Wow. This has definitely been a whirlwind of a week or so, and a very Macallan filled month! A week and a half ago, i thought tasting the 50 and 52 year old Macallan were the oldest my lips may ever touch, but little did i know that this week i’d be sipping the 57 yr old Macallan! Tuesday night was a NOTCOT first. I’ve never played host at a party before! But when Macallan and the W Los Angeles approached me to co-host a party with Julie Wolfson, saying they’d take care of the details, we just had to invite some friends to come indulge with us, how could i say no? Despite the rainy night (which cleared up mid way through the party so we finally got to sneak outside and enjoy the brisk night air, curl up by the fireplace, and smoke cigars while sipping Macallan into the night), we had a great turn out. And as you know, Macallan loves twitter (in fact, our other co-host, The Macallan West Coast Ambassador, Eden Algie ~ just joined twitter, please follow him and message him to convince him to let us throw another LA party!)… so once again live tweeting was up on the screen during the party, and people were tweeting up quite a storm with #macallan (you can see my favorites on the next page!)… one of the highlights of the night was definitely getting to taste the 57 year Macallan in a Lalique crystal decanter… take a peek at the festivities, as well as some of the great coverage and photography to emerge from the event so far!

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Tags: drinks - events - hotels - liqurious - los angeles - macallan - party - scotch - W

Tonight, Macallan brought me out to Soho House in NY for quite the surreal experience: Flights of the Decades. Beyond the amazing ice balls (which i’ve been dying to see in action for some time now) ~ tonight i had the opportunity to talk so the inspirational visionary @MacallanKen (aka Ken Grier, Director - Malts) about everything from photography to life adventures to how baking cakes is a lot like scotch… but most importantly, about doing/enabling extraordinary things and people. Also finally got to meet @LivingTheDram (aka Graeme Russell - Macallan Ambassador) ~ with whom i’ve long tweeted about scotch from afar. And everyone at this lovely event was tweeting up a storm ~ all of which were showing on the screen (in fact, if you were using the #macallan hashtag during dinner, you too were up on screen!) To take it even further, we had the opportunity to taste not only the New Make Spirit straight from the source before reaching casks… Macallan cask strength 18 year sherry oak… Macallan 50 year… and even Macallan 52 year. It was. WOW. And seeing the Lalique decanters and the carbon fiber (looking?) box it’s packaged in… as well as one of the 1000 unique Rankin bottles up close… all in all it was a beautiful experience, with fun people, delicious food, great conversations… now go see the many random photos on the next page for a peek at the experience!

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Tags: drinks - events - gifts - ice - liqurious - macallan - new york - scotch - shopping

Sure its 4am, but i couldn’t go to sleep before showing you the magic of the Macallan Ice Ball “Machine”. Did you know it runs on GRAVITY? Yes, high tech stuff… also the magical frictional heating of copper also comes in to play somehow just perfectly at room temperature. Really you stick a roughly right sized chunk of ice in between the two heavy pieces, and let gravity go to work on it. And with in moments ~ right before your eyes ~ it melts down to a perfectly glossy sphere. It’s magical really. This incredible device was discovered in japan (side note: where the macallan team also discovered japanese taking straight razors to carve perfect spheres of ice) ~ and they have exclusive rights to the device for a few years! I’m secretly wanting one to play with at home… See the pictures on the next page…

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Tags: drinks - ice - liqurious - macallan - scotch - technology - whiskey

A winner has been notified... i'm waiting to hear back from him!

I know you've always wanted to throw some rocks in your favorite scotch. Chilled perfectly these Teroforma Whisky Rocks are handmade in Vermont out of soapstone will cool your drink down just enough to take the edge off without "closing down" the flavors according to the lovely ladies of Delight.com. In fact, they are even generous enough to GIVE AWAY ONE SET of these WHISKEY STONES! All you have to do is leave a comment with your favorite Scotch/Whisky... be specific! And i'll pick a winner on Monday Sept 14th.

As for the stones themselves, they come beautifully packaged, and were a lovely reason to pick up a bottle of the highly recommended Balvenie 21yr Portwood (omg. so delicious.) ~ while i wasn't sure whether they chilled it enough at first, i've been enlightened that "They do not replace ice - it would ruin the whisky or any other fine spirits to be taken down to a temp much lower than 45F." And the only dillemma i've run into ~ if you only get 9... and about 4 go in a glass... and you have a drink with a friend... and you want refills... you need more rocks! Right? Anyhow, go take a peek at the pics on the next page!

p.s.
Don't forget Delight.com is also giving you a 20% off all items through Sept 25th with the code "DelightRocks".

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Tags: drinks - gifts - giveaway - luxury - reviews - scotch - shopping - unboxing

I'm learning to love twitter... at first it drove me insane, but now it connects me with incredible new people... and its been intriguing to see what people and brands are doing with it... latest fascinating (and seemingly awesomely successful) experiment comes from Macallan. Granted i'm biased, Macallan 18yr has been my favorite go to for a few years now (while cocktails are fun, its my default if available)... but what they set up is really pretty fun! Here's the setup: Macallan's brand ambassador @livingthedram (Graeme Russell) teamed up with the Michelin-starred chef Ed Brown of Eighty One in NY for the ultimate Macallan Tasting ~ all live tweeted and projected on the wall!!! And while i nearly moved my flight to make the dinner ~ but being twitter and all, they were kind enough to send samples over for me to taste along with them! Unfortunately my timing still sucked a little, but first thing i did when i got home was grab some food, and start catching up on the #macallan tweets - and taste along with them!

On the next page, check out some pictures of the event, the samples (so fun to see the color differences alongside one another!), and a selection of my favorite tweets (yes, i totally read my way backwards through the whole event to catch up!).

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Tags: drinks - events - food - liqurious - new york - scotch - twitter

I have a soft spot for Scotch ~ especially when the packaging grabs me... Although the packaging redesign for Highland Park Single Malt Sotch Whisky happened in 2006, i was still curious enough to poke at their PR to show me the old bottles for comparison ~ and there's just something about the cleanliness of the design of the 30 and 40 year bottles and their wood boxes i'm loving. Don't the slight curvatures of the 40 year bottle remind you of the Ri(1) bottle? Well, only shorter and stouter, and with a much cooler label and silver "H" emblem ~ which apparently dates back to the Orkney's 12th-century Viking ancestry. Even the 30 year bottle is so clean, i love the transparent look with only the small paper labels covering the gorgeous color of the scotch in the glass bottle... As you'll see below, the packaging of the 18 and 25 year bottles are similar but have much larger labels, although on a similarly shaped bottle ~ they are however packaged in fun gloss black on matte black boxes! And you can see how they compare to their predecessors... Also noteworthy, it's nice to see a brand site dedicate a section to the thought that went into the redesign of the packaging! See close ups and more on the next page!

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Tags: drinks - gifts - liqurious - packaging - scotch - shopping

Great packaging + what can only be delicious single malt scotch = the most adorable hand written 20cL bottles of Old Malt Cask Advance Samples. I got launched into this scotch frenzy from The Dieline, which led me to Douglas Laing's Scotch Whiskies site... which led me not only to these minis, but to so many more beautifully packaged, fascinating single malts i'm now dying to try someday... see more on the next page!

About the minis. "Replicating the sample bottles sent to us from stock held at the Distilleries - these wee 20cl bottles appear to have been hand written by one of the team pulling the sample (full marks for legibility!). We select specific bottlings from the 700cl capacities and fill first about 150-200 of the 20cl bottles - so these are little "rarities" - small bottles, in small quantities, from a very small bottling, from a small family company. Fortunately Fred and Stewart are full size.

They do allow the consumer however to taste a small amount before investing in the larger bottle (for himself or a Club) and they are also causing quite a stir in the gift giving sector of the whisky business."

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Tags: drinks - packaging - scotch - whiskey