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LONDON CELEBRATES OLYMPIC WIN . . . AND DAVIDOFF’S 25TH YEAR |
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 Plus: American Interest Section chief in Havana moving on in September
Los Angeles, July 7 – Already the leader in limited-edition cigars for Avo, Davidoff and The Griffin’s, another special cigar has been created to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the opening of the Davidoff shop in London.
Edward Sahakian, the gentlemanly owner of the shop at 35 St. James Street, has been in the middle of the celebratory activities since May 28 and sent the details by electronic mail:
“The Davidoff Anniversary Cigar is a blend specially developed by Eladio [Diaz] and I at the Davidoff Factory and is my favourite size, 6 1/4 inches long with a 40 ring gauge and a little pigtail at the top.
“It comes in boxes of ten at a cost of £140 or a single cigar retails at £15. The cigar comes with a second white band on which is written the dates “1980 - 2005" and has been made in a limited edition of 2,500 cigars.”
(For those of you not conversant with conversions to Pounds Sterling, £140 is about $246 for the box of 10 while £15 for a single cigar converts to approximately $26.33.)
It’s not the first time Davidoff has sprung for a special cigar to celebrate a store anniversary. In 1997, it brought out the “535" to salute the 10th anniversary of its flagship U.S. store at 535 Madison Avenue in new York. Only 10,000 were made and that 6-inch by 50-ring cigar, offered in boxes of 10, is now a collector’s item.
Although Davidoff London is a well-known and much-respected destination for smokers already, Sahakian is working to create a second-floor club room to ensure his customers and Davidoff fans can smoke in peace. He told Britain’s Cigar Buyer magazine, “I don’t mind being told where I can smoke and where I can’t, but I don’t want to be told I can’t smoke at all.”
With the Olympic Games coming in 2012 and plenty of additional VIPs on the way to London in the coming years, he’ll need a club floor to handle the extra traffic. Congratulations to London for 2012 and to Edward Sahakian for 25 great years and the promise of 25 more.
Torano expands again:
Carlos and Charlie Torano are well known as serious cigar makers, both for their well-respected Torano lines as well as for other manufacturers. They have not been known for flavored cigars.
Until now.
After a splendid dinner some months ago, Carlos was intrigued by Wilson Creek Winery’s “Decadencia Chocolate” Zinfandel, a port wine created from vines more than a century old. The Temecula, California winery sent him a bottle to try and, naturally, Carlos found a way to infuse it into tobacco.
As the Torano factory hands tell it, it took a little convincing to get Charlie on board, but the result is the first flavored Torano brand, the “Carlos Torano Reserva Decadencia.”
It’s the Honduran-made Carlos Torano Reserva Selecta cigar in all its mild-to-medium-bodied glory, infused with the Decadencia Chocolate Zinfandel in two larger sizes:
• Churchill: 7 inches by 48 ring, and
• Toro: 6 inches by 50 ring.
Like the standard Reserva Selecta line, each cigar is offered in a glass tube, but with a cedar half-sleeve for freshness. You’ll find it in a remarkable display of free-standing individual cigars that looks like a port barrel!
Castro’s nemesis making way for new blood:
“There is no reason to believe there will be any loosening of anything we do. Fidel said there couldn't be anyone worse than me - he may be sorry.”
So said American Interest Section chief James Cason to The Associated Press in a recent interview in advance of Cason’s transfer this fall to a new post after his three-year sting as the U.S.’s top diplomat in Havana ends on September 10.
Cason has been called almost every name in the book by Cuban President Castro and has consistently piqued the Cuban political establishment with pointed remainders of the U.S. view of Cuban government actions. In return, he’s been satirized on Cuban television as a fairy trying to change the island’s ways.
The AP story notes that 60-year-old Cason will move on to an ambassador’s post in a Latin American country after his Havana stint. He believes that the Cuban people are counting the days until the Castro regime ends.
What is sure is that the Castro government is counting the days until Cason leaves!
~ Rich Perelman
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