Автор: karymsakov_qq4zn395

Move over, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. Move over, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay.

New Riff’s new malted rye whiskey was finished in two types of sherry casks. New Riff’s new malted rye whiskey was finished in two types of sherry casks.

Siari, a hotel that’s all about seclusion in nature, opened its doors to guests this week. Siari, a hotel that’s all about seclusion in nature, opened its doors to guests this week.

The restored and updated 1949 residence in the foothills above Studio City remains true to the innovative architect’s singular vision. The restored and updated 1949 residence in the foothills above Studio City remains true to the innovative architect’s singular vision.

Showing 19,886 miles on it, the time-capsule car is one of only 116 examples of the model variant built that year. Showing 19,886 miles on it, the time-capsule car is one of only 116 examples of the model variant built that year.

Break out the rum, Cognac and bourbon—and give yourself some time. Break out the rum, Cognac and bourbon—and give yourself some time.

Fashion critic and editor Godfrey Deeny reflects on 80 years of Rome’s most innovative tailor. 

This past decade, many great Italian houses have made material innovation a vital leitmotif: Zegna with its 100 percent traceable Vellus Aureaum fine wool; or Tod’s with ‘pashmy’, combining the sturdiness of glove-like leather with the delicacy of pashmina. Dolce & Gabbana keeps breaking new ground with its remarkable tapestry-style men’s couture, while Loro Piana’s innovative silk tweed blends Italian panache with UK poise.

I would argue that the most advanced ideas are currently to be found at Brioni, the Italian tailor which suited Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig in their portrayals of James Bond and attired Marcello Mastroianni in Fellini’s classic La Dolce Vita. A source of impeccable tailoring since it opened in Rome in 1945, Brioni celebrated its 80th anniversary in late November in the Eternal City, with a Lucullan dinner of risotto cacio e pepe, washed down with Selva della Tesa, my favorite Italian Chardonnay.

Under its Austrian-born creative director Norbert Stumpfl, Brioni now creates clothes in the most rarefied fabrics in menswear. Using 18th-century looms that one expect to find depicted in the background of a Caravaggio canvas it has developed stunning jacquards, it coats threads with gold, literally dust shirts in real silver dust, and infuses silk-linen with enzymes to create a fuzzy finish. Above all, it creates the unique.

Examples of such craft were visible at Brioni’s recent Tailoring Legends exhibition inside Il Chiostro Del Bramante, an architectural jewel in the Centro Storico of Rome. One example:  the crafted silk jacquard shawl-collar white tuxedo that Regé-Jean Page wore to this year’s Academy Museum Gala. It was composed in fabric that replicates original tapestries from the Royal Palace at Caserta, the Versailles of Italy.

Another remarkable piece was the herringbone 24-karat tuxedo and matching shirt made from gold, extracted from ingots melted and applied to the threads. A perfect example of how Brioni under Stumpfl has revolutionized menswear fabrics.

Though what sets the house apart today is the couture-like quality to its raw materials, often sourced from suppliers using techniques invented in the Renaissance — from Veronese brocade jackets, which require 42 days of weaving to create, supplied by the Fondazione Arte della Seta in Florence, Tuscany’s greatest fabric repository, to the pure silk textured velvet Doge Tuxedo, handwoven on 19th-century jacquard hand looms balanced by wrought-iron weights in Genoa.

“It’s a very complicated loom that very few craftsmen know how to use anymore. A meticulous process that means you only produce a six or seven centimeters per day. That’s why it’s so expensive,” explains Stumpfl, standing beside a tuxedo priced at around €100,000 (approx. $115,800). The designer has a mania for such materials; his iPhone has a map of Italy, dotted with images of dozens of mills.

Other ideas emerge from experiments in Brioni’s studio, like a remarkable iridescent tuxe made of hundreds of horizontal ribbons granting a unique ripple effect. “We had been playing around with ribbons late one night, and the effect was so special I said, ‘let’s make a whole jacket.’ It reminds me of a quiet lake at midnight after someone threw in a stone,” smiles Stumpfl.

Beside tailoring, Stumpfl has dreamed up his own take on the menswear garment of the moment — the shirt-jacket. Brioni’s version is in the lightest of spongy cashmere, knitted by a team of local women outside Florence — another secret resource.

“They are incredible pieces, the best thing I have seen in months. So airy and soft, you just have to buy one. Then you go home and want to buy two more,” enthuses Bruce Pask, the senior director of men’s fashion of Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus, and thus the most influential menswear buyer on the planet.

“I’d say that when it comes to creating that sweet spot of great tailoring with truly special fabrics, Norbert is unrivaled,” he says.

Norbet’s other great innovation is levity, a key trend in menswear, driven by the demand for post-Covid ease and by global warming. A superb double-breasted blazer worn by actor Oscar Isaac in a recent campaign practically floats in the air — modern day matinée idol mode. That said, when things get chilly, Brioni also has gray great coats made of American crocodile, though again artfully shaved to take away the traditional shine.

Historically, Brioni is credited with staging the first menswear show in history in Florence in 1952; of inventing the trunk show; and dressing John Wayne, Carey Grant, and Clark Gable.  Like the Gotha of the Golden Age of Hollywood, our soirée ended with multiple negronis. Faintly blasphemously in the cloister’s sacristy.

The founders opened a plant and tailoring school in the 1950s in Penne, in the mountainous Abruzzi region, that still operates today. Luxury group Kering acquired Brioni in 2011, and since then it hasn’t staged a show. Stumpfl prefers to hold elegant presentations in palazzos, with life models or stockmen placed beside Renaissance statuary.

Stumpfl is not your typical tailor. Born in rural Austria, he studied in fashion’s most famous college, St Martin’s in London, where he met his wife, a freelance designer— both went on to work for Alexander McQueen on several of his most notable shows. A stint working in Paris for Alber Elbaz, the Lanvin designer who died during Covid, added a layer of Paris couture sophistication to his armory.

McQueen’s sense of iconoclasm is apparent in a diamond-pattern Barathea evening jacket finished with martellato, or tiny hammered plates, culled from Opus Romanus, an Ancient Roman technique. While nearby a Luce jacket shimmers thanks to being embroidered with tiny micro baguettes. “The needles they use to sew these are as thin as hair,” Stumpfl marvels inside the beautiful Chiostro del Bramante.

Bramante, one recalls, was the out-of-town architect who brought the High Renaissance style to Rome. Which in a sense is what Norbert Stumpfl has achieved as well — overseen the renaissance of cool and cultivated menswear at the Eternal City’s most innovative tailor.

Laduora’s Lumeo device delivers powerful antiaging benefits in efficient, three-minute at-home sessions. Laduora’s Lumeo device delivers powerful antiaging benefits in efficient, three-minute at-home sessions.

MASK Architects’ Solaris features two deployable wings covered in solar panels. MASK Architects’ Solaris features two deployable wings covered in solar panels.

Our drinks columnist samples a stella lineup of American whiskey — and suggests you do the same, quickly. 

And you know what? I regret it, because by the end it was totally shot; its elaborate layers of spice, incense, and fruit had become as woody and lifeless as an antique wardrobe. The moral of the tale is carpe diem. Because, whatever people tell you, spirits do fade. It takes time – often years – but once they’re opened oxygen always gets to them in the end.

That rye was on my mind at the preview of the new Antique Collection from Buffalo Trace, a sought-after capsule of whiskeys that, happily for me, includes a Sazerac 18 year old.

If you’re a US whiskey fan, then Buffalo Trace needs no introduction. The Kentucky operation is America’s oldest continuously operating distillery, and one of only six that were allowed to keep making whiskey during Prohibition (for so-called ‘medical’ purposes). And it’s been a pioneer in both bourbon and rye creation for over 200 years.

The six-bottle Antique Collection represents the pinnacle of what this distillery makes, showcasing its bourbons and ryes matured under different conditions and for an exceptional number of years. Official retail prices are relatively modest – around £150 (approx. $199) per bottle; but competition is fierce. If you look online you’ll find previous editions of Sazerac 18 now changing hands for around $2,000 a throw.

The most sought-after in this year’s collection is likely to be EH Taylor Bottled-in-Bond Bourbon (50 percent ABV) – the first new expression to join the range since 2006. Named for Buffalo Trace’s pioneering founder, Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor JR, it’s aged for 15 years and four months in the distillery’s Warehouse C, a cool, dark environment that’s particularly suited to extra-long ageing (and which was also Taylor’s favourite). The bourbon is intense but balanced, with notes of marzipan, cherry drops, varnished woods, and sweet spice.

Buffalo Trace’s beloved Eagle Rare bourbon also crops up in the Collection in a maturer guise, as Eagle Rare 17 year old Kentucky Straight Bourbon (50.5 percent ABV) (though the liquid is actually aged for over 18 years). The extra-long maturation gives the bourbon dryer woody tobacco and leather characters, that marry nicely with sweeter notes of fruit coulis and vanilla.

This year’s George T Stagg Kentucky Straight Bourbon comes in at a whopping 71.4 percent ABV – so it’s best enjoyed with a drop of water. It’s the same mash bill, or recipe, as the EH Taylor and Eagle Rare but none of it is aged in Warehouse C, which gives the 15-year-old bourbon a bolder style – I got ginger, incense-y baking spices, and raisin cookies.

William Larue Weller Kentucky Straight Bourbon (64.5 percent ABV) is named for the distiller who pioneered wheated bourbon – a softer, sweeter style of whiskey which uses wheat, rather than rye, as the second most dominant grain in the mash bill, after corn. Aged for 12 years and 7 months, and bottled at 64.5 percent ABV, this whiskey is also best with a drop of water which releases notes of custard, vanilla, pipe tobacco, and nut butter, and loosens up its creamy, elegant texture.

That’s the bourbons. There are also two ryes, starting with Thomas H Handy Sazerac Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey (63.9 percent ABV), which is named in honor of the New Orleans businessman who first had the idea, in the 19th century, of using rye whiskey in a Sazerac cocktail. This six-year-old is a young, feisty rye that pops with spice and a mouthwatering, quite tart green apple note. With time and water it mellows into apple pie, vanilla, and an appetising touch of salt.

Finally, the celebrated Sazerac 18 year old Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey (45 percent ABV). Rye whiskey can be hard to come by at the best of times, but it’s exceptionally rare to find a great one this old. The rye grain gives it a very lifted, herbaceous/floral aroma: dill, violets, caraway. On the palate it offers up linseed oil, fig rolls, supple leather, nutty rye bread, and sweet caraway seed. A really dazzling example of how well American whiskey can age. My advice would be: drink now – don’t wait!

Where to Find the 2025 Collection

US: RPM Seafood, Chicago; Wayfare Tavern, San Francisco; Low Boy, Los Angeles or online at rocospirits.com, hiproof.com, cypresscraft.com

UK: The American Bar at The Savoy, London; Dram, London; The Connaught, London or online at harrods.com, hedonism.com, fortnumandmason.com

Available from mid-December, £150 (approx. $198) per bottle