Is caviar all it is made out to be or simply fish eggs? One of the world’s greatest delicacies or misshapen bait? And even more importantly, is champagne and caviar the great culinary combination or just one excess on top of another? Ken Gargett goes for a deep dive to find out and shares his thoughts here.
Ken Gargett thinks that the Champagne Taittinger Comtes Blanc de Blancs 2012 is not just a great blanc de blancs, nor a great champagne: it is a great wine. He rates it an impressive 98/100.
Italians have the gift of making the most common object look great; they can even make a coffee grinder with enough sex appeal to make Tom Jones jealous! For a relatively small country, Italy still has quite a few fountain pen manufacturers. And Martin Green thinks that he has tried products from almost all of them. Find out here what he settled on for his personal writing needs.
In theory, a mechanical watch is very simple: it’s ‘simply’ a spring (the mainspring) unwinding at a constant rate with hands attached to gears that rotate as the spring unwinds. Easy! Ian Skellern highly recommends anyone at all interested in mechanical watches to watch this video as it clearly highlights how a mechanical watch works.
In Ken Gargett’s opinion, the Chivas Ultis XX exhibits a depth and complexity that puts to rest any argument that blended whiskies cannot sit with the finest malts. We have a burnished orange colour. The aromas move through toffee and cinnamon, vanilla and red apples, caramel, cigar box and more. Balanced, mellow, complex and ever so long, this is a gorgeous whisky.
The Antikythera mechanism is an Ancient Greek orrery over 2,000 years old. It is the oldest known example of an analog computer and was used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance. Spencer Connor is an engineer who decided to make a modernized reproduction of the Antikythera mechanism. In this video, he explains just how special the intricate clockwork was for its day, and just how complex it is to track the obits of our moon and the planets around the sun.
Martin Green’s quest for the ultimate fountain pen began unexpectedly, and over the following decades he learned many things, including nothing compares to writing with a gold nib! Join Martin as he embarks upon part one of his personal fountain pen journey, which includes an inherited piece, a demonstrator, over-the-top colors, and cloisonné enamel.
Today many premium watch brands look for that certain “extra element” to get ahead of the competition, and one hot item now is straps. If it is true that shoes make the man, then the strap must make the watch. Jan Lidmaňský shares a selection of interesting partnerships between the worlds of watches and leather.
The Perrier-Jouët Belle Époque Blanc de Blancs is the jewel of the collection – the quintessential expression of Chardonnay in the style of Maison Perrier-Jouët. And Ken Gargett thinks that the 2012 vintage is exceptional!
At the 2016 World Whiskies Awards, Teeling Whiskey was awarded “World’s Best Irish Single Malt” and then in 2019 “World’s Best Single Malt.” Ken Gargett takes a look at (and a few drams of) a couple of the company’s wonderful whiskeys and explains what makes them so exceptional.