The Puffin!

Well I can finally report… at long last, our Liverpool flagship development has been completed and is open 🙂

It’s been a long journey since C.Gars purchased the ground floor commercial premises of The Albany on Old Hall Street in the center of Liverpool some two years ago but it’s been worth the huge effort all of my team has put in.

We opened one half of the new Turmeaus development last September which provided a state of the art huge walk in humidor with a gigantic range of premium cigars, humidors and accessories, a magnificent specialist whisky room with licenced bar and a very comfortable cigar sampling lounge. Phase 1 as its affectionately known is open 6 days a week from 9 am – 6 pm (10 am – 5 pm Saturday).

The second phase of the development provides an additional Turmeaus specialist cigar shop and sampling lounge that is open from 5 pm – 11 pm 6 days a week and 3 pm till 10 pm on Sundays. The sampling lounge has the best smoke filtration system I have ever seen anywhere in the world with 30 air changes an hour meaning that even when the lounge is full with clients sampling cigars, there is literally no smoke at all. It just gets eaten up… fast! (A great relief to my wife who is exceptionally porous!)

Next door to the Turmeaus is the “Puffin’ Rooms” where we feature live jazz and blues music 7 nights a week, whisky cocktails, an extensive whisky menu and a delicious tapas food menu. It’s a unique offering in opulent surroundings, the likes of which I have never seen before in the UK. Gorgeous waitresses and fabulous bar staff mixing crazy cocktails… Very laid back and very cool!

Opening Times:
Monday to Saturday – 5pm – 11pm
Sundays 3pm – 10pm
Jazz Nightly
Blues Bash Sunday Afternoons

It’s a great achievement to have finally opened the complete flagship in our 200th anniversary year. My thanks to Davidoff cigars and Dalmore whisky for all of their support with our expansion.

We have been testing the food and the customer service on a few crowds of invited guests and our management team over the last few days and we believe it’s truly 5 star. We don’t plan on any opening events for the Puffin’ Rooms as we are already more or less full every evening. The new late night Turmeaus cigar shop and lounge will be holding regular, weekly tasting events featuring Davidoff and other premium handmade cigars.

We will have some professional photographs up on the website by the end of the month but better still come and experience the best cigars, food, drinks and live music at our new premises. Check out all of our beautiful cigar and whisky shops here.

In other news this week…

The newly expanded Robert Graham shop in West Hampstead is nearly finished and features an expanded range of fine spirits as well as a comfortable indoor sampling area and heated outdoor sampling area. I had a herfette with M.D Steve Johnstone there last week 🙂

A warm welcome to my long time business partner Ron Morrison who has joined the C.Gars Team to oversee our continued expansion.

Congratulations to Danny and Liz from my favourite pub, The Three Horseshoes, on buying the place. Cigar friendly, great service and food and just lovely people!

I’m off to Las Vegas for the annual IPCPR tobacco industry trade show this week. It’s an amazing annual trade show where I meet many of the manufacturers of the fine cigars that we sell as well as source the best new accessories and humidors available. Herfing day and night is mandatory of course 🙂 and I’m looking forward to the annual Alec Bradley dinner on Wednesday evening. Alec Bradley cigars have become super popular with our clients. Excellent blends and extremely well priced cigars.

I’m out of the UK till late August and will be herfing in Los Angeles with friends and family 🙂 back just in time to get our next auction catalogue online. We have never held an auction in September before but we have so many fantastic Lots from clients that we snuck an extra sale in this year.

So, I’m off my beloved Havana cigars for the next 6 weeks and plan to enjoy the best of new world smokes, including Davidoff Winston Churchill, Oliva Skinny, Chubby and Shorty, Inca Reserva, Alec Bradley Prensado and Fuente Opus X. That should keep me satisfied until September!

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell