Cigar school

Have you ever wondered what's a chaveta? Or what's the name of the different type of tobacco that goes into a cigar? Or even what is right etiquette of smoking cigars (should you take the band out or not, where do you actually cut it, etc. etc.)? Well, if you'd like any of these questions answered and enjoy a nice saturday of cigar smoking you should join Nic Wing and Sautter's Cigars on their "Cigar Day".

Many of you cigar smokers would know Nic - he's a cigar aficionado with encyclopedical knowledge of cigars and their history. Besides the cigars days at Sautters, he also runs the Cuban Cigar Walk, showing some of the most famous cigars shops in central London.

As for the Cigar Day, which I attended a couple of months ago, it all started in No. 10 Manchester Street Hotel with videos and talk covering introduction to cigars, history of Cuba and the Cuban cigar industry, tobacco growing and maturing, cigar manufacture, quality of aged Cuban cigars and aging. Here is Nic training some fellow cigar aficionados

After lunch, we moved to Sautter shop in Mount Street, Mayfair, to talk about the correct way to keep cigars, how to cut them and lighting them, and various other tips.

Here is Sautter's shop. Amongst the regular cigars, they keep a great collection of aged cigars, for example some pre-Castro Henry Clay as well as their own blend - mostly large gage - cigars

Last but not least, Magali DeLa Cruz, in the picture below, has now moved to Sautter. Magali is one of the most knowledgeable person in the world about cigars - she is the third generation in her family to work in the tobacco industry, her family grew tobacco and her mother has been a cigar roller all her life! 

To learn more don't miss out - I think the next Cigar Day is scheduled for July 2nd! 

Correnti cigars

Has anybody heard of Correnti Cigars? Well, neither had I until a friend of my gf's Lisa recommended a visit to their local factory in Toronto, 606 King Street.

I can guarantee it was quite a surprise to find out that in the centre of Toronto one could find a producer of 100% Cuban tobacco cigars. The family-owned business, in fact, imports tobacco from Cuba and then hand-roll cigars in Toronto. They are - or so the website claims - the exclusive importer of Cuban raw leaves.

The factory has got a lot of character and it reminded me of an old shop you may only see in the movies. A lot of space is taken by the traditional cuban-rollers tables - see picture below



When I walked in - probably looking as happy as kid on Christmas day - I started to enquiry about the history of the company (for the curious amongst you, you can get more details here) and the type of cigars available. They produce a variety of sizes (like traditional robusto, torpedos, churchills) also in a maduro (aged) selection. It's even possible to sample the cigars in the lounge...



I bought a few Correnti cigars and so far only smoked one. The verdict is still open I think - I found the cigar very mild and probably not as tight as most other hand-rolled - the flavour remind me almost of a non-cuban (probably not surprising given that they  cater to the North-American market).

A few boxes by the entrance, will give an idea  of all the goods available to who decides to visit the shop/factory...



So, if you pass by King and Portland Street in Toronto, look for the sign below (by the way, it's very close to a very good place to eat nice Italian food, Buca) and pay a visit! They can personalise cigars, allowing aficionados to create their own private label (and choose the blend) even just for a particular event.

Travel humidour!

Apologies for the lack of updates over the last couple of weeks... Coming back to daily life from holidays always take a bit longer than you would like to :)

While I do have a few sampling notes on cigars to talk about (including nice Canadian editions as well as a tasting of Davidoff Puro Doro at an event in Taormina), I would like to talk about my travel humidour in this post - and if any of you has got some good tip on how to carry around their cigars when travelling, I'm clearly all open to new suggestions. It can in fact be problematic to carry around good cigars with you. Leather case or other tubes may not be enough if you are out for a little while. It is for this reason that I decided not long ago to invest in a very useful travel humidour, shown in the pictures below.

I bought my cigar caddy at the Publicis Drugstore in Paris (by the way, a very good cigar shop if you are on the look in the Ville Lumiere), but they are relatively easy to find and in my view an excellent tool for any cigar smoker that wants to have cigars in perfect conditions when on the go... My caddy carries about 10 but you can find similar boxes for 5, 15 or even more... It keeps the humidity very well and I actually don't even need to refill the water that often. The only negative I have found is that sometimes it becomes a bit difficult to open if travelling by plane, I think because the plane creates some sort of vacuum sealing effect on it... Other than that, it did keep my cigars in perfect conditions as you can see in this picture.