Greetings from C.Gars London office where Laura and I have been having fun putting together our 10 Days, 10 hour Flash Sale which started yesterday. The first offer was an extra discount on our already competitive priced premium spirits which proved to be super popular 🙂

Today’s Flash sale can be seen on this link – All offers whilst stocks last… and I can tell you they are selling fast!

Last week I zoomed up North to our Turmeaus – Cigar and Whisky shops in Liverpool, Chester and Knutsford and was amazed how busy they were so soon after the holidays. From the many conversations I had with clients it’s clear that a lot of cigars were enjoyed over Christmas and New Years and a lot of humidor stock is now being replenished 🙂 I know my humidor at home took a good bashing over the New Year as friends and I herfed our way through Cohiba Robusto Supremo and 1966 Limited Editions. 2 of my favourite LE’s for sure.

Turmeaus Knutsford is open and operational but not yet completed, we still have a lot of finishing touches including construction of a premium wine room as well as new carpeting for the sampling lounge and quite a few bits and pieces of additional shop-fitting. If all goes to plan the finishing touches will be complete by Mid-February. I spent some time sampling in the lounge and from the amount of clients that came and sampled cigars, I have no doubt about the popularity of this latest Turmeaus. I’m planning some launch events for March and of course our newsletter subscribers will automatically be updated.

On to our super-duper megastore in Chester which includes our gorgeous La Casa del Habano and could well be the biggest if not best cigar and whisky shop in the UK and I was delighted to host a private clients Cuban Davidoff sampling event. The cigars included Davidoff Chateau Margaux, Davidoff Chateau Latour and Davidoff Chateau Yquem. I paired them up with Stalla Dhu Speyside Dalmore 21 year old and Speymalt from Macallan 1973.

I love vintage Davidoff cigars, in fact they are my favourite aged cigars BUT and this is a serious ‘but’ only if they have been stored correctly. 1970’s and 1980’s vintage cigars need to be stored at lower temperature and humidity to slow down the maturing process. If stored the same as regular Havanas they will lose the flavour characteristic but when stored correctly they will continue to slowly mature and they are a sublime smoking experience. Fair to say the pairings worked very well and a rather decadent evening was enjoyed by all.

We’re always happy to put together private sampling events at Chester and Knutsford and can tailor them to individual tastes and budgets. Drop me an email for more details [email protected]

La Casa del Habano – Chester received a fabulous new collection of Havana cigar branded accessories, magnificent ashtrays, humidors, cutters, lighters and baseball caps. They should all be on the website soon. Due to some ridiculous UK laws we can’t sell these items unless you purchase a cigar(s) of the same brand at the same time. Not too difficult I’m sure 🙂

And talking about ridiculous laws it seems that the completely bonkers TPD2 Tobacco Products Directive is stuffing premium cigar boxes with 65% health warnings from May of this year if I understand the legislation correctly. How sad to cover up the beautiful and ornate cigar box designs. What does it achieve realistically? – NOTHING. Will this stop any of our clients buying a box of cigars? Nope. If you’re one of my regular box buyers you may want to keep your current boxes and decant the 65% ones as they are introduced, That said most of my clients have a humidor or multiple humidors so I doubt anyone is particularly bothered about this latest nanny state BS piece of legislation.

So, I’m wrapping up in the next couple of days and then heading to sunnier climates until February. No Havana cigars for 3 weeks so what do I do???!!! Well the baggie is full of ‘anytime’ smokes:

Orchant Seleccion by Oliva Shorty and Chubby (our fastest selling new New World cigar of 2015)
Inka – Secret Blend Robustos (Rojo) and Half Coronas (still our best-selling New World range)
Alec Bradley Punk (good short full flavour bomb!)
Fuente Short Story (always a solid, reliable smoke)
Nat Sherman Sterling Robusto (my favourite cigar from this wonderful brand)
Davidoff Short Perfectos

That should keep me going till I get back!

If I manage to get a decent internet connection whilst I’m away I’ll do some updates of where I find to herf 🙂

Have a smokey January!

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell