UK Cigar Scene Magazine February Issue 2 | Page 25

Simon also brings his huge experience to
focus on the likely changes likely to take
place as the Cuban embargo comes to
an end. This video was filmed before the
changes were announced but he reveals
Simon has been the expertise and in many
some of the complexities which stand in
cases the driving force behind all of the
the way of the Cuban cigar industry and
books which cigar lovers have read and
those in America who seek the Cuban
absorbed right up to the latest World of the
cigars they have so long been denied.
Habano book. His work has illuminated
the Cuban cigar industry for thousands of Finally Simon answers the standard three
questions we ask all our interviewees:
cigar lovers all over the world.
Simon talks of the difficulties in
uncovering the detail of the many
processes involved in processing the
tobacco and the manufacture of cigars.

Simon has never properly been recognised
as being the man at the centre of the
efforts to keep a small window open for
cigar smokers to allow us in the UK to
‘sample’ a cigar in specialist cigar stores.
He tells the story of the development of
the idea of the specialist cigar store and
the erratic passage of the legislation into
law with the magical exemption for cigar
and pipe smokers still intact.

What do you like to drink with your cigar?
Where is the best place to smoke a cigar?
And finally which is the very finest cigar
you have smoked?

The interview with Simon was filmed at No1a St James’s Street London.
Simon was smoking a Romeo y Julieta Churchill
In next month’s interview we talk to Ranald Macdonald of Boisdale.
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