Eddie Sahakian is 48 and for the past 13 years he has been working alongside his father at the shop.
“It’s no secret my father loves lanceros,” says the younger man with a head of hair down to his shoulders who sits next to him. So you can forgive him for cutting his cigars into pieces.Įddie (left) and Edward Sahakian, son and father, have been working together at their shop for 13 years. Among his accolades is the Habanos Man of the Year Award for the retail division. But who can question the cigar authority of Sahakian? He’s been selling cigars for 41 years, and over the decades has built a reputation for being one of the world’s foremost retailers of Cubans. Is it a traditional move? Absolutely not. “I always cut about two inches of it-smoke it, until I finish this-and then I light up the other half,” he says with a smile.
The example being puffed by one of the most learned men on the subject of cigars is the result of careful tobacco surgery-he cuts the cigar into segments before smoking. “I call it the petit lancero.” Anyone who knows the world of Cuban cigar vitolas knows there is no such thing as a petit lancero in the Havana lineup. “This is the first half of the real cigar,” he says, holding up part of a slim smoke to the camera. The answer is one part expected, two parts surprising. “What are you smoking?” asks a virtual visitor. His three-piece suit is elegantly pressed, and he’s sitting comfortably in a chair, a skinny cigar in one of his hands. His tie is perfectly knotted, a proud Windsor knot sitting just below his close-cropped, gray beard. It’s not yet spring in London, and Sahakian’s cigar store is closed to visitors due to pandemic rules, but looking at the man one would never imagine it’s not business as usual. Sahakian is now 76, and he’s clearly in no rush to retire. And I still have about seven or eight of them left.”Ī box of Davidoff Dom Pérignons from the 1980s like this is one of the vintage treasures waiting to be discovered at the Davidoff shop in London. “I didn’t want to finish-I wanted to keep my word to Zino. Come the 14th year, when I took a cigar from that second layer, I said, ‘My God there’s only 11 left.’ So I started skipping years,” he says with a guilty smile. “I religiously did that for the first 13 years. Things went according to plan for more than a dozen years as Sahakian enjoyed one of the cigars every year. And when I smoke the last one, I will retire.’ ”Ĭuban Davidoff Dom Perignons are packed 25 to the box, a layer of 13 resting atop a layer of 12 (though 10-count boxes also exist). Davidoff, I promise you I will smoke only one out of this box every year on the anniversary of the shop.
Sahakian showed the patience and class he is known for, vowing not to rush his enjoyment of that box of Churchills. And he wrote on it, ‘Dear Edward, smoke but don’t smoke too much.’ ” “He presented me with a box of Dom Perignon cigars. It was May of 1980 and Davidoff had a present for the new store owner, a box of Cuban cigars that were new to the market. “On the first day of the opening, Zino came in,” says Sahakian, referring to Zino Davidoff, creator of the Davidoff cigar brand and chain of shops bearing his name. When Edward Sahakian opened his Davidoff shop in London, he was visited by a very special guest who carried a very special present.
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