Back to Blighty!

cgarla2Good to be home after a mammoth 5 weeks of herfing in the USA.

The last week of the trip was just about the busiest with non-stop herfing and meetings just about every day of the week. In fact on one day I actually met with three different crowds of clients starting at 4:30 for a very chilled out Inca cigar tasting at the hotel, moving on to see more friends at the State Social House (super place but very loud for an old boy like me) and then over to Grand Havana Room in Beverly Hills for yet another cigar tasting that ended around 1:30 in the morning.

Always great to herf with SoCal boy Kermit who has written an amazing book… I think I should get a copy fast after the last 5 weeks indulgence, I think I need to do some serious working out!

I also enjoyed an incredible evening at a friend’s house featuring a Macallan whisky tasting together with some rarest vintage cigars. From cask strengths to 18 and 30 year old and other rare bottlings, this was a night to remember.

san_diago_herfThen there was a mega herf in San Diego that was just about all day and most of the night! Lunch, dinner, wine, single malt, tequila and copious quantities of cigars of every shape, size and brand! This was an incredible event and my thanks to VC for putting such an incredible annual herf on for me and my chums including Jay, Peter and George who flew in specially from New York.

I also got to see my friend Michael Lington play at Vibrato and bumped into actor Michael Nouri as well.michael_lington_vibrato

The trip was great for star spotting at my hotel including Chris Martin, Paulina Rubio, Steve Tyler, Michelle Keegan and Mark Wright! I called over to invite Mark over for a cigar but he thanked me, declined, smiled and looked very handsome! Spotted Amanda Holden at Mel’s Diner on Sunset one morning as well 🙂 (She looked very pretty)

Also bumped into one movie producer Alan Greenspan one of my best friends (especially as he was producer of my favourite film, Donnie Brasco!) and enjoyed drinks and smokes with him.

All in all an amazing business trip where I herfed with literally 100’s of friends / clients non-stop. I do love going to the US, despite the driving on the wrong side of the road thing and the Americans being amused and baffled at our roundabouts! Super friendly crowds wherever I went and perfect weather to say the least. It was great to swap pin stripes for Tommy Bahama :).

I enjoyed so many New World cigars including Inca, Regius, Alec Bradley, Padron, Fuente and Davidoff to name a few. I have to admit I did miss my Havana cigars and the first thing I did when I arrived home was fire up a Ramon Allones Specially Selected… Heaven!

Back to the office for a few days this week and then heading up North next week to meet builders at yet another new shop which we plan to open in September, all very exciting.

Peaceful puffing

Mitchell