Phew. I think I’m still recovering from the insanity of last week. After back to back tastings, we also hit the dreaded deadline of May 20^th. That meant that all the new laws officially came into place for retailers, so a large quantity of our stock had to be taken off the shelves. We’re still working our way through the fallout of this, with many disappointed customers finding out that they can no longer buy a small portion of tobacco (or any portion of flavoured rolling tobacco.) The new “Plain” tobacco packaging is going down exactly as well as expected too, but never mind!

Thankfully, there are plenty of alternatives about. If you’re looking for small portions of tobacco, the rule doesn’t apply to coarse cut/pipe tobacco, so the you can still buy little portions of it. If you’re missing the massive Auld Kendal range of flavoured rolling tobacco, you’ll be pleased to know that the Kendal range offers the exact same range of flavours. While it is technically for pipes, I know many people use it as an alternative for cigarette tobacco, so at least there’s something to fill the void!

Alternatively, you can buy Flavouring Sprays or Cards that will alter the flavour of pretty much anything you put them with. So, all is not lost!

Anyway, I’m currently sitting out in my garden in beautiful sunshine, enjoying a pipe that I’d almost forgotten about: My Falcon. I brought this ages ago, but I ended up putting it away and it’s been years since I last picked it up, until I spotted it a few days ago.  After a quick clean up, I lit up a bowl of Rattray’s Marlin Flake (Treacle in a bowl!) and wondered why I ever stopped smoking it in the first place. If you haven’t seen one before; Falcon pipes have a stem that is entirely made of metal and has a very thin, central passageway for the smoke to pass through. This makes for an unbelievably smooth and cool smoke. Off of the top of my head, I can’t think of any other pipes that do something like this, so it certainly makes them unique. For me, that feature alone is impressive enough, but they have a few other tricks up their sleeves.

Falcons are also one of the only pipes I’ve ever seen that have interchangeable bowls! Rather than attaching at the shank like most pipes, the bowl is screwed directly on top of the stem and smoke is drawn through a hole at the bottom. This makes it easy to mix it up and experiment with different shapes. You can buy the bowls directly from our Chester Store. As a final unique twist, they also use a “Dry Ring”. This is a small ring made out of the same stuff as pipe cleaners, it sits under the bowl and soaks up some of the unpleasant goop (excuse the complicated jargon) to give an extra clean smoke.

Considering how much you get, I think they’re pretty good value at £31.99, so I’d definitely recommend trying one out if you’re looking for a new pipe to try, They’re really quite unlike anything else on the market!

Anyway, it looks like we’re in for a bit of a heatwave, doesn’t it? So just for tradition’s sake, here’s a quick mini-entry for my obligatory annual “My top smokes for enjoying on a hot day because we finally have nice weather for a change”-blog!

Samuel Gawith’s English Summer Flake – I tried this for the first time today and it came as a very refreshing surprise. A lot of “Summer” blends tend to lean towards traditionally summery things: Flowers, red fruit, tropical fruit, sun tan lotion, etc., etc.  This blend goes the other way and is a simple, uncased, Virginia flake with subtly sweet flavour with occasional natural hints of citrus and straw. Stays very easy and pleasant throughout and leaves a clean finish.

Romeo y Julieta – Wide Churchill – Obligatory cigar mention! I’m not always into Romeos, but I find these really hit the spot. The extra few millimetres in the gauge allows for a flavour that is more complex than the average Romeo, but still remains mellow. Satisfyingly huge clouds of smoke that never get too heavy for a hot day.

New Prince – This is a great example of a and aromatic blend that takes “aromatic” pretty literally. It has a very pronounced, crisp maple and vanilla aroma, but the flavour is actually extremely subtle. Light, golden tobacco adds to the overall mellow taste of it, so it will never be too heavy for when you don’t want to clog up your palate.

Of course, it also goes without saying that the aforementioned Falcon pipes are also a great choice for hot weather, due to how clean and cool they smoke!

Until next time, put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Calum

Oh. My. Gosh. What an insane week! I don’t think it’s possible that you could be reading this blog and not know about what’s been going on, but just in case: We’re in the middle of our 200^th Anniversary Celebrations! It’s been one hell of an intense week so far, but also extremely satisfying. To give you an idea of how insane this week has been, I’m squeezing in writing this blog during the second set of a performance by Opera singer, Russell Watson at the fabulous Opera Grill in Chester, before Chad and I go back to providing cigars for the guests. While puffing away on a Belicoso Figurado from the Drew Estate Liga Privada No.9 Sampler, naturally. Meanwhile, our colleagues in Liverpool are simultaneously in the middle of hosting another packed out tasting night… talk about all-go!  But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s backtrack.

The birthday celebrations began on Tuesday, starting off in Chester with a huge range of guests providing free samples of all sorts of fun stuff including Masons Gin, Liverpool Gin and Jura Whisky. There was even the option to take a virtual tour of the Isle of Jura, thanks to the magic of VR technology… I told you we were going to go all out, didn’t I? Best part: That was only the first part of the day! We rolled straight into another one of our ever-popular cigar tasting evenings, with the help of Scott Vines of Tor Imports. The event had a New World vibe and we focused on Oliva cigars, a portfolio that contains (IMHO) some of the finest cigars to come out of Nicaragua.

We started the evening with the aptly named Oliva Orchant Selection Chubby which measures up at a stocky 4” x 60rg. The hefty gauge makes for an exceptionally cool and easy draw with delicate but satisfying woody flavours. This was our starter cigar, as it’s got the perfect blend for tantalising your palate and getting you in the mood for more cigars. We then moved on to an Oliva Serie V Belicoso as our main course. Even though I love Oliva Cigars, I’d somehow missed this one out and never tried one. Well, let me tell you: It blew me away! Full bodied, rich and spicy, but perfectly balanced with notes of cocoa and nuts. Definitely making its way into my rotation from now on. I’d definitely recommend trying one if you haven’t already.

On top of the delicious cigars, our guests were offered our (now award winning) Orchant Selection Cigar Malt and Stalla Dhu whisky or a selection of Cuban Rum for refreshments. But we weren’t done there. As this was our big two-oh-oh we also had a specially made birthday cake to mark the occasion. But we’re still not done! We carried on the hi-tech vibe of the daytime, with another VR tour, this time of the Oliva tobacco farms and cigar factories. We finished off with a good old fashioned  British raffle, which had some absolutely ridiculous prizes, including bottles of Tomatin Whisky, Colonsay Gin, Davidoff cigar accessories, Kopi Luwak Coffee and our star prize: A complimentary meal at Chester’s incredible “Upstairs at the Grill” followed by cigars and aperitifs at Bar Lounge. Very Jealous of the winner of that one.  We finished with delectable Dictador coffee and then called it a night. It was one of our best evenings yet, big thanks to all the staff and customers who made it so special.

Next up, the following day it was Knutsford’s turn. As soon as I finished in Chester I hopped on the train to lend a hand there. It was pretty much the same set up as Chester’s event, so I won’t repeat myself, but it was fantastic to get back over to the Knutsford store and catch up with their staff and customers, many of whom I hadn’t seen for nearly a year. I was gutted that I missed out on the Liverpool Gin themed Tesla that we had parked up out the front, but you can’t win them all.

That brings us to today. As I type this, the Liverpool tasting night is in full swing. I can’t tell you too much about what’s going on over there, but I trust it’s an awesome night us per usual. I’m sure you can see all about it on Social Media.  Meanwhile, Chad and I are just getting our table set up at the Russell Watson show at the Opera Grill, so we can provide post-show cigars for the guests. We’ve brought along a few of our favourites, including Davidoff Yamasa Toro, Joya de Nicaragua Cabineta Short Churchills, Inka Secret Blend Rojo Robustos and the classic Montecristo No.4. So we have something for all tastes!

I’m going to have to sign off there and get back to my post, but I hope I’ve given you a rough idea of just how amazing this week has been. It’s a real sign of just how much the company has grown and I genuinely can’t wait to see what the future holds for us. Here’s to another 200 years!

Cheers!

Until next time: Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Calum

Oooh it’s good to be back! I had a brill week of dossing about in the sun in the Lake District, but I’ve got to admit it’s nice to be back in the shop. So here I am in my usual spot in the Whisky Shop, with a sweet and floral bowl of Bosun Cut Plug in my pipe, back to my blog as normal. I was glad to see that the shop had been running brilliantly in my absence, with preparations for our anniversary events in full swing. Norfolk have just had their event, which was a bit far away for me to attend, but I heard they had a fantastic night! There’s still time to book into one of our three remaining ones at Chester, Knutsford and Liverpool (Tickets can be found here) so don’t miss out!

We’re also approaching the final week to buy flavoured rolling tobacco and small sample portions of any rolling tobacco, so don’t forget to stock up if you’re a fan. I’ve blogged about that a lot lately though, so I’m not going to go into it anymore today!

On top of all that fun business going on, we’ve also entered the racing period in Chester. For those of you who don’t know, Chester Racecourse is a stone’s throw from our shop and we get a lot of people popping in en route to the racecourse to stock up on cigars (because cigars and horse racing go hand in hand, of course!) Naturally we’ve been making sure we’re prepared, with a selection of convenient race day samplers available in store, with a small selection of cigars, a cutter and matches, so people can grab everything they need for a day at the horses in one convenient package. If you’re heading to the races this year, make sure you pop in to see us!

Anyway, what else has been going on? We’ve been putting on our school caps in the northwest with a couple of cigar training sessions. We started the other week, with Hunters and Frankau popping up North to give host to the introductory level of their Havana Cigar School for some of the newer staff members. I stuck around for a bit of it (never too late to brush up on the basics) and was reminded of how much I enjoyed getting into cigars for the first time. Now all our staff in the north have a solid foundation of cigar knowledge, so feel free to pop in to test them at some point. During the training, the attendees sampled a box of Montecristo No.4s and I managed to nab myself a delicious Ramon Allones Specially Selected. Damn, we know how to do training right ;-)!

Keeping the ball rolling, a bunch of us popped over to Liverpool’s plush new store at the Albany (I’m still a little bit jealous of their massive, record breaking cigar room) for some training from Davidoff in their lounge.  Davidoff cigars are often a point of contention with a some of our staff and customers; They are unquestionably good cigars (the Nicaragua Robusto and Winston Churchill Churchill are two of my faves) but they do also carry a price tag that is close to that of a Havana, which some people resent paying for a New World cigar. This training session really helped open our eyes to just how much goes into the manufacture of Davidoff cigars, with some insanely elaborate blending and sourcing combined with some seriously extended ageing processes… some of their leaves are aged for up to TWENTY years before being used. Now it’s easy to understand the price tag! During the training, we all got to sample a Davidoff 2000 from their classic range, which is an excellent measuring stick for high quality Dominican cigars. We also got to try something very new and exclusive, which I’m going to keep to myself for now, but hopefully we’ll be wrangling some for our stores in the not too distant future, so you’ll be able to check them out for yourself. Don’t worry: I’ll let you know when I can ;-)!

I’m so glad that we can offer so much training for cigars, I’m pretty sure a lot of the staff in attendance will be true cigar connoisseurs in no time! Even the more experienced of us are still picking things up; I’ve definitely gained a lot more of an appreciation for some of the more unusual  cigars produced by Davidoff, such as the Yamasa range, which use tobacco from the Yamasa region, where many people thought it was impossible to successfully cultivate tobacco. This makes them quite unlike anything else on the market! If you are still a bit put off by the price, there are a couple of decent budget options: The Petit Panatela and Belicoso from the Winston Churchill range are both excellent value for short smokes. They’re both medium filler, but honestly, you wouldn’t guess it from how smooth and complex they are to smoke. Great as an introduction to the range.

That’s all for me this week, we have one more race day in Chester for the week (wish us luck!) and then we’re heading straight into our anniversary event. Hope to see some of you there!

Until then: Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Calum