This week’s blog comes to you from sunny New York City.

On arrival last week, my partner Ron at Robert Graham Ltd had left a delightful message on my answer phone – Whisky Magazine had just held the 2012 Independent Bottlers Challenge, our Company won a Bronze Award for Independent Bottler of the Year in the Islay category for our Dancing Stag 1990 Bowmore as well as a silver award for our Ailein Mor 10 year old in the Highland category.

We are terribly proud of our own range of single malts and we are currently bringing out limited edition new releases almost every month.

You do have to buy them fast though as there are only around 330 bottles released from some of our casks!

Cohiba Piramides Extra came in last week just before I headed to the US so I managed to test a couple of sticks and they didn’t disappoint, this large format cigar had a cool draw with delicious full, sweet and almost chocolatey flavours, a light to medium cigar in terms of strength all packed up in a vein free colorado – colorado maduro wrapper. Boxes of 10 and singles are available but stocks are very limited.

We always advise friends to buy first production batch codes where possible as that is the only certain way of testing and enjoying the cigars to the original intended blend. Certainly subsequent date codes may be as good but conversely the tobacco used may be from a different batch and the precise integrity of the blend may not be maintained although I dare say the general characteristic should in theory always be the same.

Sadly no Havanas for me over the last week in New York but plenty of ‘domestics’ as my American chums would say. Nice routine of going over to De La Concha in the mornings for an après breakfast smoke which has been a Regius Corona  and very nice it was too. I’m starting to become quite a fan of this NC and have now expanded the range which you can see here as well as reduced the prices to help introduce the range to more of our clients. If you like a fairly full strength and full flavoured Nicaraguan, you will love this brand.

I have quite a good routine in NYC as I know most of the places to herf at and lots of friends to herf with but Saturday nights is always Sinatra night at the Carnegie Club, situated at 156 West 56th Street. Not an impersonator but a tribute show by Steve Maglio and the Stan Rubin Orchestra. Carnegie Club is of course a cigar lounge so my pals and I enjoyed Sinatra music, scotch and some great cigars until… Well, early Sunday morning <hic!> Now I have finally decided not to drink any more… or any less 🙂

I went through too many Fuente cigars to recall! It was fabulous long evenings herf but this cigar was just outstanding I could probably enjoy this cigar as part of my daily rotation, great blend, wrapper and construction.

Popped in to say ‘hi’ to Michael Herklots at Nat Sherman which is always a great place to herf and bumped into Edward Sahakian from Davidoff of London! He’s in Town for the Cigar Aficionado bash at Grand Havana Room this evening. We all have a lot to thank that mag for, it really did start the boom off.

Herfed till late at Club Macanudo on Sunday and tried to learn what on earth is happening in an American football match, gave up in the end as they all seem to attack each other for no apparent reason (makes rugby look tame) but did enjoy the tennis (Serena) and enjoyed the Murray game even more on Monday! (Did he smile finally?)

I may have found one of the friendliest places in New York to smoke cigars: Cigar Inn has an eclectic crowd of cigars smokers and its very buzzy, plenty of seating, lockers and huge range of just about anything the cigar smoker could want. Add great service and it’s a highly recommended venue to herf.

Ok, so it’s just about time for me to check out of the hotel and meet friends for an afternoon herf before heading back to Blighty… And I better not miss that flight as its Karyn and my birthday on Friday and I still haven’t decided what celebratory smokes to have!

If you’re celebrating New Year this Sunday evening, let me wish you a Shana Tova

As they say in NYC (Over and over and over and over and over again) have a great day!

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell