In praise of French spirit November 17, 2010 HERE’S a strange thing: the French don’t like cognac. In fact, according to Patrice Pinet, master blender for Courvoisier, France imports more Scottish whisky than it makes cognac. Young people in France in particular, he laments, have given up on the drink, associating it with a naff, fusty past instead of a cool, cocktail-centric present. [...]
TASTING NOTES November 17, 2010 APPLETON’S LUXURY RUM Jamaican brand Appleton Estate is known for some very fine rums, but its latest trumps the bunch. The notably-dark 30 Year Old is about as expensive a rum as you will find, and as rare – only a few bottles exist. After three decades in tropical barrels, it’s been hand-blended for something [...]
Glamour is going west for the winter November 17, 2010 FOLLOWING the slew of recent East London launches, attention is shifting to the West where things are hotting up. After the summer additions of the Brompton Club and Beaufort House, the most exciting new club for some time is heading to Chelsea in the shape of Guy Pelly’s new offering, Public on the King’s Road. [...]
The world’s in peril…again November 17, 2010 ZERO HOUR BY ANDY MCNAB Bantam £18.99 More aggressively masculine thriller-writing is hard to come by – McNab’s Nick Stone is the toughest of the tough (of British men), and his partners in crime operate in a world of violent political espionage and the most blood-letting, explosive of special ops. With Zero Hour, the prolific [...]
COSTA BOOK AWARDS | ANALYSIS November 17, 2010 SECOND in command to the Booker Prize, the Costa Awards (formerly the Whitbreads), still matter. They still shift books on a large scale and the “winner” sticker still counts for something in the Waterstones customer’s consciousness. Lest anyone mistake them for the Bookers’ subservient echo, this year the prize will disprove such an assertion – [...]
VEXED IN THE CITY November 17, 2010 Those cursed royals could ruin my wedding DEAR VEXED: My fiancée and I have been engaged for over a year, and four months ago decided on a July wedding. I have a horrible feeling the weekend we’ve plumped for is the favourite for Wills and Kate. The whole thing is going to be overshadowed by [...]
The food entrepreneur who’s hitting the MARC November 16, 2010 MARLON Abela fits the international It-Boy bill perfectly. Born in Lebanon, he grew up among the rich and famous of London and the south of France, raised by a father who owned one of the world’s top institutional and airline catering businesses and a slew of four and five star hotels. Recently valued at £400m, [...]
Two-wheel power November 16, 2010 So here I am, driving the first mass-produced Land Rover ever to be designed not to go off road – the Freelander 2 eD4 – and where I am driving it? Off-road. For a second I can’t help myself from thinking that Land Rover’s communications people have gone mad. Then I realise two things. First, [...]
CAR TALK November 16, 2010 THE CONTROVERSIAL RANGE ROVER EVOQUE If the new 2WD Freelander is contentious, it’s nothing on the controversy that surrounds the new Range Rover Evoque. This is the production five-door version, which is making its debut at the Los Angeles Motor Show today. The Evoque will be the smallest, lightest and most fuel-efficient Range Rover ever [...]
Learn He-Man’s recipe for great guns November 15, 2010 WHATEVER your feelings about the acting skills of Swedish action film star Dolph Lundgren, the man has guns. That is, insanely sculpted arms and a physique that suggests super-human strength. So when an opportunity arose to go and train with him while he was in London to promote his new film the Expendables, I couldn’t [...]