DINNER WITH CHURCHILL

Our honored speaker for the 2008 Davidoff Appointed Merchant dinner was none other than Mr. Winston S. Churchill, grandson of ‘the most famous cigar smoker of all time’.

An accomplished man in his own right, whose many varied lives and adventures have included careers as an Attorney, Diplomat- British Ambassador to Nigeria, Public Speaker – speaking eloquently and inspiringly on the role of the United states in history to a SRO crowd at the Houston Forum in 2002, Author- of several books including Lord Randolph Churchill and the most recent ‘Never Give In – the Best Of Winston Churchill’s Speeches”, Pilot – solo circumnavigating the African continent in a single engine plane, and Journalist - covering seven wars for international news organizations from the middle east to Viet Nam. …”making it through all of these dangerous assignments without any war injury except in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention in 1968.”

The story as told by Mr. Churchill goes that as he was attempting to return to his hotel near the convention center after covering a particularly bad day of demonstrations, he was suddenly spirited off to the side by two ‘rather burley Chicago police officers’, one on each arm, demanding to know where he thought he was going. “To my hotel” he replied to the disbelieving officers while reaching into his pocket to produce his room key. Just when he thought all was well, one of the officers asked him what his name was, to which he replied “I am Winston Churchill”, resulting in his being immediately thrown to the ground and clubbed over the head for his perceived impertinence, followed by a trip to the hotel desk where his identity was finally verified.

Needless to say, about two hours later, a steady procession of city officials from the Mayor and Police Chief on down made a pilgrimage to his room to offer apologies for the rough treatment.
Mr. Churchill had come to the former RTDA, now IPCPR show, to promote his new Winston Churchill brand and earlier that day had been ensconced in a library setting at the Davidoff booth to autograph boxes of his extremely successful namesake cigars and take a picture with us – (even I who am not usually drawn to the celebrity photo-ops, sucked up for this). He gave a rousing speech and regaled us with many spirited anecdotes about his famous grandfather and himself, at one point holding up the alligator cigar case Sir Winston had given him as a right of passage.

Interestingly, a couple of months ago while in Houston to support a tasting event that I was hosting, Henke Kelner and I talked at length about his newest creation the ‘Winston Churchill’ cigar. He said that he and Eladio Diaz, his chief blender and quality control chief, had spent much time on what type of blend they would create to symbolize the greatest cigar smoker of all time.
Given the fact that Sir Winston was a lifelong devotee’ of the Havana almost presupposed that the blend would be a Cuban a’ la Kelner style. I say that because Henke describes the Cuban style as “linear complexity with a long finish,” the Kelner style more one of elegant refined complexity.

The Churchill blend is made up of the usual collection of extra aged tobaccos (how quickly we become accustomed) with a new top secret wrapper. This wrapper is so top secret that Henke has genetically altered the plants not to produce flowers thereby insuring that a competitor would not be able to induce a worker to steal a flower giving them the seeds needed to copy the tobacco.

I asked Henke, an accomplished tobacco geneticist, how they were able to propagate the seedlings each year and he said they actually do the cross-pollinating by hand in the greenhouses for each crop.

The resulting blend has produced a very complex medium-full bodied (6.5) cigar – very earthy, filling the mouth completely and leaving the palate moist with a long lingering finish.

Henke had agreed to come to Houston for private tasting that I do with some very astute friends. They of course believe that wine can only come from Bordeaux, cigars can only come from Cuba, guns can only come from Italy, shoes from England, etc., etc. etc.

Naturally, I point out that the Bordeaux drinkers now have California, Australian, and Chilean in their cellars, and using that logic it seems natural to me to expect that the Cuban devotees would have Dominican and Central American cigars in their humidors.

The premise of this evening is that in a blind tasting, thus eliminating any preconceived bias, the truth would be known – “in vino veritas” – right? Interestingly my friends at Davidoff in Basel are now using this concept with some of their European smokers.

At the risk of sounding like a poor winner let me tell you the story. My friends and competitors (much personal prestige on both sides hung in the balance) selected the shape (a double corona) from a brand (Partagas Lustitania as it turned out) which they considered to be in its prime and iconic of Cuban cigars. I relayed this to Henke, and asked him to produce a ‘one-off’ double corona which would demonstrate conclusively the quality and style of the best from the Dominican Republic.

On game day, I was standing in the store smoking the competition while re- banding their selection with my ‘cigar challenge’ bands when Henke and his son and collaborator Henry Jr. arrived.

“Henke, Henry, this is the competition for the night” I said. “Try it!” Of course while they started I broke open one of their bundles of prototype Dominicans, cut and lit one. The Kelners watched to see my reaction, and as expected, a smile broke out on my face from the first puff as I knew immediately that for our competition, this night would be a drubbing.

I looked up to see the very wide smiles on the faces of these two incredibly talented men. Let me say right now that I believe Henke Kelner to be ‘THE MAN’ in tobacco today. Just watching these two incredibly talented tobacco men using all parts of their palates and noses to get all of the components of taste – like a chef, cellar master, or coffee taster- was an exciting education in itself.

Of course they knew that their cigar, which was basically the Winston Churchill blend, ‘tweaked’ to accommodate a Millenium Blend wrapper, would blow away the Cuban. Let me say also that even though I knew Henke and Henry would produce a superior cigar, I was very, very happy.

The ‘black-tie’ night itself was elegant, filled as they can be with the best of friends, food, wine, and cigars. Henke was fascinating as he regaled us with his philosophies on taste characteristics and complexity, and the fundamental differences between Havana’s and Dominican’s. We smoked our two entries anticipating comments from the floor prior to the voting.

Of course I was confident of the outcome, and wasn’t surprised to hear that the comments were identifying our Dominican as the Cuban, and the truth was revealed in the voting which was 4-1 for Henke’s cigar. Trying to remain outwardly gracious in victory, I thought to myself, “Well boy’s, you shouldn’t have brought a knife to my gunfight!”

For those who truly smoke Cubans for the love of their tobacco, let me recommend the Winston Churchill cigar. It truly represents what the Cuban’s could be if everything was equal in their economically challenged country, allowing the big investments in tobacco and new rolling and factory techniques.

Henry Kelner likes the Blenheim (7 x 48) and the Marrakesh (6 x 50), as do I. Henke prefers the Chequers (5 ¼ x 46).

Write me back and give me your thoughts at http://www.jeffreystoneltd.com/