Delicious Drams!

ATT07570Welcome to the whisky blog from Turmeaus Whisky and Cigars, Watergate Street, Chester.

Firstly let me introduce myself; I am Peter Spinks and I am lucky enough to work within our whisky and spirits store. Over the coming months I hope I can introduce you to some fabulous whiskies, fine spirits, wines and champagnes.

One of our best-selling whiskies has been the delightful Glen Scotia Double Cask, this whisky is a classic Campbeltown malt and is finished in a combination of first fill bourbon barrels followed by time in Pedro Ximenez sherry casks to produce this outstanding malt whisky that provides the perfect balance of rich spicy fruits overlaid with the characteristic sea spray and vanilla oak finish of the house of Glen Scotia. this whisky is one of my favourites and especially at the current bargain price of £39.99 per 70cl.

With summer upon us, I would like to recommend some gorgeous summer drinks ideal for those BBQ’s and summer parties. We currently have some delightful Swedish AIVY flavoured vodkas, which are infused with some really interesting ingredients. My favourite is the Pear Strawberry & Mint which is lovely to make a fruit punch out of.

I combine crushed ice with four measures of vodka, fresh strawberries, fresh mint and top with soda water. This makes a lovely fruity punch style drink ideal to share or just for yourself!

fever_tree_tonicsGin has made a massive comeback in recent years and is more popular than ever, it fascinates me how many types and brands of Gin are available. We stock an amazing range which includes dry, cocktail and botanical gins, all which can be complimented by our range of Fever Tree tonics.

The current must have gin, Chase Williams dry gin, is now in stock and really is something special. Chase Williams are from cider country in Herefordshire and they have won numerous awards. I love this gin and pair it with Fever Tree Mediterranean tonic water and a slice of lime, just so refreshing!

We had another very successful cigar & fine spirits event at the Gorgeous Bar Lounge Chester. At this event we enjoyed some newly launched Drew Estate Undercrown Shade cigars paired with Flor de Cana Nicaraguan rum and single malt whisky from Glenturret.

I can honestly say that Flor de Cana rum is one of the finest I have tasted, a beautiful smooth rum which is unusually 5 times distilled. This gives a rum of superior purity and contains no additives or colours. The rum is slow aged in hand made oak barrels which give it great depth of flavour. Flor de Cana is available starting at the entry level 4 year old which is perfect for mixing Cuba Libre and Mojito, 7, 12, 18 years and the flag ship 25 year old.

So with the weekend now so close, come and visit us and treat yourself to something to quaff. I’ve already got my eye on a bottle of Flor de Cana 18 year old rum!

Whatever you choose, enjoy and have a great weekend!

Cheers,

Peter.

Summer – What Summer?

Here I sit in my rather comfortable London office sampling a Cohiba Robusto Supremo in the middle of July and I am watching the most torrential amount of rain through the windows, just unbelievable. I love London but this weather is too bad for words (very British to complain about the weather!) hey ho, nothing I can do about it… or can I? Yup, I’m the hell out of here till the end of August, heading for a deckchair in the sunshine and some non-stop herfing and R&R 🙂

albanyAnd I will need that R&R because when I get back to Blighty I’ll be working very hard up North as we will be opening the new Turmeaus flagship store in lovely Liverpool on the Tuesday 30th August. Long time in the planning but I’m a bit of a tortoise in business and have that OCD thing going on so I have to have everything perfect of course. Located at The Albany in old Hall Street, our latest expansion will provide our Merseyside and Lancashire customers with an all singing and dancing cigar, tobacco, accessories and whisky retail store together with cigar sampling lounge and whisky tasting bar.

But dear blog reader, that’s just the first phase as I expect to start developing the second phase soon after which will provide an additional Turmeaus cigar store and sampling lounge open till 11 pm and a drinks and tapas lounge as well as the hugest whisky bar in the North West. Splendid 🙂 that should keep me entertained for a little while I reckon.

I have to laugh when I think back to buying the original Turmeaus shop on Water Street many years ago. So many people asked me ‘why?’ and inferred that it was a daft place to have a cigar shop. Righto, proved them wrong (no surprise). I thought, and still think, that Liverpool is a super cool city. Trendy bars, excellent hotels and restaurants and very friendly people. I’m looking forward to some splendid tasting events with old and new Turmeaus – Liverpool clients.

This is the first development that we used architects for and it’s been a wonderful experience. I expect this premises to be one of our finest. The humidor room will have an insane selection of premium Havana and New World cigars as well as an incredible range of the finest humidors and cigar accessories. The bar will have a delightful range of premium spirits to sample and the cigar sampling lounge will be super comfortable with excellent smoke extraction. Our legendary customer service ensures a warm welcome and the best of advice.

Whilst up North last week I zoomed into Turmeaus –Knutsford which was looking lovelier than ever except it was a warm day and I thought the cigar sampling lounge was a tad too warm. No problem, air conditioning is now ordered and my clients will be chilled accordingly in a few week’s time!  Always good to see Andrew, Sue and Liz who manage the Knutsford store for me, I can’t think of a friendlier team in any cigar store in the UK, just super customer service. Magnificent range of cigars and whisky and Andrews prize and joy wine room is awesome (as is his knowledge of wines!). I found this review from a customer on Google today:

I visited Turmeaus Tobacconist for the first time today, and it definitely won’t be my last. The gentleman that served me was wonderful; great customer service skills and very knowledgeable about all the products. The shop also had a lovely warm and inviting atmosphere. I think my husband is going to be delighted with his birthday gift of cigars and rum! He’ll also be visiting to sample more of the delights offered by Turmeaus. It’s been a very nice shopping experience indeed. Thank you!

Next stop was Turmeaus – Chester which incorporates our La Casa del Habano. I would say that this place is cool but on this particularly hot day I can honestly say the lounge was freezing due to the over effective aircon lol. Clients seemed to be enjoying sampling as the lounge was jammed full as was the whisky sampling bar area. I mooched around the humidor which is crammed full of gems from HavanaCmxG-vRWEAALhic. We really do have an incredible range of boxes and cabinet selection Havanas as well as huge range of singles.

I also managed to have a herfette in Turmeaus – Mayfair last week, it was our friend Eric’s birthday (perfect excuse) and he enjoyed a Cuaba Distinguidos birthday smoke whilst I puffed away on another Cohiba Robustos Supremo. I just love these gobstoppers!

My assistant David at Mayfair got a bit of a shock on Saturday when a car crashed right through the front of the shop next door. Thanks to all my friends on Facebook and Twitter for all their funny comments!

Cm9f9qBXgAEc-Hj

At last! My Inka – Secret Blend import has arrived and we will be back to full range next week. The popularity of this range is quite breath-taking. Great blend and great value, who could ask for more?

Okay so I’m off Havana cigars and on to New World cigars for the next month or so and I’ve selected a bunch of my favourites whilst I top up my tan, they include:

Inka Secret Blend,
Regius Orchant Selection,
Orchant Seleccion by Oliva,
Macanudo Inspirado.

That should keep me going!

Next blog from the swimming pool!

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell

cgarssummerwhiskyd

Back to normal…

Back to normal, if life is ever normal in the C.Gars world! We have almost finished all of our Summer auction work (some huge task!) and some 300 Lots have either been collected or are in the shipping process so I can finally see my London humidor again, which comes as some relief.

We outgrew our original London office/warehouse some years ago and expanded into the building next door 3 years ago which was brilliant but alas the time has come around again that we are bursting at the seams due to the huge increase in business. So, the other day I was chatting with Michelle and saying “if only another building would become available alongside” lo and behold, one did! Terms rapidly agreed, architect instructed, builders quotes awaited and we hope to move in by late September.

One issue is that we have utterly run out of humidor space and our auction and vintage cigar business is now so huge it needs a home of its own. I’m building a massive walk in humidor in the new premises that will just house our client lockers and rare and vintage Havana cigars. This will make the mooching around the humidor experience a lot more pleasant for my clients as its not much fun battling around 10 of my team as they run in and out the current walk in humidor nonstop!

The other issue, (nice one though it is) is that we are experiencing unprecedented growth in sales and our London warehouse team is ever expanding so we can provide on time deliveries to our zillions of clients. Thankfully the new premises will help us cope for the foreseeable future. All exciting stuff.

Continuing the Cohiba 50th anniversary celebrations this week, I enjoyed an evening at Mark’s Club in London’s Mayfair where Zenith watches presented their stunning Cohiba edition.

 

Nick Foulkes and Reinhold from Cigar JournalNick Foulkes gave a wondeful talk about watches and cigars in his inimitable witty and knowledgable manner and Cohiba Siglo III and Robusto Supremo paired up with Ruinart champage were enjoyed by all. Great to bump into Reinhold Widmeyer from Cigar Journal and we’re planning a decdent vintage Havana cigar tasting in Austria in the near future.

cgarseu2The big news topic this week though was of course the Brexit referendum. From my perspective I can tell you I enjoyed watching TV till ridiculously early in the morning and herfed my way through 2 Cohiba Robusto Supremo, 1 Cohiba 1966 and a few shots of Stalla Dhu to keep my spirits up so to speak. Thanks for all the emails asking what effect I expect this to have on business. I’m not certain but genuinely doubt it will make any difference whatsoever. That said the weaker Pound has caused a bit of a jump in export business 🙂

Still a few places available for our wine and cigar tasting event at Turmeaus Knutsford on the 13th July unfortunately I can’t be there as I’m jetting off to the sun for Summer (severe lack of it in London today!) but my assistant Andrew assures me he will be taking extra good care of all attendees. We have a super comfortable sampling lounge in Knutsford and a huge range of cigars, whisky and wine.

Macanudo Inspirado is selling like bonkers now that we have added two more sizes to the range. Check it out on this link, premium cigars and very good value indeed!

The Inka Secret Blend cigars success story continues with mega record sales last month. Apologies for the odd size stock out as I am still trying to cope with the sales growth of this brand. Good news is that I have another huge import from Peru due to arrive on Monday.

Last chance to get your hands on Orchant Seleccion Bolivar Royal Coronas as we only have a few boxes left. 2014 was a true return to form for this cigar and the blend is very earthy and full flavoured yet refined and smooth. Not for the beginner!

Also last chance to get the lovely cigar case with Winston Churchill robusto cigars and Winston Churchill petit coronas. Fabbie cigars from Davidoff and a lovely case to store them in 🙂 Last 10 of each and then they are done.

If you like a full flavour Nicaraguan cigar you can’t go wrong with the Regius range (exclusive to C.Gars) they are just superb value for a premium smoke.

I’m still having fun adding to our booze range. Checkout Drinks by the Dram sampler packs. These are perfect to try all different types of whisky and other premium spirits, most of them have tasting note cards in the box which adds to the fun. They also make brilliant gifts.

I hear that my rather cool marketing Team at Turmeaus Norfolk are rolling out some PRICE THRASHER promotions from Monday… look out, there should be some great deals.

That’s half a year done and did it ever zoom by for me! I’m seeing Carole King in concert in Hyde Park on the weekend (I wonder if cigar smoking will be allowed?)

Have a smokey weekend,

Peaceful puffing.

Mitchell

cgarssummerwhiskyb