This week in MC Recommends: Booker 2023 longlisted sci-fi novel 'In Ascension', Ray-Ban Reverse with convex lenses, Legent Yamazaki Cask Finish Blend by Beam Suntory, Tag Heuer Carrera Skipper, and World on a Plate with Marco Pierre White.
Beam Suntory, which owns both Jim Beam and the House of Suntory, has just dropped its Legent Yamazaki Cask Finish Blend - a limited edition whiskey that is essentially a Kentucky Straight Bourbon. It was aged for eight years before being shipped to the Yamazaki distillery near Kyoto in Japan where it underwent an intricate secondary maturation process. Certain quantities of the whisky were finished in French Oak wine casks and Spanish Oak sherry casks, as well as in ex-Sherry casks previously used to mature the single malt Yamazaki whisky.
The three finished selections were then blended with more eight-year-old Kentucky Straight Bourbon to create a whisky that exhibits “a harmonious balance of oaky warmth, smooth brightness, and a distinctly long finish with hints of spice.”
$199
Launched in the late 1960s, the Tag Heuer Carrera Skipper was a sleeper hit. And it’s not difficult to see why. The watch, a chronograph for sailors, might have never featured in the Heuer catalogue, but it had a vibrant charm and an engaging backstory on its side. The original Skipper was released to commemorate the 1967 triumph of America’s Cup boat ‘Intrepid’ (Heuer was official timing partner for the boat.) Now, as part of the Carrera’s 60th anniversary celebrations, Tag Heuer has launched a modern interpretation of the '60s timepiece.
The Skipper’s design echoes the recently released ‘glassbox’ Carrera, and its colour palette is a nod to the original’s dual counter dial. The dial is a signature blue; the 12-hour counter sports teal, while the 15-minute regatta counter is divided into three segments: teal, Lagoon Green and Regatta Orange. (In the original Skipper, Vivid Orange alerted the crew of the last 5 minutes before the start of a race; and green and teal were the colours of the Intrepid’s rigging and deck.) The watch is powered by an in-house calibre and is water-resistant up to 100 metres.
In Ascension, Scottish author Martin MacInnes’s third book, is narrated by Leigh, a marine biologist who is part of a team that is hunting for the world’s first life forms in a trench in the Atlantic Ocean. Her findings upend everything we thought we knew about the Universe and its origins. In breathtaking prose, MacInnes takes the reader from deep beneath the ocean floor to the edge of our solar system, weaving together a story that is grand in scope and immaculate in execution and, at the same time, deeply humane.
Rs 699, Penguin Random House
A meal cooked by Marco Pierre White is on every food lover’s bucket list. If you are one of them — and in Bangalore — you are in luck. The irascible culinary genius, the youngest chef to be awarded three Michelin stars, is in town for the weekend at the JW Marriott Bengaluru and you’ll find him in the kitchen this weekend.
The influential chef and entrepreneur, who once ran Harveys, one of Britain’s most well-regarded restaurants, and has worked with the likes of Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal, will be cooking some of his signature dishes — Risotto a la Milanese and Lamb Wellington, among others — and will also be hosting a masterclass. The dinner is priced at Rs 16,500 per person; brunch (Rs 12,000), and the masterclass (Rs 10,000).
Nearly every lens is convex unless it is part of Ray-Ban’s recently launched Reverse line, in which case it is concave. The shift from concave to convex, says the 87-year-old brand, has been achieved without sacrificing on optical precision, and the lenses are available on the Aviator, Wayfarer, Caravan, and Boyfriend series.
The lenses are finished with an anti-glare treatment that, Ray-Ban claims, reduces up to 70 percent of the reflections at wavelengths to which the eye is most sensitive. If you’ve been thinking of replacing your chipped Aviators, now would be a good time to go inside out.
Rs 11,000 onwards
