BOIS­DALE OF CANARY WHARF, LONDON

Mon­day 12^th Decem­ber saw Bois­dale of Canary Wharf hon­our both cig­ar afi­ciona­dos and celebri­ty cig­ar smok­ers from around the world at the high­ly esteemed Snow Queen Cig­ar Smok­er of the Year Awards Din­ner 2016.

Founder of Bois­dale and the awards, Ranald Mac­don­ald intro­duced the awards by saying:

Tonight cel­e­brat­ing the enjoy­ment of cig­ars, sur­round­ed as we are by fel­low cig­ar lovers, it would be tempt­ing to think that we are mere­ly a per­fect­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive selec­tion of mod­ern soci­ety. Well sad­ly this is not the case and despite our per­fec­tions we are a real­ly a tiny minor­i­ty. Hav­ing said that we can take some pride in our tribe, as The Snow Queen Cig­ar Awards is undoubt­ed­ly one of the most sig­nif­i­cant gath­er­ings of cig­ar smok­ers in the world this side of the jun­gles of cen­tral China!

The event saw the two high­est paid TV stars in US his­to­ry take home much cov­et­ed tro­phies. Kelsey Gram­mer, star of screen and stage, was award­ed the ulti­mate recog­ni­tion of the night and was pre­sent­ed with The Snow Queen Cig­ar Smok­er Of The Year 2016 tro­phy whilst leg­endary Hol­ly­wood star Char­lie Sheen took home the prize for run­ner up.

Cel­e­brat­ed broad­cast­er and jour­nal­ist, Andrew Neil scooped the Cig­ar Smok­er of the Year Life­time Achieve­ment Award, against Oscar and BAF­TA win­ning direc­tor Stephen Evans, Sir Ter­ence Con­ran and movie mogul Alan Greenspan.

Upon receipt of his nom­i­na­tion, Sir Ter­ence says:

‘I can only look upon a life­time achieve­ment award for smok­ing my cig­ars with hap­py amuse­ment because there have been few things that have giv­en me more plea­sure dur­ing my rather long lifetime’

To com­mem­o­rate his award, Andrew Neil was pre­sent­ed with a Lim­it­ed Series Zenith El Primero Chrono-Mas­ter Cohi­ba Edi­tion watch engraved with his name by Nico­las Meda, Inter­na­tion­al Com­mer­cial Direc­tor of Zenith Watches.

The illus­tri­ous evening, host­ed by Tom Park­er Bowles, saw the great and the good of the cig­ar scene, from movie stars and socialites through to politi­cians and entre­pre­neurs, gath­er togeth­er to cel­e­brate the great hand-rolled cig­ar. Bois­dale of Canary Wharf, pre­vi­ous­ly dubbed ​‘The Cuba of Lon­don’ by the Cuban Ambas­sador, Her Excel­len­cy Tere­si­ta de Jesús Vicente Soto­lon­go (who was also in atten­dance), host­ed the star-stud­ded evening, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with organ­ic Snow Queen Vod­ka from Kaza­khstan and lux­u­ry time piece pro­duc­er Zenith Watch­es, who pro­vid­ed the win­ners with the much sought after prize, a lim­it­ed edi­tion of its leg­endary Zenith El Primero Chrono-Mas­ter Cohi­ba Edi­tion watch engraved with his name.

Guests includ­ing Nan­cy Dell’Ollio, Char­lie Sheen, Kelsey Gram­mer and Boisdale’s very own Ranald Mac­don­ald kicked off the evening with Snow Queen Vod­ka cock­tails before head­ing out to the ter­race to indulge in their first of many cig­ars of the evening. 

Upon hear­ing of Char­lie Sheen’s arrival, Kelsey remarked ​‘the big man’s arrived’ and sped over to greet his old friend with a tight hug. Rem­i­nisc­ing on old times, the two Hol­ly­wood leg­ends head­ed to the humi­dor for cig­ars and whisky, before they sat for the sump­tu­ous din­ner. Between cours­es, Char­lie proved he was a man of the peo­ple as he snuck into the kitchen to greet and thank the staff. Flanked by his body­guards, he was soon escort­ed back to his seat but not before pock­et­ing a loaf of bread to keep him going between courses!

Fol­low­ing din­ner, Nan­cy Dell’Ollio took to the stage to kick start the bid­ding for the char­i­ty auc­tion, who’s lots includ­ed rare whiskies, wines, and nat­u­ral­ly, cig­ars. Rais­ing a total of £9,000, Andrew Neil and Kelsey Gram­mer went head to head in a stand­off bid. Mr Sheen jok­ing­ly offered $80billion to help ignite the fire for guests to reach into their pock­ets and donate to the cel­e­brat­ed UK Youth inno­v­a­tive youth devel­op­ment pro­gramme just in time for Christmas.

As well as being crowned the The Snow Queen Cig­ar Smok­er Of The Year 2016, Kelsey Gram­mer received a Lim­it­ed Series Zenith El Primero Chrono-Mas­ter Cohi­ba Edi­tion watch engraved with his name, a humi­dor of rare cig­ars and a Snow Queen Vod­ka ham­per. Dur­ing his accep­tance speech, Kelsey ref­er­enced his pre­vi­ous atten­dance at the awards two years ago, where he lost out to Gov­er­nor Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger com­par­ing it to a ​‘rigged elec­tion’. Dis­cussing his­tor­i­cal greats, with men­tions of Aris­to­tle and Freud, Kelsey was ever the come­di­an, sign­ing off with:

‘And that is as odd and obscure as I can get, how­ev­er I would love to thank you all. It is so fun to know that cig­ar smok­ers are reviled.’

Guests enjoyed a sump­tu­ous din­ner of expert­ly sourced Hebridean lob­ster, crab and Aberdeen Angus Beef Fil­let, of which Bois­dale is famed for accom­pa­nied by stun­ning wines from Matthew Clark. Fol­low­ing din­ner, guests returned to Boisdale’s famous smok­ing ter­race to enjoy cig­ars per­fect­ly paired with the award win­ning Glen­fid­dich 15 and 21 Year Old Malt Whiskies, leg­endary rums from Havana Club accom­pa­nied by live music from the Bue­na Vista Social Club.

IMAGES FROM THIS EVENT CAN BE VIEWED BY CLICK­ING ON THIS LINK