Simon Bolivar's Catch Up Thread.

[wayne_w]

A wonderful insight into the life of an aficionado

[Simon Bolivar]

Cheers guys, more adventures to come

[Matt Wall]

Love your posts Simon! I hope to meet you one day, we can chat about cigars and smoke to our hearts content, ahaha
I have one remaining Boli Corona from 2004 so hopefully it smokes well too
Best regards,
Matt.

[butternutsquashpie]

Love your posts Simon! I hope to meet you one day, we can chat about cigars and smoke to our hearts content, ahaha
I have one remaining Boli Corona from 2004 so hopefully it smokes well too
Best regards,
Matt.

Personally, I think he's a bit overrated. All he does is teach you a bit of Dutch, talk about fishing, and offer you a 30+ year old aged cigar

[Matt Wall]

Personally, I think he's a bit overrated. All he does is teach you a bit of Dutch, talk about fishing, and offer you a 30+ year old aged cigar

Hahaha yeah what use is that?!

[Simon Bolivar]

11&12 June 2016: Having shown my Fishy Hols smokes on the UKFC fishing thread, we'll skip to the weekend after I returned to Antwerp & we nipped over to see my Mother; who had been moaning we hadn't seen much of her lately & Sat pm went took her out to the local summer fair in Hartley Witney with her. I managed a Cohiba Secretos next to the beer tent whilst the ladies watched the dog show. Not keen on the maduro wrapper but it was old enough not to be too strong; went down well enough with a local beer. The following day we had lunch at my sister's just down the road & afterwards shared a RA RE NL with my Brother-in-law, he certainly seemed to enjoy it as much as I did, beat the Cohiba hands down, as we finished off the claret. Shame it was drizzly, had to finish it in the garage. I have an unopened cab of these RA's aging away, their going to be mighty fine short smokes in a few years.

[TJCoro]

Cigars for Everyone!

I managed a Cohiba Secretos next to the beer tent whilst the ladies watched the dog show. Not keen on the maduro wrapper but it was old enough not to be too strong; went down well enough with a local beer. The following day we had lunch at my sister's just down the road & afterwards shared a RA RE NL with my Brother-in-law, he certainly seemed to enjoy it as much as I did, beat the Cohiba hands down,

Very interesting, Simon Bolivar. Based on the rather large stack of empty boxes in the hacienda, don TJ must have really enjoyed the Cohiba Secreto. I guess it's true what they say...different smokes for different folks!



Ricky Bobby

[Simon Bolivar]

Indeed RB, I guess you either enjoy Maduro or you don't.

[Simon Bolivar]

18th June 2016: So Wife & daughter were away on their annual hols - this time to Dubrovnik. I thought it would be the ideal time to go on my fishing hol?s but I was tasked to cat sitting! Naturally I expected to do a lot of fishing whilst they were away, had even planned an overnighter in Holland but the best laid plans of mice & men ect & not much came to fruition. However I received a message out of the blue from a couple from Porto, who naturally I never expected to meet. The message was enquiring if I was planning to attend a big herf in the Brussels LCDH on Fri 17th June? I hadn't even heard of the event so checked it out; at E140 I had to decline. As much as I would like to have attended, the additional expense of getting to & from Brussels late at night would mean a very costly night indeed. Having said this I did offer to meet them on the Saturday afternoon & would go down by train. They came back with an even better solution; they would come to Antwerp to meet Reza, who's the owner of the Antwerp LCDH & the Cohiba Atmosphere Cigar Club, at the club & I could meet them there. I had been previously for the opening event last October, which was truly a most amazing evening.

As they were prepared to come so far, it would have been churlish not to make the effort so I arrived at the club just after 18:00. They had already spent a couple of hrs in the LCDH & were now relaxing in the club with just a couple of members & our host. Having agreed to sign me in as their guest, I expected to provide the cigars for the evening & went to open my cigar caddy when Stefan beat me to the draw & thrust a Hoyo Corona '98 in my hand; which I paired unusually for me with a glass of dry white, matching what Stefan & Aura were drinking. I have only had a couple of these coronas before (last one from Martin I think?), it is a light smoke, perfect before dinner; another casualty of the slashing of coronas sized vitola's in the Habanos catalogue. Wanting to share something with our host I enquired whether he was strictly a Havana only man or whether he was open to trying something rather unique, as I had never seen him some anything else & I didn't want to offend him in hoi sown club. When I showed him the paper wrapped John Knight, a Uk rolled Jamacian from the 1960's - he was intrigued & gladly accepted (see photo of bearded chap with unlabelled cigar). As you can see from the photo, he was suitably impressed & correctly defined it as having no perfume or aroma left but a remarkably strong clear tobacco taste; mirroring my own notes exactly.


After a couple more glasses I finished the cigar & could understand between the Spanish & Dutch & smattering of English conversation; that everyone appeared to be getting ready to de-camp to dine. I was a little disappointed as it was only 20:00 & I was just getting to know them but was prepared to go to a restaurant in the old city & then on to the Piano Bar, to smoke in their glass house. When to my surprise, I was invited along to Reza?s 'I migliori ristorante italiano'. Reza said he would pick up the bill for our drinks at the club but we would have to pay for the meal, sounded very fair to me! Even better Reza & his Girl Friday ferried us over in their cars. The evening was cool & cloudy; the crowds were glued to the digital screens outside every cafe - watching Euro football. The ground floor of the restaurant was packed but we were led up the back stairs to the upper level. This was effectively a separate restaurant & indeed can be rented out for events. There was a large collection of rare Italian wines on display, commissioned art work hung on the walls & a great view of the docks. As we sat down Reza took charge & ordered a mixture of starters & produced a box of RA RE 2010 Canadian Dble Robusto & passed it around. I do to usually smoke before eating (I had a light tea before arriving at the club) but by know it?s getting quite late to start a monster RA before the starters had even arrived. Well one soldiers on & I made a mental note to remember the Gaviscon before bed. Luckily it didn?t start off too heavy but it was full flavoured from the off.

The starters arrived & like Churchill, the settled company smoked & ate & smoked & drank throughout the rest of the evening. I have never taken a puff during a meal, I have been known to have a wee smoke between courses at a BBQ but of course these days there aren?t any food establishments in the UK or Belgium that I know of where you can. When I mentioned this, Reza laughed & said he was fed up being told he couldn?t smoke during his meal so he bought his own restaurant so he could do as he pleased! Now that?s the power of money.

The main course was a bit of a mix up. I tried to order the beef but ended up with the pork. I would never normally order pork but as with so much of this evening trying something new really worked. An enormous cut of pork, perfectly cooked filled my plate & certainly lined my stomach for the current & next smokes.

Stefan & Aura had to leave at midnight to get back to their hotel in Brussels as they had an early flight home, before departing they invited my wife & I, to join them for a weekend at their home in Sept. I'll let you know if we manage to get there. After they had said their goodbyes I asked Reza if there was time for another smoke, thinking he might want to get away but he was in no rush so I chose a Cohiba Lanceros 2001 from my caddy, as the perfect way to end the evening. All in all another very special, unplanned evening, which happened with a bit of luck & shared the love of the leaf! Hope you enjoy the photos.

[wayne_w]

A wonderful insight into some of your 'downtime' [MENTION=941]Simon Bolivar[/MENTION]!
Those John Knights are a pretty decent smoke, the other cigars looked great & the food looked very tasty!

[Simon Bolivar]

Cheers Wayne, glad you enjoyed it.

[Johnny Thunder]

What an amazing evening that must have been. Great writing too Simon.
That sounds like quite a long smoke with everything added together.

[SHAMZ84]

Another great night in the SB world...sounds like a very pleasant and tasty night..

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[Simon Bolivar]

2nd July The Wedding.
Time to nip over to England again for the second time this leave & attend the society wedding of our year. I have know the father of the groom since '81, when we served at RNAS Culdrose together. I was the one in talking him into accepting a draft to the Falklands, as a blue beret LMA to the attachment of 20 Royal Marines that stayed there for a year. The very week he arrived, the Argentines marched up the beach & started shooting at him! We've been close ever since ;o) I knew his wife even longer as she was a nurse down at RNH Stonehouse Plymouth; when I was doing my Part 2 training in '79.

The groom was about 3yo when I took my new wife to see them for the first time & his younger sister is just a few months older than Grace so they had a connection too. I was however delightfully surprised to be invited to the wedding as it was to be only 90 guests & they had to turn some family down. We stayed in a B&B on the Saturday night so I could drink & get a taxi back. Taxi back to the venue the next morning to attend the BBQ & then drive back to Bournemouth, in the evening & drop Grace off.

I had to wait until after the service to light up & started with a ERDM DT 2011 & shared a few around. These went down very well & are great for occasional smokers or those who might not even finish them (reason I didn't take my 2001's!). I noted who seemed more keen than others & then later passed around a few JL PC's 2001. Not too big, not too strong, this proved to be a winner with the Best Man & the Ushers. Later after the wedding breakfast, I passed some Vegueros Mananitas; another good choice & certainly different from anything they had tried before.

On the Sunday, knowing I had to drive, I have one beer with a Hoyo Epicure DeLuxe & finished it with Waitrose 1% cider. If you are looking for a soft drink because of driving /inclination, I highly recommend it. Unlike alcohol free beer which tastes like cr*p, this actually tastes like cider, rather than apple juice. One for you to try PJ? Finally pinned the Groom down & after most of the guests had left we lit up the Cohiba Robustos. Mine was somewhat older, having been a gift from our very our Tippex, in a Secret Santa in 2011, I assume it was aged a little then? Fine way to end a beautiful & moving weekend. P.S. If there isn't a croquet lawn Darling, it isn't a society wedding!

[smokey joe]

Hmm, pictures not working. Good read though [emoji106]