Heathrow Airport
Has my passion for finding the best Habanos ever been in doubt?
My plans to attend a Board meeting and conduct some business in Cork Ireland have been in the works for over four months. It made perfect sense back in March to stopover in London to pounce on the "golden quadrangle" of habanos: Sautter's of Mayfair, Davidoffs', JJ Fox of St. James, and Alfred Dunhill's. Little did I know that the UK had turned into a terrorist quagmire.... a five hour departure delay in SFO, followed by the "mashup" of humanity at Heathrow. To give you a flavor of the "Hell at Heathrow", here is what I witnessed outside customs hall today after arriving:
- A small child probably about 6 years old crying hysterically looking for her mother... and nobody stopping to help her;
- A small indian gentleman convulsing on the floor having what appeared to be a cardiac arrest;
- Two women fighting over a trolley cart with luggage contents being spewed everywhere;
- The Pakistani cricket team (or a group looking like them) roughing up a Virgin Airlines luggage assistant.... (probably warranted)....
All I could I do is search for my driver to get me into the city. I did stop to help the little girl. I took her by the hand and left her with a female security guard packin the largest automatic machine gun I have ever seen (I haven't seen that many). 
After an hour and a half drive, I finally arrived at the Connaught Hotel (right across the street from Sautter's). I checked in and immediately headed across the street.
John welcomed me in. He said that Desmond had some aged product "in the back" but he needed to have Desmond determine what I could acquire. I love this little establishment. It's a pity that Desmond isn't around that much anymore. Apparently he has "valve issues" and only comes into the store when he is visiting his doctor. I picked up a couple of Cohiba Siglio V's and started to walk down Mount Street toward Davidoff's.
I had better luck at Davidoff's. I scored in finding some pre-1981 Montecritso Especial No. 2's, Gonzalez Corona Extra's and some Bolivar Churchill Tubos... all in great condition and well aged. I moved onto JJ Fox and they had some aged product but Bill would only sell them by the box. He said he would look in storage and get back to me.... I won't hold my breath. Both JJ Fox and Davidoff are catering very much to the tourist trade and frankly, they have lost there appeal to me for aged product. These stores concentrate on higher margin items such as lighters, cases, etc.
I was making my way back to the hotel when I decided to stop into Alfred Dunhill's. It's a good clothing and accessories store and has a wide selection of new recent habanos. They showed me what aged product they had... some tired 1998 Hoyo de Monterey Double Coronas.... I decided to pass.
There was a group of regulars in the lounge enjoying a smoke. I decided to join them. Some young well-to-do turks that were sipping single malt and enjoying some new Cohiba's from their lockers. I spent the next hour chatting about our shared exploits, as well as taking calls from the US.... Apparently there is a worm outbreak and Microsoft has issued their highest alert level ever... looks like everyone will be patching their servers and desktops over the weekend....
It's starting to rain and I head back to the Hotel. I need an early start tomorrow as I have a number of stores I need to hit. I plan to visit the top establishments from the Hunter's & Frankau listing....
No comments:
Post a Comment