Happy new year!

Last blog of 2010! and what a fast and fabulous year it has been – I decided to throw an early new years ever herf last night at White House restaurant to celebrate my nephew Gabriel’s wedding to Verity.Dinner,Single Malt Whisky from Robert Graham Ltd and Cohiba Robustos were enjoyed by 30 friends and family – great way to finish the year 🙂

…and now its Cohiba Behike 56 till 2011…and beyond with a bottle or three of Pol Roger Champagne 🙂

Wishing all C.Gars Ltd Friends, Clients and Staff a happy, healthy and prosperous new year

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Merry Christmas :)

Another record breaking week with 99.9999999999999999% on time deliveries. Well done to C.Gars Ltd sales Teams in London and Norfolk, highest volume sales we have ever known, so quite an experience even for a cigar merchant that is used to massive year round sales. It’s been an amazing challenge and terribly exciting at the same time.

Our London manager Marcela who has managed the warehouse for the last 5 years has left the company ( for now at least!) and is heading back to Slovakia and we wish her the best of luck for the future. Marci did an amazing job organizing the warehouse and assisting our clients. We’re delighted that Eli is taking over from here assisted by Mirka, Blanka and Dasha.

We have very exciting plans for 2011 as we intend to build a brand new walk in humidor at our London premises which will be the largest walk in humidor in the UK with the largest range of new, aged and rare Havana cigars in the UK

I’ve managed to get through the week by herfing through a box of Punch Serie D’Oro no.1 – this extraordinary UK exclusive regional edition is now more or less sold out and to be honest, it’s such a great cigar, I’m surprised it’s lasted this long. I’m going to have to break into one of the Serie D’Oro humidors when the boxes run out 🙂

Well I’m outta the London office in a few hours’ time and heading to Liverpool for Christmas- looking forward to checking out the building work on our new Liverpool cigar store and having a smoke or two in the soon to be redeveloped existing Turmeaus cigar store ( we are developing that store into a traditional confectionery store…yummmmmmm!)

I’m taking my trusty herf’dor filled with UK regionals for Christmas weekend and topping it off with some Davidoff Chateau Latour for my Father and I to enjoy over the weekend 🙂

So, thanks to our fabulous suppliers and our brilliant sales Team and most of all our valued clients. Wish you all a safe and merry Christmas

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Finally some photos of our Christmas staff herf with our good friend and top basketball player Mark Blount 🙂

Ho Ho Ho :)

This week has to be the busiest week I have known in my career in the cigar business with sales at 4 times our normal (and very busy) level. Seems to be a lot of new Havana cigar smokers out there and a lot of gigs being bought for existing smokers too.

Tuesday was a crazy day as we peaked at 4000 emails ! (up from a ‘normal’ 1800 a day)

My Hunters and Frankau rep and good friend of many years popped into the office for a smoke and a chat yesterday and we both said how we can’t believe how much the business has grown since we set up online – quite astronomical. We smoked some Romeo Wide Churchills which are fast becomning a new favourite

We also had the London sales Team Christmas night out on Wednesday and were joined by famous basketball star Mark Blount. The pre herf was at the office of course where we sampled a few BHK 54’s with some 20 year old Santiago rum – perfect match 🙂 I gather the Norfolk sales Team are still partying as they are bombing thru a record seasons sales in their new premises.

High point of the week is record sales of Punch Serie D’oro no.1 limited edition humidors. Exclusive to the UK. I think we have sold 20 out of the 100 made already 🙂

Always happy to assist and advise 24/7- every day of the year, just drop us an email [email protected]
Have a smokey (and hopefully not too snowy!) weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Punch Serie D’Oro rocks!

Very excited to have received our allocation of Punch Serie D’Oro no.1 limited edition humidors from Hunters and Frankau this week – this 2010 exclusive remake of the 2008 UK regional edition is superb 🙂 we have already sold 10 before they arrived! And buyers won’t be disappointed. Low price, great cigars and likely to be a great investment too.

Herfed at the Lanesborough cigar terrace with my friend Alan this week which despite the freezing temperature was as warm as ever. Great company, food, champagne and cigars – the perfect herf ! we blasted our way through Diplomaticos and Monte 2’s – great evening smokes. Change of venue for our next monthly herf, at Ten Manchester street cigar terrace – review to follow.

My shops in Scotland have been snowed in beyond belief (you may have seen the weather reports!) but our customers have been ordering more and more over our websites for rapid whisky and cigar deliveries 🙂 Mean whilst our London Robert Graham shop in West Hampstead is busier than busy especially as its open till 7pm (and 8pm on Thursday and Friday) easy parking right outside the door and the humidor has now been remodelled and has almost twice the range to previously. Cigar sampling on the premises encouraged of course.

Late finish at the office last night herfing with our friend Captain jack from the US who enjoyed a Robaina Unicos and Monte petit Edmundo paired up with some Robert Graham ‘Hoebeg’ Islay scotch 🙂

Thanks to all for emailing in your auction photos- a few more appear below. We managed to complete our auction reporting to all buyers and sellers in fairly record time due to very late nights in the office (2 a.m. was the norm!) and thanks to a lot of Cuban Coffee

Have a smokey weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Greetings from freezing London…..

Greetings from freezing London where the highlight of my week was holding the coldest cigar auction in history on the cigar terrace at Boisdale of Belgravia!

Some 60 bidders attended (and over 100 absentee bidders from the warmth of their homes!) from all over the world including Japan, Hong Kong, North America and Europe

To say the weather was freezing is an understatement but the enthusiasm of the bidders could not have been higher as we all kept warm with copious amounts of Chivas and Glenlivet as well as champagne and canapés J We smoked a variety of fabulous UK regional edition Havana cigars including El Rey del Mundo Choix De L’Epoque,Por Larranaga Regalias de Londres and Punch Serie D’Oro no. 1 ( available in a limited edition humidor from next week)

Jennie Churchill, the great granddaughter of Winston Churchill very kindly donated an auction Lot which was presented to her in Havana in 2004. This beautiful humidor was signed by Alejandro Robaina as well as Jennie and contained 108 specially banded Churchill sized cigars. The winning bidder was a Gentleman from Japan who kindly paid some £18,000 including fees- all of which went to Prostate Cancer and Action against Hunger charities

Amongst the many highlights of the evening was a box of 10 Dunhill Seleccion 779 ( Romeos) that sold for a whopping £12937.50 setting a new auction record at nearly £1300 per cigar !

A beautiful Elie Bleu humidor containing 150 specially banded cigars sold for £24,000 plus fees

There was a massive range of Dunhill cigars that were mostly won by a very famous collector from Hong Kong.

Overall around 85% of the Lots in the sale were knocked down by ex-Christies Auctioneer Brian Ebbesen over a mammoth 3 hour sale.

After Auction drinks and smokes were enjoyed at the cigar terrace in the Lanesborough Hotel where we enjoyed a variety of the finest Havanas including Dunhill Don Candido’s and 1492’s – despite the cold and snow- a great evening was had by all 🙂

We are still wading through all the invoicing paperwork (quite a mountain of work) but hope to report and settle with all sellers next week (pretty fast for an Auction business) ! Many thanks to all our bidders for settling so promptly.

Thanks to the C.Gars Ltd Team for all their hard work in organizing the Auction and of course BIG thanks to Ranald and his Team at Boisdale – my favourite cigar friendly establishment in London.

We are now planning our next auction for June 2011 which will no doubt be a lot warmer ! Of course we buy and sell vintage cigars all year round so don’t hesitate to contact for advice and /or valuations. I am always happy to help. Best way to contact is by email [email protected]

The fabulous UK limited edition Punch Serie D’Oro no.1 humidor will be released early next week. Only 100 made – its very popular and likely to sell out fast- I have already taken 5 orders today ( and 5 last week!) If you’re lucky you may well get one signed by Jemma Freeman and Simon Chase of Hunters and Frankau 🙂

So December is finally here and with all the bad weather I can do no better than suggest that you top up your humidors soonest as shipping from C.Gars Ltd is fast but due to the weather, some locations are experiencing delays in postal and courier services. If you need gifts we have the most enormous range in our retail cigar and whisky shops and an even larger range online.

Have a great weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell