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 🙂

And 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 30^th 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 Havana. 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!

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