A Week in the Life… Of a Cigar Specialist!

Happy Friday! And yes I am really happy its Friday as this is the busiest week I can remember in a long time, kicking off with an excellent cigar evening at the splendid Harts Hotel in Nottingham last Sunday. Champagne and Epicure 2’s at the pre herf in a friend’s home followed by dinner in a Bedouin tent on a warm and balmy evening. Jimmy from Hunters and Frankau ably introduced the 3 cigars we enjoyed throughout the evening:

H Upmann Half Corona

Bolivar Britanicas

Punch Medalla D’Oro

Needless to say the favourite of the evening was the Bolivar but the Punch fared well too with perfect construction and very classic ‘punchy’ flavours.

Post herf went on till 5 a.m.(!) at a friend’s house where we went through large amounts of Punch Serie D’Oro no.1 matched up with 21 year old Springbank and some 50 year old Armagnac.

Breakfast smokes were Epi 2’s from 2000 which were remarkably good – Matched up with a lot of coffee!

Monday afternoon was spent sampling cigars at Turmeaus Chester where the walk in humidor has a huge range of Havanas and still has some Montecristo Gran Reserva and of course all the UK regional editions and limited editions.

Tuesday was spent sampling cigars at Turmeaus Liverpool where I smoked El Rey Choix de L’Epoque for a lighter smoking day! I am indeed the ‘kid in a candy store’ as we own Turmeaus retro confectionery store which has just about every piece of confectionery I can remember from my childhood. Checkout the range here.

Off to Glasgow Wednesday morning to Robert Grahams Global Whisky Shop for a small shop, it has to be said it has a huge range of cigars in the walk in humidor, in fact I think that little haven for cigar smokers could be one of our busiest stores. The ever changing range of single malts assures our clients that we always have something different to tempt them that can’t be found in the supermarkets. Small independent limited edition bottlings seem to be massively popular.

On to Edinburgh Robert Graham Rose street shop which has the hugest selection of Havanas and other premium cigars in the walk in humidor. Singles, small packs, boxes and jars – Just a huge range. The Scotch, Rum and Gin range isn’t too shabby either.

I moved on to Robert Graham’s Treasurer shop on Canongate/Royal Mile where I sampled chocolates, Robert Graham Dancing Stag single Malt and a surprise find of Por Larranaga Regalias de Londres in the humidor. I thought we were thorough with this excellent UK regional edition but there are a few boxes in Canongate if you hurry 🙂

Back to London on Thursday and a day full of meetings at the London office although I managed to sneak off to Robert Graham West Hampstead for a crafty smoke in the sunshine outside the shop and a dram or two of our Hoebeg Islay whisky.

And to finish the week off I visited Alfie Turmeaus Mayfair cigar shop which had a queue of customers outside the door! Thanks to the Olympics no doubt but looks like today will be the best days sales ever for this lovely specialist cigar shop in the heart of Mayfair. I sampled a Punch Medalla D’Oro before heading off to a long lunch with Edward and Eddie Sahakian of Davidoff at Franco’s. Great service, great food and a lovely place to smoke cigars in central London. Tatinger champagne and Cuban Davidoff no.1’s… What a great way to finish the week.

Next week I’m off to Orlando for the annual IPCPR trade show and hope to be ordering some great new ranges of humidors, lighters and cutters… Watch this space 🙂

Have a smokey weekend,

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell

Another busy week…

Another fine weeks herfing including the Lanesborough – Their premier Cru Chablis has to be the best I have experienced as well as great value. Chablis could be the perfect white wine for a good Havana cigar; crisp and cleansing on the palate. I herfed my way through all sizes of Behike 52, 54 and 56 and the combo worked perfectly!

Had dinner at Boisdale Belgravia and smokes on the terrace with my usual smoking buddies and was not surprised to see the restaurant and terrace jam packed as usual. Great crowd, great food, excellent value – Basically Boisdale rocks!

Off to Nottingham on Sunday for the annual cigar dinner at the delightful Harts Hotel. Details on this link. Should be a wonderful evening of smokes, drinks and dinner with the best of company.

Some excellent cigar tastings planned at Boisdale of canary Wharf – Details on this link. The cigar library is one of the best locations in London to sample a fine cigar.

Next week I’ll be racing round many of our cigar stores and looking forward to finding some hidden gems in the walk in humidors as well as having a smoke and a good single malt at our fabulous Robert Graham shops.

If you haven’t signed up already… Hurry! Everyone needs to sign up against plain packaging and the consultation period ends 10th August so if you don’t want to see your lovely cigar boxes and bands gone forever – Make your voice heard now!

Click here to sign up!

Have a smokey weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Happy/Smokey Friday!

Finally managed to clear up our Auction accounts work this week and just in time as sellers get paid on Monday 🙂 Next auction will be end of November and we will be announcing the date before the end of this month. Sellers should contact us for advice and valuation as we will start cataloguing from September onwards. If you can’t wait till the next Auction don’t forget we buy and sell vintage cigars every day of the year!. Shoot me an email [email protected] for advice. I’m always happy to help.

Liverpool Turmeaus is now licenced for sale of Alcohol, small and select range of splendid Robert Graham single Malt whisky … perfect with a good cigar of course !

Our new Ailen Mor Highland is on offer this week at a measly £27.95 ! I had a bit of a taste testing session with this single malt paired with Cohiba 1966 and it was a sublime match, too good for words.

Next week I’ll be herfing at Boisdale to celebrate a friend’s birthday and I have my fingers crossed that we may finally get some summer sunshine.

Long way off but just booked up my flights for the February Festival in Havana! Can’t wait 🙂 despite having been to Havana around 60 times since 1997, I still love the Festivals, sun, rum and smokes- perfect ! staying at the Nacional as usual (one of the finest herf spots on the planet)

Checkout our friend Nic Wings website Nic organizes a splendid Cigar Walk of London stopping by at all the interesting cigar placed/shops etc and has also recently launched a fabulous cigar app to help you find cigar stores and lounges in London. Well done Nic – great service to the cigar trade in London

The roller is back ! Just for a day this Monday we are happy to welcome back Dilia who will be at our London offices rolling a few more freshies. If you would like to pop in for a rolling demo – shoot me an email.

Just over two weeks till I head to Orlando for the IPCPR/RTDA trade show. Can’t wait to see what new cigar toys I can find/buy/import. Our range and sales are now so huge in accessories and humidors its incredible. Something for every cigar smoker and every budget. Loads of requests recently for smaller size Elie Bleu humidors  which we have now brought in (and won’t be undersold on) and we are the only cigar merchant that I know of in the Uk that imports the fabulous Daniel Marshall range of humidor. Tremendous value and superb quality

Finally well done to the chap in the Vauxhall who did the hit and run whilst my car was parked opposite my office. Despite him having enough space for a lorry or two, he still managed to whack the bumper. Bad luck for him we took his registration number and reported him to the police. Maybe he should have a cigar and slowwwww down a bit.

OK I’m off for a pre-weekend smoke and dram with my Father, I think it will have to be Punch Serie D’Oro whilst we still have a few available !

Have a smokey weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

 

Back to normal?… not quite!

It’s going to take another few days until we settle down and get back to normal after the craziness of Auction week at C.Gars Ltd.

We knew this was likely to be a successful auction week when we counted 36 bottles of pink champagne consumed with 7 lb’s of smoked salmon sandwiches for the pre and post auction hospitality at our offices!

The event was a huge success with around 96% of the Lots being sold which is about as high as we have ever achieved. Brian Ebbesen conducted the auction in style and at a steady pace that finished just after 9pm.

Boisdale Canary Wharf is the most wonderful cigar friendly venue with its cigar terrace and cigar sampling room. The service was first rate as always as were the canapés. Many thanks to Ranald and Nathan for all their support. The ‘Cigar Library’ has a huge range of Havana and other premium cigars and Victor who runs it is one of the best cigar sommeliers in the country. The Humidor also has ‘Boisdale Orchant’ vintage Havana cigars available. I was pleasantly surprised to see the stock looked fairly wiped out, so we will be replenishing with some fabulous vintage Havanas in the next few days.

Davidoff kindly provided a roller to make ‘freshies’ of the Puro Oro and Remy Martin provided French Mojitos (dee lish) and XO Cognac. Colin Ganley covered the event to Cigar Journal and the C.Gars Team handed out Fuente, Davidoff, Hoyos and Partagas petit coronas from 1998.

I’d like to say that we are getting back to ‘normal’ but it’s taken the whole week to invoice our lucky auction bidders… because there were so many of them! So, my apologies to our auction seller but your reports will be with you early next week! My thanks to the Girls and Boys from C.Gars London and Norfolk offices for all the help with the event.

Our Winter Auction dates will be announced before the end of July and we do of course buy and sell vintage Havanas every day of the year so if you are in a hurry and don’t want to wait for the next auction simply drop us an email [email protected] advice always given with pleasure and valuations are free of charge.

Congratulations to Lucia from Turmeaus cigar shop Mayfair on her wedding- what a beautiful bride!

… and congratulations to Christine and Ian from Turmeaus Liverpool for passing their licencing exams and getting a drinks premises licence for one of the shops in Liverpool. If all goes to plan by next week our fabulous range of Robert Graham Ltd single Malt whisky will be available in store.

End of the line for Bolivar Britanicas UK regional edition – stocks dwindling fast and I gather they will be sold out very soon. Hopeful for more stocks of Punch Medalla UK regional edition to arrive soon. Will we get more UK regional this year?… no idea but ever hopeful 🙂 Will they be worth the wait? Of course!

Big question is when we are going to see Cohiba Piramides Extra released? And I have no idea! I smoked them at the February Festival and thought they were quite outstanding. I think there will be a buying frenzy when they finally come out.

Delighted to say that our new exclusive C.Gars ranges of Nicaraguan and Peruvian cigars are selling like crazy! If you haven’t tried them yet, give them a whirl – great value and great quality.

If you don’t already… You can follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Have a smokey weekend,

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Gone!

Its Summer auction time and we enjoyed a fabulous pre auction herf at the cigar terrace at Ten Manchester Street enjoying some first class English Market Selection (EMS) Partagas Petit Coronas aged to perfection from 1998 as well as Juan Lopez Selection No. 2 which were surprisingly good and mature tasting cigars, for a September 2011 date code. Delicious canapés, champagne and excellent service from Ten Manchester Street (Thanks guys!) the only sad part was that Italy lost against Spain!

So my brief blog comes to you this evening from Boisdale in Canary Wharf where we are holding our Summer Auction Event.

Our thanks to Davidoff for providing wonderful cigars as well as a cigar roller for the evening and Remy Martin for providing splendid French Mojito cocktails and Remy XO.

We are as usual transmitting the selling prices live but they are subject to verification so you will have to be patient till we get back to the office tomorrow to carefully check we have not made any typo’s.

To avoid any confusion for our many commission (absentee) bidders, you may well see that your maximum bid has been achieved on a Lot and wonder why you are in fact not the winner. The answer I’m afraid is simple, if we received two identical bids, the first one that was entered will be the winning bid. This is similar to 2 bidders in the room both willing to bid up to the same amount – the first bidder to reach that bid amount wins the Lot.

So the very best of luck to all of the bidders and the sellers and the preliminary results are as follows:

Lot Winning Bid Lot Winning Bid Lot Winning Bid Lot Winning Bid Lot Winning Bid
1 450 2 sold after 3 360 4 250 5 500
6 550 7 2200 8 1500 9 2300 10 pass
11 1250 12 1100 13 1150 14 1100 15 550
16 650 17 160 18 pass 19 pass 20 230
21 200 22 265 23 240 24 800 25 800
26 170 27 150 28 170 29 220 30 65
31 1000 32 1000 33 1100 34 620 35 180
36 230 37 280 38 130 39 900 40 pass
41 pass 42 500 43 150 44 140 45 580
46 650 47 210 48 150 49 700 50 780
51 750 52 750 53 160 54 700 55 pass
56 320 57 520 58 390 59 420 60 750
61 450 62 480 63 200 64 360 65 350
66 480 67 250 68 1500 69 460 70 370
71 300 72 pass 73 150 74 300 75 pass
76 550 77 650 78 680 79 180 80 100
81 70 82 70 83 100 84 80 85 70
86 80 87 110 88 420 89 400 90 280
91 125 92 310 93 340 94 800 95 400
96 450 97 420 98 1050 99 1000 100 1000
101 900 102 900 103 720 104 400 105 pass
106 580 107 720 108 400 109 420 110 140
111 180 112 170 113 200 114 460 115 250
116 370 117 130 118 140 119 280 120 120
121 300 122 300 123 250 124 pass 125 pass
126 350 127 340 128 175 129 550 130 400
131 550 132 200 133 300 134 280 135 300
136 pass 137 440 138 400 139 380 140 380
141 350 142 310 143 380 144 620 145 500
146 200 147 520 148 150 149 180 150 550
151 900 152 900 153 pass 154 110 155 360
156 260 157 140 158 370 159 350 160 270
161 390 162 175 163 110 164 250 165 450
166 160 167 250 168 70 169 900 170 420
171 1800 172 900 173 1000 174 600 175 720
176 1500 177 1550 178 1550 179 1250 180 1150
181 1100 182 1100 183 1300 184 1800 185 460
186 420 187 350 188 800 189 850 190 210
191 175 192 180 193 250 194 350 195 360
196 450 197 620 198 310 199 460 200 460
201 450 202 450 203 310 204 300 205 420
206 1100 207 850 208 420 209 420 210 420
211 420 212 440 213 920 214 500 215 350
216 340 217 500 218 sold after 219 1600 220 1600
221 750 222 820 223 800 224 720 225 720
226 950 227 750 228 pass 229 pass 230 1310
231 2100 232 4000 233 200 234 2300 235 1200
236 2900 237 2500 238 pass 239 1200 240 1500
241 2000 242 800 243 3000 244 2400 245 1000
246 1000 247 pass 248 800 249 pass 250 pass
251 2200 252 130 253 130 254 160 255 220
256 360 257 200 258 400 259 460 260 2000
261 460 262 250 263 350 264 300 265 260
266 260 267 600 268 400 269 pass 270 100
271 100 272 70 273 75 274 75 275 950
276 450 277 360 278 350 279 95 280 400
281 165 282 130 283 165 284 780 285 360
286 360 287 820 288 1200 289 600 290 1300
291 1250 292 920 293 780 294 750 295 300
296 180 297 600 298 480 299 550 300 130
301 200 302 3000 303 4000 304 pass 305 pass
306 350 307 100 308 355 309 800 310 250
311 260 312 270 313 75 314 70 315 65
316 65 317 65 318 60 319 60 320 65
321 70 322 70 323 70 324 65 325 260
326 240 327 130 328 520 329 750