Sir Winston Churchill's 'Romper" Suit

The Cuban Cigar Walk London  audio guide includes many stories about Sir Winston Churchill who was probably the most recognised cigar smoker in the world. The walk also passes many London stores which have Royal warrants or which are frequented by the rich and famous and Jermyn Street has more than most.

At numbers 71 and 72 Jermyn Street we pass the shirt maker Turnbull and Asser who have make shirts for Prince Charles and James Bond.

They are also famous for their connections to Sir Winston Churchill. During the war they were called on to make an all together more exotic garment for the Prime Minister.

During the war Sir Winston asked Turnbull & Asser  to produce for him brightly coloured Siren suits.

These one piece zip up suits were ideal  wear during air  raids.

The Siren suits  were  comfortable and eminently practical outfits soon and soon became as much  part of the Prime Ministerial ensemble as the hat, the bow tie and the cigar.

Typical of his maverick behaviour, Churchill would make a point of appearing in the most formal of situations in these eye catching zip up and belted ensembles.

Churchill cheerfully referred to his Siren suits as his ‘romper suits’

Some examples of the suits still survive. There is one in the Metropolitan Museum in New York also The Churchill Museum Cabinet War Rooms has one.

On the lower floor at Turnbull and Asser on Jermyn Street there is a fine Emerald green example, complete with a cigar in the top pocket, in a glass case complete with a letter of thanks from the great man.

Turnbull and Asser had to make constant repairs to his suits during the war. Mainly due to damage from cigar ash rather than enemy action.

After the war Churchill put his Siren suits aside but he continued to buy his dress shirts from the Jermyn Street store.

If you head into the bespoke store a little way down Bury Street, you will be able to see both the original measurements for some of his orders and also a pattern for one of his shirts.

In 1970 Turnbull & Asser opened a new showroom in Bury Street and called it the Churchill room.

There was an earlier connection between Turnbull and Asser because the block on which the shop is located is named Marlborough Chambers, since it was built on the site of the house where Winston Churchill’s great ancestor, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough lived in the 1670’s.

Alfred Dunhilll's Windshield Pipe - a great innovation for the first car drivers

Alfred Dunhill's new London home at the magnificent Bourdon House in Mayfair is the first store on the Cuban Cigar Walk London.

The history of what is today a global luxury brand is fascinating and when you visit Bourdon House you will find many of Alfred's novel creations in cases at either end of the Discovery Room on the first floor near the spa and hairdressers. 

Alfred Dunhill was a serial innovator. When, at the age of 21 he took over his father’s business which supplied equipment for horse drawn carriages. 

He quickly realised that the future lay in the new motor powered vehicles which were starting to appear.

He changed his companies name to Dunhill Motorities, and started to develop luxury accessories to supply the drivers of these new motor cars

In 1904 one of Alfred’s customers who had acquired one of these new modes of transport complained that he could not keep his pipe lit while driving in an open top car

Alfred set to work and designed the famous Windshield pipe with a raised section at the front of the pipe bowl. 

He patented his new design and the new pipe proved to be a huge success and was a best seller. Users found that it was also very useful for stopping ash from falling onto the table when playing billiards or snooker.

Interested in further developing this trade led him in 1907 to open, at 38 Duke Street St James’s, a small tobacconist where he specialised in the supply of tobacco. 

The store had a ledger called the “my mixture book” where each customer had their own blend listed. The customers loved this as they could develop and refine their own mixture until they were satisfied and once they had their final blend this was entered in the book. 

The blends of many famous smokers were included in the book including among others the Prince of Wales and Rudyard Kipling and many London Ambassadors.

The fine tobacco Alfred was selling was not matched by the poor French briar pipes which many smokers used. 

This had the effect of making the tobacco taste rather bitter so Alfred focussed himself on developing a pipe which would smoke better than any other. 

Through long research he developed a multi stage process including seasoning and heat treating the wood so that by 1910 he produced the first Dunhill pipes which were available in the Dunhill shop.

In around 1914 he started to add a little white spot on the mouth piece of the pipe to indicate which way round the hand cut mouth piece should be put back on the pipe after cleaning.

In 1922 there was a famous court case when another pipe manufacturer was accused of passing his pipes  off as Dunhill because he was putting white spots on his pipes. In court a witness gave evidence that no gentleman would be admitted to one of London’s Gentleman’s clubs unless he was smoking a Dunhill pipe identified by its white spot.

In 1914 the first world war began in Europe and to ensure sales continued he would package up pipes, wrapping each one carefully in a piece of toilet tissue, knowing that this was probably the most welcome luxury for those serving in the trenches. 

He discovered that some of the packages of pipes were being intercepted and were not getting to their intended recipients so he produced “Castor Oil” labels which increased the delivery rate significantly. He included invoices with the pipes to “pay when they returned”. The pipes were passed around Officers Mess’s and introduced many new smokers to Dunhill.

Nero's rotating dining room discovered in Rome

Archaeologists in Rome have unearthed what they think are the remains of a circular rotating dining room that belonged to the Emperor Nero.


They say it was probably his banqueting hall that imitated the earth's movement so he could impress his guests.


Cities in Sound has three wonderful Audio Guides around Rome: From the Forum to the Colosseum, The Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain and The Award winning Heart of Rome Walk

More details and Video report on the latest discovery click here.

Smoking Cigars in the rain in London?

Sautter of Mount street is a charming little traditional Cigar store in Fashionable Mount Street Mayfair.

It has been selling Cigars since Desmond Sautter started his business 50 years ago and developed a world wide reputation as a the pre eminent supplier of pre Revolution Cuban cigars in London.


It is the second cigar store on The Cuban Cigar Walk London and as part of the celebrations for their 50th year Johnny Burman has produced a range of umbrellas so that you can smoke your cigars even in the most inclement London weather.


There is a choice of three umbrellas but this one caught our attention because it has a hollow handle with a spring loaded mechanism which is designed to accommodate one of your finest cigars so you need never be without a cigar what ever the weather.

For more details please visit the Sautter web site

A great home for your Cigars in London - The Ultimate Humidors - Part Two

While I tramp the streets of London in search of cigars and stories and likely locations to include in my Audio Guides I frequently make extra ordinary discoveries. I recently visited the Tom Tom shop in London where four of the Hunters and Frankau / Linley limited edition humidors are currently on display. They looked great in the pictures but they look totally stunning in the flesh. 

They are due to move on soon and I will try to keep track of them and let you know where they are but I thought you might like to see some pictures. To see part 1 of this Blog item and more details on these amazing humidors follow this LINK

Cigars over London - Huge cloud of Havana smoke spotted over London

Recently a group of Cigar smokers who first met on the UK Cigar Forum on the internet got together to walk the Cuban Cigar Walk London and then in the evening smoking cigars by London's river Thames to celebrate one year of the forum's existence.

A group of 20 completed the Audio Guide and for the first time we used radio head sets which ensure that everyone hears the guide simultaneously.

We lunched at the wonderful Red Lion pub in crown passage and many bemused passers by could not understand why the old gas lit alleyway was filled with vast clouds of cigar smoke on a quiet September Saturday afternoon.

We ended the walk at the Churchill Museum Cabinet War rooms and a group of 14 of us made our way into the museum where you can see Sir Winston Churchill's war time head quarters and the remains of one of his exceptionally well chewed cigars.

In the evening we met up with a larger party at a great pub calledhe Doggetts Coat and Badge on the South bank of the Thames overlooking Blackfriars Bridge and proceeded to produce huge clouds of Havana smoke.

One of the advantages of smoking cigars with a group from an internet forum is that everyone posts a note to tell you what they smoked and of the 12 that smoked here are the details:

They smoked a total of 54 cigars

The most cigars smoked by one person was 8 (Lascau)
20 different brands and 44 different types of cigars were smoked of which over 98% were Cubans

I did a quick check and the most popular brand was Hoya de Monterrey with the most popular cigar being the R&J short Churchill


The full list of cigars smoked was:

Hoyo De Monterrey -Petit Robusto, Epicure Especial, Regalos, Depute, Epicure No 2, Double Corona
San Cristobel -Moralles
Juan Lopez - No 2, Petit Corona
Cohiba - Sublimes, Esplendidos, Robusto, Siglo IV, Siglo V, Genios
Cuaba - Distinguidos
Ramon Allones - Corona, Small Club Corona
Montecristo - No 2, No 4, Sublime, Edmundo, Open Regata
Bolivar - Royal Corona, Petit Corona, Belicosos Finos

El Rey Del Mundo - Demi Tasse

La Auro - Leoninos
Partagas- Charlotte (1998), P2, D4, Lusitanias
Por Larranaga- Belicoso Extra
Punch - Petit Corona, Double Corona
Romeo & Julietta - Short Churchill, Dukes
Trinidad - Fundadores
Upmann - Magnum 48
Vegas Robaina - Famosos
Non Cuban - OPUS X, Placeres Reserva, Dunhill Petit Corona

As you can imagine the smell on that terrace was wonderful and the few drops of rain didn't spoil a great evening.
 
Same time next year everyone?

Trinidad Robusto T launch seminar at Boisdale

A short while ago I wrote here that I had seen the new Trinidad Robusto T cigars at Davidoff in London which is one of the stores on the route of the Cuban Cigar Walk London, and today I got to sample one in illustrious company on the wonderful cigar terrace at Boisdale

And what a great evening, when you consider that these cigars retail for £21 each, we got a cigar a glass of the new house no 4 claret and an extremely instructive introduction on this great new cigar from Simon Chase of Hunter and Frankau for just £25. 

There were only 10 lovers of fine cigars at this inaugural Monday evening event and Simon started the evening by giving us a potted history of the Trinidad brand, which is named after the beautiful 16th century city of La Santisima Trinidad which is on the south coast of Cuba and is a Unesco World Heritage site.

Simon explained that Trinidad cigars were first released to the public at the beginning of 1998 but long before that they had been Havana’s mystery cigars having been first produced at El Laguito, the Cohiba factory , but in very small quantities for distribution by the Cuban Council of State.

Cigar Aficianado confirmed their existence in it’s first issue. Trinidads became the holy grail of cigar enthusiasts, mainly because they were almost impossible to obtain. Prices rocketed and it did not take the cigar industry long to decide to fully launch the brand.

The essence of the original cigars was taken by Raul Valladares who is a Master blender of tobacco, known as the ‘Maestro de Maestros’ (Master of Masters), he softened the flavour to produce an aromatic fragrance with a medium flavour.

The new Trinidad Robusto T was announced at the Festival del Habano in February 2009 and has just landed in England.

The Trinidad Reyes has been one of my favourite cigars for a while now, I find it extremely complex and tasty without being too strong and overbearing.

It’s big brother the Robusto T has the same complexity but is more muscular. Simon took time to explain to us the way the cigars are constructed and why we should anticipate different strengths and we worked through each third of the cigar due to the construction of the cigar and it’s filler.

I always learn something when I smoke a cigar with Simon and it’s not surprising with the years he has spent in the business but what also helps is that he is such a charming host.

If you are in the London area I suggest you quickly get the details of a future event and try it for yourself.

The next event is on the 26th October between 6pm and 7pm at Boisdale and will include the Bolivar Petit Belicoso (5’’ 52 RG) and a large glass of Hennessy 1982 Grand Champagne Cognac to drink as you smoke.

With the masterful Simon Chase to host the event, talk you through the background and history of the brand and the new cigar, I can't imagine a better place to be on a cool Monday evening in October than on the Terrace of Boisdale under the heaters with some good friends and a warming drink.


For more details and to get tickets go to the Boisdale web site  You can also register here for updates on future events.

Every office should have a Cigar Park?

It's not an uncommon site to see people standing outside an office having a quick cigarette. But if you are a cigar smoker you normally make your pleasure last a little longer than a 5 minute break.

While I was visiting the office of Hunters and Frankau recently I spotted a wonderful device in their 'Out Door Smoking area.

If you smoke cigars you might like to consider getting one of these your office.

Each of the cigars is held on it's own little numbered 'shelf' and there is a small roof to keep the rain off.

So you can enjoy a cigar break throughout your working day.

What a great idea, every good office needs a 'cigar park'.

Cuban Cigar Walk London

Beautiful little now you see me, now you don’t Humidor

Walking around London, smoking great cigars and meeting wonderful people, what could be better? And it’s what I do for a job.

I am currently getting ready to do a group audio walk of the Cuban Cigar Walk London where we will be taking a group of about 20 around the four cigar stores in Mayfair and St James.

I popped in the oldest store on the walk, JJ Fox and Robert Lewis. This store first opened it’s doors in 1787 and it has so much history they have even opened up the ‘Cigar Museum’ downstairs. It has lots of great history including what are reputed to be the oldest cigars in the world.

The first cigars were shipped to London in about 1830 and in a case at the far end of the museum you will find two glass cabinet containing cigars of the La Cabanas brand and these are some of the first cigars shipped to the UK and it is believed that these are probably the oldest cigars in the world.

Having supplied cigars to England’s Royal Family for many years the list of past customers is long and distinguished and includes Tsars of Russia, Lord Salisbury, Bing Crosby and the Bengal Lancers Regiment.

As I entered the store the staff were demonstrating the most exquisite Humidor or cigar case, to me it looked like something out of a Harry Potter film.

As you will see from my pictures it has a small knob on the top which when turned rotates each individual face of the case to reveal holders for three cigars.

I was quite captivated by this wonderful little treasure. You can see many more fascinating objects like this at the Cigar Museum at JJ Fox and Robert Lewis which is on the route of the Cuban Cigar Walk London.

Venice opening times!

I visited Venice this summer and saw this great sign in a shop window which captures a very relaxed Italian attitude to commerce.

Although we do not have Audio guides for Venice yet, if you are visiting Italy we have three wonderful Audio guides for Rome including the award winning “Heart of Rome” Audio guide where you will discover the best ice cream in the world.


To hear samples and to find maps of the three rome audio guides follow this link:
Cities in Sound Rome Audio Guides.


I tested them all recently and have some snippets of information to give if you are heading for the eternal city so keep watching my blog for new posts in the near future.