Happy Holidays!

Robert Graham Glasgow Walk in HumidorI’m back to our London office! and just in time according to the weather forecast!

I spent the last week visiting Robert Graham cigar and whisky shops in Edinburgh, Canongate, Edinburgh Rose street and West George street Glasgow where I was on duty in the walk in cigar humidor 🙂

We only moved a couple of months ago from West Nile street to our new flagship premises in West George street and the shop was heaving with customers morning till night. Quite a sophisticated cigar clientele as well as a lot of novice smokers that were very interested in chatting with me about Havana and new world cigars.

I can’t remember working in any of our retail cigar stores for many years so it was very interesting to see ‘what was hot and what was not’!

Without any doubt Montecristo outsold everything by a mile… No surprise there. But, brands such as Alec Bradley, Regius, Fuente and Davidoff were immensely popular particularly with new cigar smokers who like to mix it up and try Cubans and new world cigars.

Inka secret blend peruvian cigars mixed selection of cigarillos, half corona, chicos, tres petit coronaSales of Inka – Secret Blend were staggering and outsold all the non-Cubans put together. I am guessing it’s a combination of quality as well as price. I started the week with a mountain of Inka cigars and ended it more or less sold out!

It goes without saying that the popularity of our award winning range of Dancing Stag whisky was overwhelming and we were restocking the shelves by the hour! The Bowmore 1990 and Hoebeg were the most popular and I would be surprised if there is a single bottle left now.

Chatting with loads and loads of customers over the week reinforced what my Partner Ron and I have always thought… Customers love the fact that we are an independent family owned and run business. Passionate about whisky and passionate about cigars. Personal and old fashioned best service online and in store.

2013 has been our best year ever by a long stretch and we have certainly come a long way since we started C.Gars Ltd in 1997 and took over Robert Graham in 2003 from the Graham family.

We never had any doubt that we could resurrect the brand successfully and we have worked tirelessly to do so. Now operating from 5 specialist shops and our websites specialising in the finest single malt whisky and premium cigars with a fabulous experienced Team and planning to expand our range of award winning Independent bottlings of single malt as well as open more retails locations in 2014.

C.Gars mail order and Turmeaus cigar shops are also having their best ‘season’ ever. Our shops in London Mayfair, Liverpool and Chester as well as our offices in London and Norfolk report record sales of cigars and accessories, in fact we have never sold so many humidors in a year in our entire history. So much for smoking ban! Clearly cigar smokers are resilient and don’t like to be told what to do, or rather what not to do.

We have some exciting plans for 2014 including our new Norfolk premises and our new super duper C.Gars website. More whisky range and even more cigar range at the best prices in the UK… Guaranteed.

I’m heading home to chill out with a bottle of Dancing Stag Bowmore 1990 and a couple of boxes of La Flor de Cano Gran Cano cigars. But if you need any advice, we will still be online 24/7 over Christmas.

So it’s very Happy Holidays from all of the C.Gars and Robert Graham team 🙂

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell

Christmas Cigar Cartoon

Gran Reserva – Oh yes!

Oh my goodness, this could be the best cigars I have enjoyed this year! Partagas Gran Reserva arrived in our humidors this week and are flying out of the humidor.

The cigar not only tastes incredible but has the most enticing oily colorado maduro wrappers I have ever seen, far better than the Montecristo or Cohiba previous Gran Reserva. We sold out in around 2 nano seconds but 

Turmeaus Book Style Cabinet

expect some more availability very soon so keep those orders rolling in 🙂

Here are few of the Turmeaus special editions…Still plenty of time to order Christmas prezzies and we keep adding new sexeeee products daily!

Book style cigar cabinet made specially for Turmeaus in Cuba and containing 16 beautiful robustos rolled by Arlety at our London offices in October.

 

Regius Culebras - Turmeaus Edition 2013 Cigar

Regius Culebras – Turmeaus Limited Edition – crazy low price!

Length: 5 3/4″
Ring Gauge: 39
Flavour: Medium to full
Packaging: Box of 9 cigars (3 x 3 cigars twisted together)

Rich and earthy cigars with a background of spice.


Only 400 boxes made, 200 for the USA and 200 for the UK

These cigars have been created for Alfie Turmeaus Tobacconist est. 1817 and exclusively selected by Havana Cigars Specialist Mitchell Orchant. (That’s me/the blogger!)

Handmade and long filler premium cigars.

The Culebra is a collection of 3 cigars, twisted by the Torcedors (rollers) made for factory rollers to smoke in order to distinguish them from the straight cigars intended for export.

The cigars are made with a Nicaraguan binder and filler and 3 different wrappers:

1 – Cuban seed Oscuro wrapper from Jalapa Nicaragua
2 – Cuban seed Rosado wrapper from Jalapa Nicaragua
3 – Connectict seed from Talanga Honduras

Regius Robustos – Turmeaus Limited Edition – crazy low price!

Length: 4 3/4″
Ring Gauge: 52
Flavour: Medium to full
Packaging: Box of 10 cigars

Rich and earthy cigars with a background of spice.

Only 400 boxes made, 200 for the USA and 200 for the UK.

This limited edition has been created for Alfie Turmeaus Tobacconist est. 1817 and exclusively selected by Havana Cigars Specialist Mitchell Orchant. (That’s me/the blogger!)

…and take a look at these new lines:

New range of ‘My Father’ cigars on this link yes I know, rather odd name! But regardless, they are pretty good smokes!

Alec Bradley 2012 Fine & Rare - Limited Edition Torpedo Cigar - Box of 10Alec Bradley Fine and Rare cigars… Some of the best New World smokes out there superb presentation as well as great value.

Need a stocking filler? Cigar review notepad may do the trick.

And if you need special dram for the holidays check out 30 year old Jura 🙂

Our offices are operating 24/7 to get your orders out on time and so far so good 🙂 Well done London and Norfolk C.Gars Team.

Whilst hard at work I have been ‘sampling’ my way through the 2007 UK regional edition Por Larranaga Magnificos the maturing process this cigar has gone through is incredible. Its soft and refined, sweet and balanced. Quite possibly one of the best cigars ever to come out of Havana.

On the late shift I need more of a pep you up smoke and I’ve opted for the Davidoff Nicaraguan Toro… BOOM! This is one full bodied puppy!!! Try them… They are incredible.

Our shops across the UK stock comprehensive ranges of cigars and whisky and we look forward to welcoming you. Wherever you are and whatever you need… We have you covered. Largest range in the UK. Best prices in the UK and  best service in the UK. If we ever fall short the buck stops here and I’m always available to personally help my clients [email protected]

Next week I’m off to Scotland and look forward to welcoming clients to our wonderful Robert Graham shops in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Have a smokey weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

C.Gars Christmas Cigar Cartoon

More New Cigars!

After the crazy travels of the last few weeks, it’s been a pleasure to be back in the London office this week which can best be described as an absolute hive of Christmas order activity! I love the Christmas season as the buzz is amazing with three times the normal volume of orders.

We work to full shipping capacity normally so the increased volume is quite a challenge to manage! Our team work is legendary and all orders are being fulfilled fully and rapidly so I reckon Santa Claus will be making on time deliveries 🙂

But how do we do it? Well, we are the only cigar specialist in the world that I know of that works 24/7 – every day of the year, so when you place your order… Its picked and packed and ready for shipping within an average of 6 minutes! Our London and Norfolk warehouses are crammed with stock , everything you see on our websites is actually available and I dare say we must have the largest range and stocks in the UK… As well as more retail cigar shops than anyone in the UK.

Herfing at Ten Manchester StreetManaged to take a break and herf at Ten Manchester Street with cigar smoking chums Dov, Joe and Tim on Tuesday evening. Starting off on the splendid heated terrace and then moving into the sampling room for what ended up to be a very late night herf.

Service as good as ever (TY Paula and Maurizio) perfectly mixed old fashioned cocktails (I lost count they were so good!) and copious amounts of La Flor de Cano Gran Cano cigars were enjoyed immensely.

Ten Manch as we like to call it has become a firm herfing favourite location with a good crowd of regulars as well as hotel cigar smoking guests and of course everyone gets chatting over a good cigar or two.

Herfing at Ten Manchester StreetWe expect the long overdue releases of the Partagas Gran Reserva any day now. I tried this cigar back in March at the Habanos festival and it was sublime. I can’t wait to revisit it. Tasting notes from the two cigars I smoked at the Festival: Full and true Partagas flavour/blend. Refined and smooth medium strength with an incredibly good draw for a double corona.

We also have new stocks of the fabulous UK regional edition La Flor de Cano Gran Cano – in store and online. Buy them while you can as they are flying off the shelves.

I love UK regional editions, they are such awesome smokes. Checkout the range since the beginning of the regionals program here. We still have availability of most of the cigars as we hold back such huge stocks and release them in small quantity year by year. My favourites include the Por Larranaga Magnificos and Punch Serie D’Oro no.1 as well as the incredible Ramon Allones Belicosos which started the whole regional edition cigar program.

Next week we will be releasing  two cigars specially made for Turmeaus tobacconist. Regius – Culebras and Regius robustos. I did the blending of the cigars and think they will be very popular indeed. Just a couple of hundred boxes of each made and available next week in all of our stores as well as online.

If you are following the success of the Inka – Secret Blend cigar range that I created you’ll be happy to see the newly launched Cristales sweet as sugar blend, handmade and long filer 100% Peruvian. Measuring in at 6” length and 41 ring gauge, unbeatable value, superb smoke or a great gift.

We’re still struggling with the huge volume sales for the Inka –Secret Blend brand of cigars which has fast become our bestselling range of non-Cubans. They can’t be beaten for value and are great quality. The Minis are the only handmade mini on the market that I know of and are a great little whiff when you’re short of time and the Bombaso is big enough even for a big mouth like me 🙂 (60 ring gauge!)

We’re introducing a big new range of Dalmore single malts in store and online in the next few days including the delicious ‘Cigar Malt’ which works very well with a cigar obviously 🙂

OK so I’m kicking back for a few hours tomorrow and have my humipouch crammed with some BBF’s, PSD4’s, LFDC Gran Cano as well as some Punch Serie D’Oro no.1. I’m  pairing them up with a bottle of Robert Graham Christmas Malt to get me in the spirit so to speak 🙂

Have a smokey weekend

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell

Merry Xmas Cigar Cartoon