Another exciting month end with my home office pc giving up the ghost after only 2 years faithful service, seems that computer equipment is more consumable than ever now. That said 24 hours burning day and night with smoke coming off  and ash falling on my keyboard whilst dealing with up to 2000 emails a day and I reckon I probably got my money’s worth. I was smoking a Flor de Cano Short Robusto whilst remembering that the first primitive PC I bought worked on dial up, was as slow as hell, continually crashed and cost me around £3,500 which was an awful lot of money back in the day – especially as I had no money!

I remember telling Laura that I truly believed that technology/ speed would continually double and prices would halve until every home in the country would have a computer, and I remember us cracking open a bottle of Dom Perignon when we went on broadband and downloaded our 4th version of the C.Gars website which had loads of new features and zillions of photographs… and sales doubled that year 🙂

Occasionally I look at the old versions of the C.Gars websites on waybacktimemachine and laugh at how primitive they were and how my daughter could probably do a better design but back in the day this was cutting edge!

So the replacement pc is installed, no data has been lost and life returns to normal after two evenings work on my laptop (still super fast and working thankfully) I’m often asked how do you manage so many emails, you must work 24 hours a day? Well some days it feels like I’m working 24 hours a day but I actually only work afternoons in the London office and late evenings at home so it may well be thanks to the Sales Teams that you get rapid replies to email. Well done Sales Team 🙂

I love working at the office but it has to be said that it’s a bit of a madhouse with 7 or 8  girls all talking (at once usually as well as very loud), phones ringing, doorbells buzzing, computers binging and bonging – not the easiest of  environments for a quiet cigar moment! Whereas smoking at home is an entirely different experience, quiet and relaxing. Some time for contemplation and the complete experience that only a good Havana cigar can do. 

I have been smoking the new Partagas SD5 since the day it came out and have been really impressed with it. I wasn’t sure if it’s my taste changing or I just seem to enjoy Partagas more and more these days. I decided to take 3 Partagas D5’s from 3 separate boxes home with me for a serious taste and quality test and I have to say that its so far my favourite smoke of the year, perhaps with the exception of the UK LFDC which is an entirely different animal, I really rate this first production batch of D5’s. They are smooth and full flavoured, well crafted, attractive wrappers and complex. Shorter than a D4 – yes. More satisfying smoke though and more going on with the blend than the D4 for sure. I can only hope that subsequent production batches maintain blend integrity.

True story – chap comes into my office last week, has a drink and a smoke with me and tells me that he buys his accessories and some of his cigars from me (has done for years) but gets most of his boxes from ‘ Don Nobody’ from overseas as they are 25% cheaper but he just wasn’t certain if all the cigars were genuine and what did I think. I have heard a few similar stories over the years and my thoughts were:

 -why would you want to buy from ‘Don Nobody’ who is not a cigar specialist just someone selling a product that happens to be cigars, could be bricks or soap bars. Surely one of the joys of Havana cigars is the experience of dealing with a genuine cigar specialist who is able to advise on what’s new? What’s good/bad/indifferent? What are the best factory codes? Best date codes? Suitable wrapper colours and correct storage conditions  – that’s all part of the experience that you are only ever likely to get when you deal with a real ‘specialist’

-To save 25% on the cost of our cigars but not be certain whether you are smoking the real deal or a fake seems to be a bit of a false economy to me to say the least

-Not clever risking shipping tobacco into the UK  as UK customs may well stop the package and I understand you may well end up in front of a magistrate….for the saving you may make on some questionable cigars it hardly seems worth the bother surely

-the bottom line I think is that you get what you pay for and there are no free lunches as such. Better to smoke less but smoke the best

OK so I‘m kicking back for the weekend with D5’s and E2’s don’t even ask for boxes of 25’s ! long sold out and could be weeks before we get some more but we do have the boxes of 5’s available which are cool presentation.

Getting ready for auction season which starts this week with the first 400 Lots going online and our catalogues being sent out this Wednesday. Tickets for the auction events will be online on Monday evening but places as always will be strictly limited. Featured cigars at the 27th November pre herf and pre and post auction herf on the 28th November include the latest ‘Orchant Seleccion’ release of Juan Lopez Seleccion No.2 as well as the fabulous UK regional LFDC Short robustos all matched up with copious quantities of champagne/cocktails and canapés…. October was a great month but November will be wild !…feels like Christmas season has started 🙂

Have a smokey weekend 

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell