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Now back in the UK after a hectic few days of smoking and drinking in Gibraltar I thought I should post a brief report of the event.
We arrived on the Thursday and after checking in at The Rock Hotel we hurried down to Stagnettos in Main street to stock up for that days smokes and see who was coming to the dinner. We bought RASS, D4's, Wide Churchills and some Romeo Cazadores as well to keep us going...the highlight was being gifted a Bolivar Super Belicoso from the book humidor which I really enjoyed smoking that evening on the terrace back at the hotel.
We spent the day on Friday smoking at the shop with Dragon and a couple of other guys who had come over from mainland Spain.
Friday evening we all rolled up at The Waterfront restaurant around 8pm and for an hour people turned up and all smoked some vintage 1950's Jamaican puros that I took over for the dinner coupled with Mojitos. The cigars were amazingly good with lots of flavours still present and all agreed they were excellent.
Dinner started at around 9pm with Filo wrapped prawns and a sweet chilli dip, which was really good and not too heavy. We followed this with a Rey del Mundo Choix L'Epoque, great little cigar to kick start the menu. Main course next with Lamb Shank which was cooked to perfection and was possibly one of the best we have had. This was followed with a Juan Lopez selection number 1, loads of full flavoured smoke and a reminder that I really must smoke more of these instead of sticking with the JL number 2.
Sweet was a mixed fruit crumble with fresh cream all washed down with never ending quantities of Mar de Frades and Muga Reserva wines.
We then moved onto Partagas Lusitanias from 1998 accompanied by Ron Zacapa 23 year old rum and Tomintoul Malt in 10 and 12 year bottles while Berta giving demonstration rolling and getting attendees to try their hand at rolling their own cigars
She managed to roll a large cigar for every one attending and these were presented in a commemorative tube along with whisky and rum miniatures, Habanos Baseball caps and other goodies in a neat little goody bag.
Many of those attending were guys that came to the last one but there was a contingent of Spanish smokers there as well and all agreed that we should arrange another one early next year.
Ignacio Balmaseda, H&F’s Cuban Corporate Director, attended and was a really interesting guy to chat with and has confirmed that he will definitely attend the next one.
Our group retired to The Rock Hotel around 2am but others kept the event going until around 3.30 on the Saturday morning
We spent the rest of the day on Saturday chilling with cigars and rum and sadly had to leave Gibraltar on Sunday lunchtime but we are already planning dates for the next one as Stagnetto have had enquiries about tickets for the next event from as far afield as USA and even Sweden. Numbers will be quite limited as we are hoping to use the same restaurant, The Waterfront, and the atmosphere is great if you stick to around 70 or so smokers. Pictures will be up soon on the Cigar Aficionado Gibraltar section of Facebook as we had an official photographer there, who probably had more photos taken of her due to her extremely short dress etc....the standing joke was being asked if I had seen the photographers eyes and when I answered NO I was assured that nobody had
All in all a truly excellent event and gracious thanks are due to the Stagnetto family, Loren and Joe for all their hard work and especially Peter as he gifted myself, Karl and Alex a bottle of HC 15 year old each as well at the shop on the Saturday
We arrived on the Thursday and after checking in at The Rock Hotel we hurried down to Stagnettos in Main street to stock up for that days smokes and see who was coming to the dinner. We bought RASS, D4's, Wide Churchills and some Romeo Cazadores as well to keep us going...the highlight was being gifted a Bolivar Super Belicoso from the book humidor which I really enjoyed smoking that evening on the terrace back at the hotel.
We spent the day on Friday smoking at the shop with Dragon and a couple of other guys who had come over from mainland Spain.
Friday evening we all rolled up at The Waterfront restaurant around 8pm and for an hour people turned up and all smoked some vintage 1950's Jamaican puros that I took over for the dinner coupled with Mojitos. The cigars were amazingly good with lots of flavours still present and all agreed they were excellent.
Dinner started at around 9pm with Filo wrapped prawns and a sweet chilli dip, which was really good and not too heavy. We followed this with a Rey del Mundo Choix L'Epoque, great little cigar to kick start the menu. Main course next with Lamb Shank which was cooked to perfection and was possibly one of the best we have had. This was followed with a Juan Lopez selection number 1, loads of full flavoured smoke and a reminder that I really must smoke more of these instead of sticking with the JL number 2.
Sweet was a mixed fruit crumble with fresh cream all washed down with never ending quantities of Mar de Frades and Muga Reserva wines.
We then moved onto Partagas Lusitanias from 1998 accompanied by Ron Zacapa 23 year old rum and Tomintoul Malt in 10 and 12 year bottles while Berta giving demonstration rolling and getting attendees to try their hand at rolling their own cigars
She managed to roll a large cigar for every one attending and these were presented in a commemorative tube along with whisky and rum miniatures, Habanos Baseball caps and other goodies in a neat little goody bag.Many of those attending were guys that came to the last one but there was a contingent of Spanish smokers there as well and all agreed that we should arrange another one early next year.
Ignacio Balmaseda, H&F’s Cuban Corporate Director, attended and was a really interesting guy to chat with and has confirmed that he will definitely attend the next one.
Our group retired to The Rock Hotel around 2am but others kept the event going until around 3.30 on the Saturday morning
We spent the rest of the day on Saturday chilling with cigars and rum and sadly had to leave Gibraltar on Sunday lunchtime but we are already planning dates for the next one as Stagnetto have had enquiries about tickets for the next event from as far afield as USA and even Sweden. Numbers will be quite limited as we are hoping to use the same restaurant, The Waterfront, and the atmosphere is great if you stick to around 70 or so smokers. Pictures will be up soon on the Cigar Aficionado Gibraltar section of Facebook as we had an official photographer there, who probably had more photos taken of her due to her extremely short dress etc....the standing joke was being asked if I had seen the photographers eyes and when I answered NO I was assured that nobody had
All in all a truly excellent event and gracious thanks are due to the Stagnetto family, Loren and Joe for all their hard work and especially Peter as he gifted myself, Karl and Alex a bottle of HC 15 year old each as well at the shop on the Saturday
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