September 08, 2011
Ice, Ice, Baby. Photo courtesy of Moët & Chandon.
Tennis's US Open is no stranger to fashion faux pas: See Andre Agassi's pleated-denim-over-spandex getup, anything Bethanie Mattek-Sands wears and countless spectators who show up dressed ready to play, as if Rafael Nadal just might ask them to hit a few balls at any moment. This year, the tournament is serving what many wine snobs would consider a beverage blunder: Champagne on the rocks. But this is no sparkling slip-up. Served in large white goblets, Moët & Chandon's new Ice Imperial—a semisweet bubbly blended specifically for drinking over ice—is making the rounds at Flushing Meadows. It's been free-flowing in the Moët & Chandon VIP suite and is being poured, for $22 a glass, at the champagne bar in front of Arthur Ashe Stadium. Our assessment: A few cubes smoothed and mellowed the drink, unleashing a tropical fruit salad of flavor—just the thing for enduring the Open's sunniest days. moet.com.
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October 04, 2012
Annie Leibovitz for The Macallan Masters of Photography
Combining singular whisky with standout photography, The Macallan Masters of Photography series marks its third installment with a quartet of images by Annie Leibovitz accompanying four single-cask Scotches. Featuring actor Kevin McKidd, who hails from Elgin, Scotland, and currently stars on Grey’s Anatomy, the images were shot in and around New York with nods to the Scottish heritage.
The campaign pairs 1,000 bottles of limited-edition whiskies ($2,750 each) with an 11-by-14-inch print signed by Leibovitz that echoes the mood of its corresponding Scotch. (The photographs also appear on the labels.) A spicy 1989 Sherry Butt has aromas of chocolate, oranges and dates and teams up with a smoldering shot of McKidd in the private upstate gallery of artist Frederic Edwin Church, whose Niagara Falls, from the American Side hangs in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. The 1991 Sherry Oak Puncheon highlights ginger and cinnamon on the palate, and apples, oak and dried fruits on the nose, and is paired with a photo of McKidd shot in the convivial Red Dot Bar in Hudson, New York. The 1995 Sherry Oak Hoghead, characterized by toasted apple, ginger and oak, accompanies a shot reminiscent of novelist Sir Walter Scott’s library at his home in Abbotsford, Scotland. And an image of the actor above Tudor City accompanies the 1996 American Oak Butt, which tastes of oak, cinnamon, toffee and citrus.
Lending further authenticity to the story, McKidd once worked for the distillery as a young man—a connection that forges an even deeper bond between the bottles and the vision. “Working with one of the world’s most influential photographers has exceeded all expectations,” says Ken Grier, director of malts at spirits company The Edrington Group. “Annie Leibovitz has captured The Macallan moment in her own unique way.” themastersofphotography.com; themacallan.com.
