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I always see the 4 day Easter weekend as a good time to reflect on the first 1/3rd of the year. I see FOH members as shareholder mates and as such I don't have any problem sharing my thoughts. Hell, many of you have been on this journey for 20 years and in some cases more. 2025. It has been hectic. It hasn't been easy, however overall I would give it a solid score of 8/10. FOH Stock situation has slightly improved. PCC have looked after us as best they can. Compared to many retailers across the globe, in the stock supply situation, we would be in the top 5%. I am concerned in regards to pricing (Habanos increases), but they are not hurdles we haven't faced before. We all know Cuba is in dire straights and the "new" bottom of the barrel started midway through 2024. I suspect we will feel some of those pressures transferring to stock supply in the second quarter of 2025. We will see. There has been an influx of new members into FOH in 2025. You are all welcome and I have to say thank you for the way you have integrated as well as to how existing members have welcomed you on board. This is a great house. You are all custodians of this house. A heartfelt thank you to all the mods + Diana, Lisa and the team. Best in the business. Any business. BR Auctions Continues to go from strength to strength. Alexander Groom, Ben Ayala and Alex Retamal have done a magnificent job. In terms of skill sets, those three names would be in the top 2% of Habanos authority/authenticity. The world of Habanos authenticity is increasingly challenging. You are in good hands. There is a new BR Auctions platform being rolled out late May 2025. it is a serious upgrade and that upgrade will allow a host of new features being progressively rolled out for the remainder of 2025/early 2026. BR Cigars The 109 will be launched internationally in May 2025 (expect third week). This is a magnificent cigar. Following the 109 will be 4 new vitolas launched between May and December 2025. I will detail those vitolas further upon my return from blending and tasting duties on the 5th of May. Angel Miranda is in charge of packaging and there are some exciting concepts for me to approve. Again I will see them presented next week. We were hampered in production 2nd half of 2024 with a lack of appropriate wrapper. That has now been solved and we are now good for 2025/26/27. Rob Fox, Hamlet Paredes and I have a big week ahead. Nudies/MOFOH Hamlet is like a kid in a candy store. Our new factory commenced being built in January of this year and is now fully operational. Hamlet, Sergio and Nahun are doing a brilliant job. We had previously suffered second half 2024 with lack of appropriate wrapper. Like BR, that has now been solved. We will have full lines of Desnudo and MOFOH stock available within 3 weeks + 4 new lines being rolled out progressively including the Sovereign Suns Half Corona + which is an absolute cracker. There is nothing that we cannot do. I intend to take you on the ride alongside us. This factory is your factory. Our FOH tasting teams will have their hands full in the next 4-5 weeks as we plot our course for back-end 2025 and beyond. Summary Good start to the year. The tariff imbroglio has put us a month behind target but that appears to have settled down for now. There will be some price increases for Nudies/MOFOH as they are direct imports into the US distribution channel and hence 10% Tariff hit as of 10 days ago. I won't move the pricing until I have to.

Well tomorrow April 1st my wife and I celebrating our 59 wedding anniversary. Thinking back nobody on both sides of our family gave us more than 2-3 years. We showed them all how it's being done. 4 years into our marriage, we had enough with their interference so we packed up and immigrated from Germany to Canada. It was not always easy but we prevailed. Cheers to us🍾

Hamlet spent a day with our farmers today.

The common practice in gifting a cigar to smoke to a person new to cigars is to give them a cigar like the Montecristo No.4, as this cigar is considered a good introductory cigar. Last weekend, my son George caught up with a friend from his undergraduate university course, Ignacio. Ignacio was born in Argentina, was raised in Australia and has family in France so the afternoon proved to be quite fruitful in regard to the topics discussed. Personally, I was surprised with how much Spanish I knew when we were talking about the historical reputation of Habanos cigars from Cuba. So, did we start with a Montecristo No.4? Of course not! My EOT Sep 2015 Cohiba Siglo IV has been my favourite go-to box in the last month so why not start with that? As Ignacio wasn't familiar with an aged Cohiba cigar he just enjoyed the smoke. Afterwards, my son wanted a Montecristo No.4 so I opened a UEB Mar 2018 box. Thankfully, the three of us has Monte 4s that were 'on'. Ignacio said that he could taste the distinct flavours in his Monte 4. I happened to have some Fernet-Branca in my bar, so we enjoyed all this with some Fernet con Cola (the national drink of Argentina). It was quite an afternoon and I enjoyed passing on some knowledge of our shared hobby.

HdM DC Have a great one all 🥂

Been looking for this particular jar for quite some time and finally managed to get my hands on one. Such a gorgeous piece. And the aroma emanating from it is simply exquisite.

Fantastic Fundie from last night. ARS MAY 19 Just grateful that I went deep on these beforehand.

Lusi

1998 BCE this afternoon

BHK 54. Masters Sunday, perfect weather in South Florida, house to myself for the afternoon…all the excuses I need to light up something special.

Monte Esp1, NNSA VC2 (NOV ‘96).

1990 Monte Especial No 2.

A 2014 Imperiales. Quite a treat with some champagne.

Montecristo No.2 - PMS Abr 2015

Esplendidos MUO ABR 14

ROE JUL 2017 HDC when I got these from Prez for 285 bucks a box [emoji17] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Saturday tasting session underway.

Cohiba Siglo IV - EOT Sep 2015

Cohiba Robustos - Circa 2015

Probably 5 or 6 years old. From a singles drawer.

MEG Oct 2015 H.Upmann Petit Coronas...

Siglo VI SOM NOV 16 BSE MAY 23 Courtesy of @raggie

2003 Vegas Robaina 5 Aniversario Humidor Unicos Special 5th Anniversary band. Numbered humidor of 100 cigars (500 produced). A 2003 release. Intended to be released in 2002. s'mores, black cherry, peanut butter

Punch Punch

D4 EBS NOV 19

Punch Royal Selection No 11 SUA NOV 00

RASS TUA Oct 20

My wife has our yard covered in jasmine vines.palm trees, fences, you name it. The evolution of the bloom is something we look forward to every Spring. ABO JUN 19 Lusi from the 50 cab.

Yerandy Esmeralda...salt and sourdough.

This Churchill from our host went down a treat for the BBQ.

Behike 58

Really pleased about receiving this one today.

CoLa

Sir Winnie

Montecristo Double Edmundo (EPO DIC23).

Tough to beat an E2 on a catamaran.

09 Punch DC

Thank you to @Nevrknow! One of my absolute favorites. Looking forward to a great final round today. Cheers all!

UEB Mar 2018 Montecristo No.4...

Cohiba Maduro 5 Genios I don't smoke a lot of Maduros, but picked these up in Cuba and have been loving them. Post big meal smoke. Sea salt chocolate abounds.

Spot on BBF Have a great weekend all 🥂

Lusi (2017) from our gracious host.

Bolivar Coronas Extra 2005 (cab of 50) A beautiful shiny day in Athens. A dream smoke. So beautifully constructed and balanced. How many of any given harvest of Bolivar boxes aged beyond 10 years? 1%?! That's a shame.

Upmann No. 2 LUB OCT 14

Dippy 2 @ Playa Langosta outside Tamarindo.

Enjoyed this little fella from Pre-Castro. To my surprise, it was still potent for one that’s almost 70 years of age.

Accepted a promotion today, so dug for something special. Thanks again SSanta, you know who you are...