstead cigar shop…. found a good quantity of Cohiba Behike of all sizes in the walk in humidor (a few less after we left!)

Works should complete at our new London warehouse this week and gosh am I ever looking forward to moving in! (or should I say moving the Girls over) I’m off to our Norfolk offices this week to herf with Laura and her team – congrats to Laura at her recent appointment as Director at C.Gars Ltd and finally big congrats to Michelle for her birthday this Tuesday 🙂

Have a smokey weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Still Building…

Happy Friday Folks 🙂

I had the pleasure of dinner with a terribly famous film producer (he actually produced one of my all time favourite films !) at Boisdale on Wednesday evening. Needless to say we had a first class meal, some pretty decent wine and some splendid Monte 2’s 🙂 – and the Gentleman signed a great big movie poster for me to add to my collection.

Our additional London warehouse building works are coming along just fine and next week we expect the floors to be completed followed by the cabinet work the following week – we are so looking forward to spreading out – and we need to as I have another 1000 humidors arriving in 2 weeks time!

I zipped up to Liverpool last night and stayed in a lovely hotel opposite my shop – recommended. This morning I signed the contract for our second Liverpool shop which we start the refurb on Monday – and hope to open 4 weeks later 🙂 … and now we are looking for a 3rd Liverpool shop as we love Liverpool so much ! Turmeaus cigar shops have been in Liverpool since 1817

Popped into Turmeaus Cigar shop in Chester on the drive home and enjoyed a Romeo Wide Churchill. These cigars are really settling down now and fast becoming great smokes

Still no sign of the UK regional 2010 Por Larranaga ! Surely must arrive sometime soon or it will be 2011 !!!

Auction catalogue goes to the printers on Monday so we’ll be posting out copies from Wednesday at which time auction Lots will be online as well

Have a smoky weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Airport security? Marvellous – not!

Greetings from the organized chaos of my London office which has been
turned into a photographic studio for the last week by photographer
Tillman Pretscher. We have just about finished photographing and
cataloguing the Lots for the 30th November Vintage Cigar Auction which
has been a humungous task as there are some 250 Lots for sale which is
more than the last few auctions. Some look like ridiculous bargains ( I
wish I could bid !) I am so looking forward to working with auctioneer
Brian Ebbesen again on this event

From incredible pre embargo cigars to Dunhills, Davidoff, limited
edition, aged, rare and mature cigars- quite a selection. The auction
will be help at Boisdale Belgravia- my favourite cigar friendly hang out
to herf at. Catalogues available next week by post and of course online.
You can of course register online to bid on the night at Boisdale. I
gather from my Team that Boisdale are laying on canapes and copious
amounts of Champagne before and after the auction- well done Ranald,
what a class act.

The builders are still banging away at our new warehouse/office
premises and we are hopeful that we will start to move in there in the
next 2 weeks- that will be great timing as we have over 1000 humidors of
all sizes shapes and prices arriving in October from my IPCPR New
Orleans purchases in August.

All of this makes me feel like I need a holiday but I remember going to
Spain recently with co Director Karyn and as I presented the passports
to Easy Jet at check in ,the chap looked at Karyn and said ‘ ok you
changed your hair colour’, as he handed back our passports ( we had no
idea what he was talking about. ) We then handed our passports over at
the gate and were thanked and handed them back as we ‘Speedy boarded’
the aircraft. Finally we arrived at Malaga airport and presented our
passports to immigration who thanked us and handed them back. All sound
normal so far? Yes -until I looked at Karyns passport and realised that
it was in fact our daughters passport with a photo of her when she was 9
years old ! So much for airline security- simply too bad for words. So
after a well deserved cerveza and Montecristo no.2 we managed to get the
correct passport flown out to us and return to London a few days later
with correct passports!

Monday I’m seeing Michael Buble in concert at Wembley which should be
good as I’ve seen him before ( Earls Court) and enjoyed immensely –
Swing and cigars- perfect combo ( may have to wait till I get in the car
for the smokes though!)

Wednesday is dinner at Boisdale Belgravia with a terribly famous film
producer of one of my all time favourite gangster movies 🙂 great
excuse to get him to sign my movie poster. Then I can get it framed and
put it up next to some of my other old gangster movie posters.

Thursday I’m heading out to Turmeaus in Chester and Turmeaus in
Liverpool. We are about to redevelop the Liverpool shop and in fact open
two specialist shops side by side on Fenwick street ( one being where
our current shop is) that should give us some more floor space as well
as beautiful purpose built shops similar to our West Hampstead shop in
quality. This is my favourite part of being a specialist cigar retailer-
I love setting up the businesses and especially stocking up the walk in
humidors to see how many cigars I can end up fitting in the humidor (
usually quite a lot!)

Still waiting for the UK regional Por Larranaga to be released. We were
fairly certain that it would be September but that been and gone now
although I am fairly confident we will, get it this week. Good grief I
can’t wait to smoke that cheeky little smoke ! I love Larranaga 🙂
that said I would not hold your breath waiting for the Flor de Cano UK
regional release. I think we will be lucky to see it this side of
Christmas but hey ! we are talking about Cuba!- anything is possible and
most things impossible 🙂

…and finally. The last 2 weeks I have been utterly hooked on Monte 2’s.
There is a big time return to blending form on these cigars. Medium
strength but full flavour and remarkably sweet from start to finish.
Beautiful wrappers, perfect construction- a total winner.

Have a smokey weekend

Peaceful puffing.

Mitchell