1. Paper Planes Designer Luca Iaconi-Stewart has crafted a stunning 1:60 scale replica airplane model of an Air India 777-300ER from bits of manila folders. Over five years he measured, cut and glued tiny pieces…
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A revamped Manhattan for the holiday season
On a recent trip to LA, we had the pleasure of grabbing a drink at £10, a posh semi-secret lounge at the Montage hotel in Beverly Hills. An official U.S. outpost of The Macallan, the interiors of the recently-opened space leave room for improvement, but the tucked-away spot filled with low-slung couches overlooking a grassy courtyard makes for a nicely atmospheric stop-in if you’re in the area, complete with the charming bartender, Nicholas Vitulli, who mixes drinks table-side.
Our favorite was the Thurso, which puts a deliciously fun twist on the Manhattan. Named for an area of the Scottish Highlands, it calls for The Macallan 12 and cinnamon syrup in place of the more traditional American whiskey and sweet vermouth. It’s a simple switch, but one that takes the cocktail staple to the next level for holiday-season dinner parties. Topped with a dusting of fresh nutmeg, sipping it anywhere is a multi-sensory experience.
Thurso
2 oz The Macallan 12
1 demarara sugar cube
3/4 oz cinnamon syrup
2 dashes Jerry Thomas’ bitters
3 dashes Jamaican jerk bitters
Stir/strain over Highland Springs ball/shaved nutmeg
A British X-ray photographer turns to whisky for his latest subject
Shooting with an X-ray machine rather than with a traditional camera, British photographer Nick Veasey produces surprising, visually enchanting work that begs the observer to think about what’s under the surface. With more than twenty years of experimental experience, the TED speaker‘s fascinating body of work spans subjects from insects and flowers to cars and even airplanes, each broken down to expose its raw inner components. Veasey’s next project finds him putting his graphic images on whisky boxes as part of a collaboration with The Macallan.
Adorned with images inspired by the Macallan’s six pillars—spiritual home, curiously small stills, finest cut, exceptional oak casks, natural color and peerless spirit—Veasey’s special box set dresses up their signature Sherry Oak 12 Year Old bottles for the 2011 holiday season.
In anticipation of the soon-to-be-released holiday editions, we talked to Veasey about his unique craft and his recent work with the whisky maker.
I’m not the first to use X-rays when creating art, but I do like to think my X-rays are the most impactful. I’ve been doing this and nothing else for 20 years. I’ve always been a keen experimenter and never one to obey rules. I saw some X-rays of objects a long time ago and they made a big impression on me. From my first X-ray exposure I’ve known there is nothing else I want to do. I love X-ray, it’s that simple.
Indeed, special equipment is required, but not a camera. I use X-ray machines similar to those in hospitals, but more powerful. Basically electrons are charged in a vacuum. These electrons become radiographic photons, another spectrum of light. This spectrum of light is invisible and radioactive. That is why it is so dangerous. I have a specially built bunker to control the radiation. The radiographic passes through the subject being X-rayed and leaves an impression on film or a digital capture device.
The Macallan is a big supporter of photography. They have previously worked with Rankin and Albert Watson on their Masters of Photography Series. When we X-rayed the bottle for Macallan we did it full and empty, meaning there was some on hand for me to drink! I find The Macallan to be a very nice Scotch—I get an earthy mellow taste and thoroughly enjoy a dram every now and again after a long day in the studio.
Well, on one level the results are unique as these subjects had never been X-rayed before. The house and the water droplet were particularly challenging to shoot. X-raying a house is not simple, nor is X-raying a moving drop of water. My x-ray equipment is not portable so we had to create these images in my X-ray lab. That took some doing, believe me.
The master perfumer creates an olfactory experience as a unique educational tool for understanding the flavors of Scotch whisky
Whisky is a complex spirit with a range of flavors; often, people have an experience with one variety and dismiss the whole spirit. The Macallan recognizes that introducing whisky to some people requires a bit of eduction, and happened upon an idea that is really quite clever. Knowing that smell is such an important element in taste, they thought it would be an interesting experiment to teach people about the flavors of whisky. The Macallan’s partnership with celebrated British perfumer Roja Dove created an olfactory experience to do just that, and the result is a Scottish take on the Japanese Kōdō ceremony, which celebrates the art and customs of incense.
Roja is a master perfumer who creates his own line of perfumes as well as creating bespoke fragrances for people and places (like shops and hotels). He also has a well known shop, Roja Dove Haute Perfumerie at Harrods in London, which sells a range of “Roja approved” scents. Ironically, Roja had an unpleasant teenage encounter with Scotch that prevented him from ever trying it again. In his first meeting with The Macallan, he had to confess to his whisky-making partners, “I absolutely hate whisky. I don’t like it, I can’t drink it. I don’t like it whatsoever.” Since the project was about creating an experience to introduce the unexperienced to whisky, they were actually encouraged by Dove’s opposition to the spirit, relying on him to create an experience to make the characteristics of whisky more approachable.
The Macallan and Roja Dove Sensory Experience takes people through the spectrum of scent, educating the nose in common whisky notes. It’s meant to help people approach the whisky palate without the immediate—and often overpowering—alcoholic sensation so that later on, tasting the whiskey may bring out characteristics that may otherwise have been missed. “Everybody so far has said that they are shocked that they are able to smell things in the whisky that they have never, ever noticed before,” explains Dove. I was lucky enough to spend an hour going through the Experience with Dove and David Cox, director of The Macallan’s Fine and Rare whiskies and indeed learned to distinguish the various components that give whisky its flavor.
Dove selected 12 pure essences that he felt were representative of different whiskey traits. The first six introduce scent pairs that help distinguish between things like stillness versus volatility, fruitiness versus spiciness, and maturity versus immaturity. Dove’s experience goes back and forth between scents in an opposite way from traditional whisky-tasting, bringing out base notes after the high notes and the sweet before the dry. The kit provides a certain education that a tasting alone cannot. The second set of six scents creates two aromatic blends that imitate whiskies from The Macallan range, which are later used in combination with the whisky during tasting. By the end, the nose has been properly trained and participants leave equipped with the vocabulary to go forward and taste whiskey on their own. It’s perhaps not a surprise that through his own methods Dove has come to appreciate and enjoy whisky.
The “aroma station” comes in an exquisitely detailed oak box constructed by Scottish cabinet-maker Duke Christie with bottles arranged like a perfumer’s desk—a set-up that Dove playfully likens to a church organ. The box contains scent strips for testing and glasses to combine the scents into a “bouquet,” which mirrors the whiskey-tasting experience. Armed with this educational tool, The Macallan’s brand ambassadors are set to spread the essence of their spirit through scent, hoping to convert non-believers to the fascinating world of scotch whisky and provide connoisseurs with an additional tool for appreciation. While the Ambassadors’ are currently making the rounds with the press, they promise that small, intimate consumer events will follow. Until then, check out the video to hear Dove himself explain the unique process.
Our interview with The Macallan’s latest Master of Photography
Back in September when we visited The Macallan at their home in the Scottish Highlands we were given a sneak preview of both the liquid and the imagery from the latest in their Masters of Photography series. While the 20-year-old whisky instantly became our new favorite for the way its buttery smooth texture offsets its rich and complex flavor, the imagery Albert Watson created to celebrate it offers a beautiful and educational perspective on what makes Scotch whisky so special. Where Rankin (the last Scottish photographer to create a series for The Macallan) used the Easter Elchies estate as a background for nude portraiture, Watson chose to tell the story of the complex journey Oak wood makes from the forest to the Estate, picking up the varied characteristics through Spain and Scotland that eventually define the whisky.
In anticipation of Thursday’s NYC stop of the one-night-only series of gallery exhibitions of Watson’s series, I sat down with the famed photographer to hear more about the project from his perspective.
I certainly have been a fashion photographer and I still do fashion. But I’ve also done a vast amount of portraiture and movie posters. I’ve done over the years a lot of landscape work and also a huge amount of still life work. So I’ve done more fashion than anything else, but in the end I’m really a photographer who will take fashion photographs. I’m really a photographer in the broad sense of the word.
There’s a very simple way to look at all of the work that I do because I was trained as a graphic designer for four years at university and then did three years of post-graduate at film school. And that is written all over the work. It’s either one of three things: graphic design, filmmaking or a mixture of the two.
It is the one of the barrel in the shaft of light, which was the first one we did. Due to the logistics, we shot the cooperage first and I went in to the saw mill and there was a big room. The place was very dusty and smokey and humid so this was the perfect condition for a shaft of light to come through. I walked into the room and there was this shaft of light. I turned to Ken Grier, the Creative Director, and said there’s a shot there, so we put a barrel in it. It was an important moment because it laid a standard for the rest of the shoot—a lot of times when working on a photographic project you want to get the best shots first because if you start low and improve you end up wanting to reshoot the early shots.
That came from me. What came from them was that they wanted to do Spain and Scotland. But to tie it all together we had to put a human face on it and to do it as a journey that a young couple takes from a sustainable forest in the North of Spain to the barrels being made in the South of Spain and filled with Sherry there. Then they go from there to Scotland to the distillery where the whisky is put in them. I thought people should discover a forest, a saw mill, the cooperage, the barrels, and through that discover Scotland and ultimately the distillery. Doing that through this couple put a face on it.
Once inside the project there wasn’t anything I might do over a six month period for a variety of people—I might be employed to do both landscape work and fashion work. So the Macallan thing was just concentrating it in to a very short period of time. The actual shooting time for the project was eight days, which is not a lot of time when you’re doing South of Spain, North of Spain, Central Scotland and West Coast of Scotland.
I don’t drink at all. It’s unusual for someone from Scotland not to drink.
The limited-edition of 1,000 bottles of The Macallan Sherry Oak 20 years old has the specially-commissioned label by Watson and each bottle includes a set of 10 portfolio prints, $1000 from select retailers.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
