An unhurried establishment.
Three rooms above a tobacconist on the Rue du Rhône. A walnut-panelled tasting bar, a humidor the size of a small bedroom, and a glass cabinet of accessories that took the better part of a century to fill.
Three generations, one address.
M. Édouard Ashford opened the original shop in November 1932, on the ground floor of a Belle Époque building one block from the lake. He brought with him a small library of Dominican cigars and a Swiss watchmaker's eye for what a humidor should be: cedar, brass, silence.
His daughter Claire Crown joined the house in 1968 and added the lighters, the leather, the crystal. By the time her son took over in 1997, the atelier was — quietly — what it remains today: a Geneva institution that does not advertise.
"We sell time. The cigar is only the way it arrives."
Three rituals, by appointment.
A guided walk through the humidor — Dominican, Nicaraguan, Honduran. Forty-five minutes, two cigars, espresso.
Four seats at the bar. A single malt or a Geneva gin. Two cigars chosen for you by the house sommelier.
A standing reservation in our cellar — your own labelled drawer, restocked monthly to your blend.