Our Bloggers

Matt Glenlivet - Whisky for Everyone is a whisky blog and website which is written and edited by husband and wife team Matt Chambers and Karen Taylor. The blog was started four years ago when both knew nothing about whisky and were struggling to find a suitable online presence aimed at the whisky beginner.  Therefore, they decided to create one themselves and have been learning about whisky ever since.

The blog features detailed tasting notes of whiskies, including regular bottlings, new releases and limited editions, plus reports on distillery visits, a series of educational posts which explain some of the commonly asked questions and myths about whisky, and a weekly whisky news round up.

 

Nic Wing can generally be found in and around London, and in particular Mayfair and St James’s, researching the world of Cuban cigars from the oldest and the newest sticks from Havana to most exciting new places to enjoy a cigar. He organises trips to Havana and cigar training for a Mayfair cigar store and is also a journalist & copywriter. He is the creator of the Cuban Cigar Walk London Audio Guide and owner of Cities in Sound.com.

 

Richard Lofthouse edits Oxford Today, the official magazine of Oxford University, and is a writer and freelance journalist. He was formerly a history don at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, subsequently editor of CNBC Business, and first encountered cigars as a child when his uncle used to celebrate Christmas Day with a King Alfred panatella. His favourite location for a cigar today is a Munich beer garden on a warm summer's nightgarden with friends. His particularly interest is European intellectual history and art, and his last book was Vitalism in Modern Art, 1900-1950.  

Nick Hammond is a freelance writer with a passion for cigars. He writes for the American magazine Cigar Aficionado as well as covering topics as diverse as sport and shooting for other publications. He smoked his first cigar when he was 17. "A friend and I were travelling up to visit a university to see if we wanted to go there after our A Levels," he writes. "We untubed a Don Ramos and came spluttering out of his Metro an hour and half later with the stick still going! It didn't put me off - far from it. My passion for this most rewarding of pursuits grows each year." Nick is married with two young daughters, and lives in the North Buckinghamshire countryside. 

Martin McGahey's family has been in the tobacco trade for over 200 years. In 1973 Martin joined the firm and father and son continued the traditions. Martin is now an authority on cigars, tobacco and snuff. He owns the very busy McGahey Tobacconist based in the UK and stocks a wide range of cigars, humidors and various cigar accessories. For any tobacco related questions, call him now on 01392 496111 or email mcm@the-tobacconist.co.uk. 

Dean Pullen is the owner of www.ukcigarforums.com 

Chris has worked in the Wines and Spirits trade for a number of years in the USA, Australia, France and the U.K. His interest in cigars grew when he joined the team running the Selfridges Wines & Spirits department, alongside the JJ Fox cigar concession. Today Chris manages The Whisky Shop in Paternoster Square, running tasting events and selling Scotch whisky and Cuban cigars to surrounding City workers. 

Jimmy has over ten years experience within the cigar industry and is the Sales & marketing Executive for Hunters & Frankau. Among other tasks he is responsible for the training and development of the UK Habanos market. This includes conducting regular cigar training days and annual trips to Cuba with key retail partners. He also co-ordinates the Cuban cigar roller tours and manages this website. 

 

Simon Chase ran Hunters & Frankau’s marketing for 32 years from 1977 to 2009. Once acknowledged by Cigar Aficionado magazine as “an expert in all thing cigar related”, he was the winner in 1998 of Habanos s.a.’s Hombre Habano del Aňo (Havana Man of the Year) award for communications. Today he runs Simon Chase Limited, a cigar consultancy, which numbers Hunters & Frankau amongst its clients. Every year he is invited by Habanos S.A. to conduct the auction at the Festival del Habano. 

Sean is the General Manager for Sales & Marketing at Hunters & Frankau. He is the fourth generation of his family to be involved in the UK premium cigar trade, with his long family tradition dating back to his Great Grandfather who began his love affair with cigars at Robert Lewis Cigar Merchants in St. James’s street, London in the 1890s. Over 100 years later, Sean followed in his footsteps (as well as his Grandfather’s and Father’s) and went to work at St.James’s Street in 1996 (now known as JJ Fox & Robert Lewis). After two years he left for Hunters & Frankau where he has pursued his passion ever since.