Greetings from my smoking cigar sampling office, nice to be back into routine and what a fab routine I have 🙂

I invited some of my original staff from my hotel business days to enjoy an evening at Puffin’ Rooms last week. I was in the hotel business with my father way back in the 1980’s and it’s amazing that the girls kept in touch with me.

We had a brilliant reunion and whilst enjoying Chef Chris’s amazing cuisine and a few bottles of champagne, it was brilliant to catch up as well as remarkable to 1) see how good the girls memories were (a lot of very funny stories!) and 2) how gorgeous the girls look, hardly aged! I’m told I was a nice boss and we certainly had a lot of laughs together and still do! Looking forward to seeing  Joanne, Mandy, Sandra and Amanda at our next reunion 🙂

I spent some time at Turmeaus Norfolk this week where we are planning to open our new headquarters later this year. This ambitious expansion is super exciting for all of our team as we plan the next few year’s growth for C.Gars Group. I can’t believe we will be up to 70 employees by the end of the year. It’s been a staggering year so far and clearly cigar smoking is more popular than ever. (TY dear clients!)

Our chairman Ron and I planned out the new walk in humidor, retail shop and two sampling lounges with the building contractor and I think it’s really going to be something special. We have loved being at Hall Farm for many years but have totally outgrown our current premises and our sales, marketing and IT Teams have grown dramatically over the years and will be moving to super comfortable high tech offices.

We have  stuck to the same ethos of employing kids out of school or college and didn’t judge on academic ability necessarily but judged the individual based on the potential we could see to train, mentor and develop them into a valued team member. It’s paid off well and we have incredibly competent and dedicated staff with very low staff turnover for a company of our size.

Back to London and a quick inspection/herfette at our lovely little Turmeaus Mayfair shop in the heart of Mayfair yesterday. This store is having its best year ever and was incredibly busy when I visited. We sampled Alec Bradley Orchant Seleccion Shorty cigars and Inca Secret Blend Roca with some Orchant Selection cigar malt whisky with a few clients before moving on to The Lanesborough (still my favourite place to herf in London) and changed the pace up to Ramon Specially Selected and Bolivar Belicosos Finos.

Havana cigar supply is still patchy with no sign of BHK’s or Siglo VI, though Lanceros, Corona Especiales and Esplendidos have made a reappearance albeit in very small quantity. Cohiba Piramides Extra (one of my favourite day time cigars) have also gone out of stock at the importer but we have pretty deep stocks so should be able to keep them available for a while longer. All very frustrating…

One of our bestselling small format Havanas is the Upmann Corona Junior Tubed. Years ago we sold these untubed as the Petit Upmann but they were deleted sadly. Apparently they have now had to be renamed Coronas J as it’s against the law to use the word Junior on a tobacco product. Have you ever heard anything quite so absurd?

The September 16^th auction catalogue is finished and should be online in around a weeks’ time. This was supposed to be a small sale but its ended up a rather large 330 Lot sale with a great selection of aged, rare, regional, limited, Davidoff, pre embargo Lots entered.

My marketing team have gone a bit OCD with Colibri and DuPont lighters, listing huge ranges at guaranteed unbeatable prices in the UK.

The warm summer weather seems to be continuing in the UK so I’m planning to get the top off the car, have a rather long weekend of car herfing and visit one or two of my favourite pubs!

In my baggie for the weekend:

Alec Bradley Orchant Seleccion Shorty – sweet as sugar
Oliva Orchant Seleccion Chubby – sophisticated and delightful blend
Montecristo Petit Edmundo – a return to form for this cigar after a period of being a bit disappointing
Davidoff 50^th Anniversary Diademas Finas – what a treat!
Monte 2 – long-time favourite
Avo Syncro – I love these!
Partagas SD No. 4 – can’t go wrong!

Have a smokey weekend,

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell

Well I’m back from a rather long break in sunny California 🙂 So far so good, except I came back to some idiot smashing one of the windows at our rather lovely La Casa del Habano Chester. Apparently the idiot told the police he had no idea how it happened. So well done and thank you to Cheshire police and hopefully some justice when this goes to court.

My US trip kicked off with a few fabulous days (and evenings)  at the IPCPR tobacco trade show in Las Vegas. I enjoyed meeting with some of our favourite cigar manufacturers and visiting their stands to see all the latest planned products for the year ahead.

It’s really one big herf and super fun testing out the product 🙂

I spent plenty of time with Regius Cigars, one of my favourite boutique brands and I’m delighted to introduce the 2018 Orchant Seleccion limited editions which are not only ridiculously good value but super popular with our clients:

Regius Seleccion Orchant Robusto – 4 1/2″ x 52
Regius Seleccion Orchant Hermosos – 5″ x 48
Regius Seleccion Orchant Campana – 5 1/2″ x 52

Regius are made by Nestor Plasencia and are a full flavour Nicaraguan smoke that smoke very well straight out of the box as they are already well matured, but also age very well indeed.

We also introduced Plasencia cigars to the UK market and the initial client reaction exceeded our expectations.

Plasencia Reserva Original Nestico Cigar – 1 Single – 4 1/2″ x 36
Plasencia Reserva Original Robusto Cigar – 1 Single – 4 1/2″ x 52
Plasencia Reserva Original Toro Cigar – 1 Single – 6″ x 50
Plasencia Alma Fuerte Generacion V Cigar – 1 Single – 7 ” x 58
Plasencia Alma Del Campo Tribu Cigar – 1 Single – 5″ x 52
Plasencia Alma del Campo Sendero Cigar – 1 Single – 5″ x 52
Plasencia Alma Fuerte Sixto II Cigar – 1 Single – 6″ x 60

I was privileged to be invited to the Alec Bradley distributors dinner again (even though I’m a retailer!) and had a great evening with the AB Team as well as Scott from Tor and Steve from Robert Graham Ltd. After the dinner we moved on to the Davidoff Bar which also hosted a 50^th anniversary event that we gate crashed 🙂

Our Alec Bradley Orchant Seleccion range is one of the most exciting and successful projects I have developed. These stunning smokes are now firmly in our best seller lists and we are planning range extensions before the end of the year.

Alec Bradley Orchant Seleccion Shorty Cigar – 5″ x 50
Alec Bradley Orchant Seleccion Chubby Cigar – 4″ x 60
Alec Bradley Orchant Seleccion Skinny Cigar – 5″ x 43

The Davidoff booth was humungous as usual and the UK sales of Davidoff and Avo brands are growing at a frightening rate for us! Perfect quality and great blends. Avo is an exclusive brand for C.Gars in the UK and we are very proud to represent it.

We have a limited allocation of the magnificent Davidoff 50^th Anniversary Diademas Jars but when they are gone… they are gone as its truly a limited edition.

I also visited Oliva cigars who make our exclusive range of Oliva Orchant Seleccion cigars:

Oliva Orchant Seleccion Skinny – 5″ x 43
Oliva Orchant Seleccion Shorty – 5″ x 50
Oliva Orchant Seleccion Chubby – 4″ x 60

I can’t seem to import enough Arturo Fuente Cigars to cope with demand! These super premium cigars are incredible smokes and we have the exclusive for the UK.

I also visited Scandinavian Tobacco who supply our exclusive Mitchellero range of cigars that are an exceptionally popular budget Nicaragua cigar made by Nestor Plasencia. Oh! and we also have the UK exclusive for Macanudo cigars 🙂

Mitchellero Chicos Cigar – 4″ x 30
Mitchellero Grandes Cigar – 4″ x 60
Mitchellero Orchies Cigar – 4″ x 52
Mitchellero Perlas Cigar – 4″ x 38
Mitchellero Sporty Cigar – 5″ x 38

Scandinavian Tobacco recently announced the acquisition of Peterson Pipes. A marriage of two brilliant companies. We love Peterson pipes and probably have the largest range and definitely the best prices in the UK.

Finally I visited our partners at Cigar Oasis, another brand that we represent exclusively in the UK. Awesome products and a great company to work with.

Cigar Oasis Electronic Humidifier – Ultra – 100 capacity
Cigar Oasis Electronic Humidifier – Excel – 300 capacity
Cigar Oasis Electronic Humidifier – Plus – 1,000 capacity
Cigar Oasis Electronic Humidifier – Magna – Cabinet humidors

Reading back all of the above exclusives I shouldn’t be surprised at our sales growth this year. C.Gars truly have the biggest and best range in the UK. I dare say the amazing heatwave in the UK didn’t harm summer sales levels as many of our clients like to smoke outdoors. I hope the great weather continues…

The rest of my trip was taken up with copious amounts of herfing with friends all over LA. I have an amazing crowd of friends who throw the best herfs imaginable. My New York “Rat Pack” smoking chums all flew in to herf and hang out for a week as well! … I think I need a vacation now!

Back to Blighty and putting the finishing touch to our September Auction Catalogue. This looks  like a pretty big 300 Lot catalogue again with a good variety of aged and rare, limited and regionals, as well as Pre-Embargo Havana cigars.

I’ll be visiting Turmeaus Liverpool and Puffin’ Rooms on Wednesday. Looking forward to catching up with friends and clients for the best live music and cocktails, and a late night cigar sampling session at Turmeaus Late Hour Cigar Shop & Sampling Lounge.

Have a smokey week,

Peaceful puffing,

Mitchell