V AMICIgar day - part 1

Cigars are great - not only to smoke, of course - but also because of the opportunity they give to meet new people and in fact visit new places! That is why I jumped at the opportunity to join Ajay of La Casa del Habano, his family, Magali de la Cruz from Sautters and a few other cigar aficionados from London, including the master Simon Chase of Hunters & Frankau, for the V AMICIgar day!

 

This was an event organised by the AMICIgar club of Naples and Avellino, in Italy. For the non-italians amongst you, the name of the club is a play on the words "amici" (friends") and cigar... The event was in Pozzuoli, by Naples, in Villa Habiba on 17th and 18th June. It was truly an amazing weekend, filled with great cigars, awesome food and fantastic people!

As you can see, the Villa where the event was held was absolutely beautiful!

Here is Magali - the two of us got a 6am plane on the day to be in Naples on time for the event! what you don't do for cigars! :)

The "cultural" part of the event included a sampling of a "Tacos Imperiales H. Upmann" coupled with Moet & Chandon Magnum Grand Vintage Collection 1990 - see picture below.

Simon Chase and Angelo Bigi provided their views on the cigar - a 2006 release in only 200 humidours. The cigar was good, quite peppery but overall medium bodied, not necessarily my favorite. It was complemented very well by the champagne though!

The sampling was followed by a great dinner on the same evening with drinks and dancing to the tunes of live cuban music! In the pictures you can see Simon Chase, Ajay and Alex Iapichino having a good time - like the rest of us!

The day after was also full of surprises - which I will report on in a following blog post!

 Thanks again to the AMICIgar club for organising such a phenomenal event - thanks in particular to Gino and Antonio - in the picture above! And to their whole team!

Roller!

I stopped by Ajay's La Casa del Habano in Teddington on Saturday and, to my surprise, Yoel Ulacia Diaz was custom rolling cigars in the shop. Yoel has been in the UK for a couple of months already demonstrating the art of cigar rolling around the UK, showcased by Hunters and Frankau.

Yoel is a 9th grade roller - the highest ranking you can achieve - and currently is a Master of Quality Control at the Partagas factory. And of course he definitively knows how to roll good cigars... Some of his goods are shown in the picture below

I tasted a freshly rolled puro while in Teddington and I can say they have a very distinctive taste, with a coffee flavour small to my palate and a hint of mint. 

Here is Yoel at work. If you want to see directly, next week he will be at Sautter's, in Mount Street, Mayfair, London - worth a visit to take a look and sample!

Have been out of touch but have a lot to report on from a trip in Italy, at the V Amicigar Day in Naples, organised by the local club (pictures already available on facebook) and a week holiday in Hong Kong!

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! 

Cigarando back in Milan

During the Royal Wedding Bank Holiday, my girlfriend and I decided to visit Milan. I'm not a big lover of the city but as my girlfriend had never been there, and my best friend Matteo recently moved to Milan, it was a good opportunity to spend some time visiting the Duomo, the Castle and of course the Quadrilatero d'Oro, an area in the centre of Milan which is supposed to have the highest concentration of fashion boutiques in the world. 

With regard to smoking lounges, I already posted some ideas here. This time, thanks to the nice weather, I smoked at the Bulgari Hotel both inside their internal lounge (picture below while enjoying a nice grappa) and in their garden.

My first smoke was a Partagas D3, 2006 Limited Edition. This cigar is not easy to find anymore, I think - I got lucky to find a few at a local cigar store in my hometown (when I was actually looking for Toscanos!). The cigar is a re-release of an original 2001 Limited Edition, corona gorda in size (46 ring gage for 5.6" in length). I was not blown away by this cigar which is spicy as you would expect from a Partagas, though a touch light to start with. It certainly improved in strength as the smoke went by and I deserve my final judgment after having smoked at least another one...

In addition, as mentioned, the Bulgari Hotel also has an amazing private garden which is of course a great venue to enjoy a cigar - see pictures below



The cigar in question was a present from my girlfriend from last August. A Petit Unicos (50 x 5.0") by Ramon Allones which was released exclusively for the Canadian market, as a result of a consumer survey. Very much an excellent choice, being an enjoyable smoke with a good draw and leaving
a complex flavour in the mouth!



And here is me! Enjoying the Ramon Allones Petit Unicos! For these sort of experiences, I wouldn't mind going back to Milan!

 

Cigarando in... Berlin

Between Easter and the Royal Wedding, we were able to enjoy a couple of long weekends here in the UK. The first weekend, I took the opportunity to visit Berlin for the first time. Traveling with my girlfriend and an allergy-heavy couple of friends ( :-) ), unfortunately, it wasn't easy to find ways to smoke a good cigar. Nonetheless, what would Easter be without a few good smokes! :)

So, I exploited the terrace at the Hotel de Rome to smoke a Cohiba Piramides, 2006 Limited Edition, a re-release of the 2001 Piramides. As you can see from the pictures below, the terrace boasts a remarkable view!

The 2006 Piramides seems to be still easily available. To be fair I fail to understand why! To me, this is indeed a very good smoke - an incredible Cohiba really, with a good draw and a chocolate, leathery aroma. I managed to find a box at the cigar shop in Selfridges and smoked a few of those during the bank holidays to great satisfaction! Probably worth getting old of another box before they disappear...

Enjoyable - notwistanding the small crack at the end! :)

Although I didn't have a chance to stop by properly, I paid a quick visit to the local La Casa del Habano shop at the Savoy Hotel. 

Next time, I will need to visit this shop properly! As you can see, it has both outside and inside smoking areas...

... and a well equipped walk-in humidour of course!

I cannot document it with a picture, but also smoked a newly released Toscano - a special edition celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Italian Unification - at the Club Der Visionaere. I also heard the Newton Bar is a good place to both smoke and have a drink in Berlin, where, by the way, there are many smoking lounges and/or bars which allow smoking! 

Finally, a visit to Berlin couldn't be complete without a pit stop at the Olympiastadium - this is were Italy won the fourth Wold Cup in 2006! Po po po po po po po! 

Sanctum Hotel and Bolivar Gran Belicoso

Every time I speak to cigar smokers, they always point out how difficult it is to find a good place to smoke cigars in London. That's certainly the case, but thankfully there are many new places - particularly hotels - launching dedicated smoking areas. Amongst the most recent, besides the ones already mentioned here like 10 Manchester Street or the Montagu Hotel or indeed the Lanesborough, the Ritz and the Langham hotels are coming out with smoking lounges. 

Tucked away in Soho, probably unknown to many, the Sanctum Hotel also offers a cozy roof garden which is cigar friendly and gives an opportunity to smoke a puro and enjoy a nice drink at the same time. For hotel guests it is open 24 hours, but as long as it's not too busy anybody can access the roof garden in regular hours (say up to 10pm, though I have never been there in the evening and usually go there in the afternoon).

As you can see from the pictures, comfortable seats are available outside and there are also some small heaters that can help make the space more comfortable these days, when it still gets quite chilly after dusk.

Last time I went there it was arguably a few months ago now - in October to be precise - and I also had the opportunity to enjoy a pretty superb cigar, the Bolivar Gran Belicoso, the 2010 release of the cigar book-shaped collection, the 10th in its series (only 1,000 "books" with 20 cigars have been made but standalone cigars can also be found...). These books - also known as "Habanos books" - are only available at La Casa del Habano stores. Previous cigars in this collection included for example the Cohiba Sublimes. I understand this year they will do a book which will contain 2 cigars of each of the 10 special cigars made so far - it may be a perfect own gift for me so I can taste them all :)

The cigar measures 7 1/8 inches in length for a 54 ring gauge - this is a Rodolfo or double Pyramid size which is not very easy to find (only the San Cristobal de La Habana Murella shares this original size). A perfect example of an earthy Bolivar which is certainly worth trying for the many Bolivar lovers!

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.