Today I was touring around the cigar shops in around Havana. Smokes in abundance and shelves full of Trinidads, Partagas Lusitanias and all Cohiba Cigars your could imagine. But, people obviously always want what they can not GET. I saw folks asking for the super rare UK Regional Edition of Por Larrañaga Magnificos and of course any of the recently released humidors - but these are sold out everywhere.

Todays talk of town was the Cuaba Piramides Limited Edition 2008 which we expect due out this summer. The samples given to me had wrappers as dark a night below the stars in the Caribean. A bit lighter than 2006 LE Cohiba Piramides they smoked absolutely wonderful. Hints of dark chocolat and the sweetness I like so much. Test smoking cigars with only some weeks of age is a difficult story of its own as the prevalent tannins cover the taste with a certain bitterness. Anyhow, there is cigar in the pipeline that is not to be missed.

The Importers Night at this years 10th Habanos Festival was hosted by the Swiss importer Intertabak and the German 5th Avenue Products, both co-owned by Heinrich Villiger. The ageless Doyen of the european cigar trade gave a nice welcome speach translated into four other languages (incl. the funny sounding SwissGerman) by a beautiful Swiss girl. She was guiding the 300+ guests through the night and introduced two band from Switzerland and Germany.

A superb and very lively 5minute video familiarized the attending audience with todays cigar markets in the two countries. Swiss chef de Cuising Claudio Schawalder and his 10 specialist flew in from Europe and together with the kitchen team of Habanos 5Star Hotel Melia Cohiba they presented a great combination of Swiss-German specialities.

The Swiss musicians performed excellent and when I was joking to my table lady Patriza Benden about the missing Alb-Horn the strongest of guys turned round and grabbed his frigging 3.5 meter Alp-Horn. In fact I had to travel to Havana to listen to this unique sound for the first time in my life. I could not start thinking about the poor guy schlepping the frigging heavy weight all around the globe to play for us that night. Top notch that was.

To further satisfy any prejustice about us Germans 5th Avenue flew in another band - from Bavaria. They played what we call Hofbraeuhaus-Music and so it was good fun with the white sausages served as one of the main corses. Believe it or not, the guys were all dressed in Lederhosen. And if that alone would not have been enough my friend Jimmy (McAllan) from Singopore popped over to my table asking if we all run around Germany dressed like that.

Anyhow, enough gossip so far. I will have to run to the vertical Daiquiri tasting. As member of the tasting panel I should not be late. More tomorrow (if lines are connected). Best wishes from Havana !