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.

Sir Winston Churchill's cigar part of War Time bunker exhibition

The Cuban Cigar Walk London naturally has many references to the life and cigars of Sir Winston Churchill  as on our Audio guide we visit two of the Cigar stores (Robert Lewis and Alfred Dunhill) which supplied Sir Winston during his long life.

The Cuban Cigar Walk London finishes at the Churchill Museum Cabinet War Rooms just next to Downing street and a new exhibition revealing the day to day workings of life inside Sir Winston Churchill's secret World War II headquarters is being opened to the public this week.





Marking the 70th anniversary of the start of the conflict, the exhibition will showcase the stories of the people who worked alongside Churchill in the secret bunker.

For those of you who are keen Cigar smokers interested in the specific cigar that Sir Winston smoked you can see an example of one of his cigars in the museum.

It's partly smoked and well chewed but it's a contact with the great man himself.



Whether you can get to the exhibition or not I strongly recommend that you buy a copy of the book "Churchill's Cigar" by Stephen McGinty.

Stephen was kind enough to read extracts of his wonderful book for inclusion in the Cuban Cigar Walk London and it's a authorative and beautifully written book.

For more details see :

BBC News Article
Churchill Museum Cabinet War Rooms Web site.