Archive: June 2025

Hello everyone! The sun is with us here in Norfolk and along with it has brought some great customers! But what has been going on in Norfolk?

On Monday, It was Josh and myself in the shop. Will was completing the finishing touches to the pipe tobacco shelves we were organising at the weekend, he was so proud of his good work and it certainly looks much nicer! What do you think?

After admiring Will’s good work, Josh and I set out picking the incredible amount of online orders! It was great to see many customers took advantage of our flash sale which had all three new Alec Bradley Safe Keepings. I expected these cigars to be popular and it really showed! Josh and I was picking orders all day! And by the end we were worn out! But we had a sense of happiness knowing we had completed a good day’s work!

On Tuesday, I was picking orders with Will! He had mastered picking pipe tobacco and accessories, however picking cigars is a different story! There are so many brands with different ranges it can be hard to keep up, but he did well and I am confident he can carry on doing it without my help. In between picking orders, I carried on with my task of changing cigar backgrounds so they are white. I have also decided to take the time to train the team to do them too so it will get done a lot quicker! Porscha is the first to learn and she seems to be doing a great job!

On Wednesday, I was back in the shop and it was an exciting day! We were having cigar training with George Frakes from 1573 Cigars! If you have ever met George, you won’t forget him as he is incredibly knowledgeable and an overall great man to talk to! But to start the day I had a gentleman come in who wanted a box of cigars that he had seen the day previously, the cigars in question? The Partagas 898! It is a hard to find cigar so he was over the moon when he saw we had it in stock. After inspecting the cigars carefully he decided to buy the box. I do love to make a big sale like that and I know the customer left happy. I also had some great news from our orders manager! I am now the proud owner of an Ecua-Andino Panama Classic Hat! If you remember from my previous blog, Will and I were the models for a newsletter and now I have been gifted one to wear whenever I am in the shop. In the afternoon George from 1573 Cigars arrived, So Josh, Will, Porscha, Lisa and I went upstairs to learn from one of the best in the business. We were given a cigar from the latest range of Foundation Cigars to come available on the market – The Wise man Corojo. George was talking us through the brand and how Nick Melilo – The founder of Foundation Cigars – created the blends and came up with the names – It was truly fascinating! The Wiseman Corojo was a beautiful cigar, I thoroughly enjoyed it! 

Thursday was New World stock count day. It was Lisa and myself again and this was the fastest we had ever completed it and Lisa was over the moon. Afterwards I was organising a list for our promotions team of cigars to promote and see what we could reduce. One that I was amazed by was the reduction of the Oliva Aliados Robusto. This cigar was already at a good price but it has now been lowered to £13.99! That is a great price, I may even get one myself! 

On Friday, I was back in the shop. I firstly helped with online order picking, I saw that many people had been taking advantage of the Oliva Aliados price reduction! I was also receiving all of the shop’s content for their newsletters, which was great to see as it will give me plenty of time to put together! I then started looking into creating August Cigar Subscriptions. In the afternoon I completed Cuban stock count with Will. We are training Will more in the stock count aspect as I feel his enthusiasm deserves reward.

I hope you enjoyed this weeks goings on and I hope to see you all in Norfolk very soon.

So long for now.

Oliver.

Hi everyone, we have had another fantastic week here in Norfolk.

On Monday, It was Josh and I working in the shop, we were amazed with the amount of online pickings we had to complete! It is always great to see, we noticed there was a lot of cigar orders that had accessories too, which is always great to see! So we both worked together picking cigars and then Josh went off and picked the accessories whilst I kept picking all of the cigars. I was pleasantly surprised to see how well the Drew Estate Blackened cigars have been selling! I knew they would be popular but I wasn’t expecting them to be this popular! I also served a lovely gentleman who had always purchased Conquistador Coronas, however he wanted a slight change. So I suggested the Mitchellero Corona – as they are both Nicaraguan, the Regius Serie Limitada Corona – as they are a lovely sweet smoke, and my personal favourite, the Alec Bradley Orchant Seleccion Skinny – always a good smoke. The customer left happy and I can’t wait to see him again to see how he gets on with them.

Tuesday was my promotional day. In the morning before work I had made a list of things I wanted to get done. The first thing was to take a picture of the cigars of the month. I was slightly behind on this but I made sure it was the first thing I did and got them on the monitors in the humidor before the shop even opened! Next up was to write an article for the C.Gars cigar library, It was about the latest release in Havana cigars – The Montecristo Open Slam – You can read it by clicking here. Next on my list was to create the leaflets for all three of our cigar subscriptions. It is a surprisingly long process to complete each leaflet as they contain a lot of information as well as editing each cigar to fit on, but it is a vital piece of information for our loyal subscribers. Last on my list was to create a new article for our Director of Ecommerce. She had dug out a very old article about Cuban cigars for beginners. A lot of the cigars mentioned, I had never heard of! So I added more information and changed the cigars for ones we currently have. As soon as that article has approval I will make sure to share it with everyone as there was a lot of very useful information in that one article!

Wednesday was my day off, however I did treat myself to a cigar, The Drew Estate Blackened M81 Corona. I smoked it by the beach and thoroughly enjoyed it! I can see why everyone has been purchasing them!

On Thursday, I was order picking with Josh and Robyn. We had a great day picking plenty of online orders. Josh was particularly excited as he was hosting his first event with Lewis! So he spent some time preparing for that. In the afternoon, we realised we were doing really well with the online orders and were ahead, so I suggested for Josh to go and smoke one of his cigars for his next review! The cigar for his next review was the PDR Flores y Rodriguez 10th Anniversary Reserva Limitada Millerfleur Corona. So I spent some time with him, taking pictures of him cutting and lighting the cigar. Keep an eye on the C.Gars cigar library for when his latest review is uploaded! 

On Friday, I was in my favourite place, the Norfolk shop! And I was joined by Will. I taught him how to add cigars onto the till system. We have still been introducing new cigars and so they all need adding to the till too. I was particularly surprised by the Drew Estate Factory Smokes Cigarillos! They are great for those who want a Factory smoke but don’t have the time to smoke a Robusto or Toro. Meanwhile we received a delivery of some top quality Panama hats! They look incredible and so I knew I had to get them on display, and of course, hats need models to wear them… Look no further as Will and I were more than happy to wear them! I also spent some time re-arranging the Foundation cigars shelf in our New World Humidor. Lisa, our humidor supervisor, wanted to display the new Wise Man cigars and so she had re-arranged two shelves to accommodate them. We have a lot more Foundation cigars on the shelf for you all to choose from. In the afternoon, Will and I worked through the Cuban stock count together.

On Saturday, it was Josh, Will and myself working together. Will has certainly fitted in well with Josh and I, as well as the whole team. Together, we picked all of the online orders and then set to work re-arranging the pipe tobacco tins. Ben, our Pipe tobacco expert, had asked for us to find a way to fit out the new range of Cornell & Diehl pipe tobacco. So we cleared some space and decided, for the first time in many years, to move around all of the pipe tobacco! It will take a lot of getting used to but it certainly looks better! What do you think? Meanwhile, I decided to treat Josh to a cigar as he had been helping me out a lot recently (as well as providing me with plenty of coffee). I picked the Alec Bradley Orchant Seleccion Skinny, I knew he had one a while ago but it’s always nice to have a refresh, I also carried on my exploration of smaller cigars by purchasing a Davidoff Demi-Tasse.

I hope you have enjoyed this week’s goings on and I hope to see you all in Norfolk very soon.

So long for now

Oliver