HENRY CLAY FRICK THE MAN WHO HELPED BUILD AMERICA MYKONOS PARTY ISLAND OF THE GREEK GODS
Josephine Skriver WORLD’S SEXIEST FOOTBALL FAN
“The more things change, the more they stay the same” JE AN -BAP TISTE A LPH ONS E KAR R
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BUSINESS CLASS Scandinavian/ Australian model Camilla Akerberg (@camilla_akerberg) is drawn to Mykonos’ beauty and laissezfaire lifestyle
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WATCHE S Zenith and Cohiba collaborate on a luxury chronograph for cigar collectors
SUPERCAR Ferrari’s wickedly fast new SF90 Stradale is its first plug-in hybrid supercar
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MOTO The Superleggera V4 is the most powerful and advanced production Ducati yet
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DESTINATION
See why the island of Mykonos has long been a bucket-list spot for the beautiful people
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ARTIST Painter Abraham Mojica uses his talents to rise above the challenges of life
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WINE Would you pay $1 million for a bottle of Petrus aged in the stratosphere?
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INFLUENCER An interview with gorgeous model and philanthropist Rima Fakih Slaiby
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ROAD TRIP Touring Sonoma wine country in the gentleman’s supercar, the McLaren GT
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TITAN A profile of famed industrialist, financier and patron of the arts Henry Clay Frick
COCKTAILS
Here’s why the Negroni has become a secret handshake among men of style
PHOTOGRAPHY
A Q&A with master portrait photographer Vincent Peters about his beautiful new book
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COVER STORY
Danish supermodel Josephine Skriver is the world’s sexiest sports fan
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RACING A look at the priceless racing variants of the legendary Bugatti EB 110 supercar
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STYLE WATCH
A Q&A with alluring Brazilian fashion and beauty star and influencer Camila Coelho
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COLLECTING
The limited edition Colt 1911 pistols made by Cabot Guns are true works of art
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SPIRITS Premium
WhistlePig rye from Vermont takes its stunning new
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ADVENTURE
A look at a new book showcasing the world’s top surfers riding monster waves
ON THE COV ER Josephine Skriver wears her own Raiders shirt. Photographed by Gilles Bensimon Styling by Caroline Christiansson and Rap Sarmiento
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WATCHES
The COHIBA CHRONOGRAPH Zenith’s fine Swiss watchmaking meets the art of Cuban cigars in this cool collab
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The best kind of collaborations are those where passion is shared, and values are perpetuated.” Julien Tornare, CEO of storied Swiss luxury watchmaker Zenith, is speaking about the brand’s collaboration with Cohiba, the iconic Cuban cigar his company’s that is widely considered one of the finest in the world, and which celebrates its 55th anniversary this year. To honor the occasion and the partnership, Zenith is releasing a special timepiece, the Chronomaster Open 55th Anniversary Cohiba chronograph, limited to just 55 examples, which beautifully showcases the manufacturer’s 155-year-old watchmaking expertise. “The pursuit of excellence through precision, authenticity, and tradition are just some of the things that Zenith and Cohiba have in common,” Tornare notes. “But beyond that, it is a partnership that speaks to those who seek out precious moments to appreciate and savor the work of artisans.” Founded in 1865, Zenith became a contemporary horological icon with the creation of the El Primero in 1969, the world’s first high-frequency automatic chronograph watch movement—used most famously by Rolex in its legendary Daytona for several years, in addition to Zenith’s own timepieces. Along the way, Zenith watches and movements have been essential equipment for “extraordinary figures who dreamt big and strived to achieve the impossible,” from Louis Blériot, who made the very first airplane flight across the English Channel in 1909, to Paul Newman, who excelled at both racing and acting, to skydiver and daredevil Felix Baumgartner, who holds multiple world records. Though of much more recent vintage—Cohiba was created in 1966—the brand also represents excellence and innovation in its field. At first, it was only seen outside Cuba as gifts for heads of state and visiting diplomats, but by 1982 Cohibas were available in limited quantities to the open market. The gorgeous stainless steel
Chronomaster Open 55th Anniversary Cohiba chronograph, priced at $10,000, “takes on the striking design codes” of the famous Cuban cigar brand and its iconic saffron yellow, black and white packaging, and the paper bands that wrap each of Cohiba’s entirely hand-rolled and exquisitely blended Habanos—five special editions of which come presented with each of the limited-edition timepieces. Inside the 42 mm case of the watch the mechanics are just as striking as the aesthetics, with the latest edition of the iconic El Primero high-frequency chronograph movement partially visible through an opening on the dial that makes it possible to truly appreciate the “beating heart” of the watch. Its El Primero 4061 Open automatic caliber beats at a frequency of 36,000 VpH and provides a power reserve of at least 50 hours. It also features a silicon escapement wheel and level, which helps improve stability, performance, and accuracy, and minimizes the effects of magnetism and severe temperature fluctuations. A central yellow chronograph seconds hand on the dial with a star-shaped counterweight completes the look, while the watch features an exhibition caseback with the special Cohiba 55 logo printed on the interior side of the sapphire crystal. It comes presented on a classic black alligator strap with a protective rubber lining. The new watch is the latest, and greatest, result of a six-year partnership between Zenith and Habanos, S.A., the Cuban tobacco distribution company that, in addition to Cohiba, counts the likes of Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta and Partagás, among others, in its prestigious portfolio. “Since 2016, together we have been creating beautiful watches, interpreting legendary Zenith models, and taking inspiration from Habanos’ universe, craftsmanship and knowhow,” Tornare says. We expect the many gentlemen who are Swiss wristwatch enthusiasts as well as connoisseurs of fine cigars greatly appreciate it.
“FOR THOSE WHO SEEK OUT PRECIOUS MOMENTS TO SAVOR THE WORK OF ARTISANS” 08
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P H OTO C O U R T E S Y O F Z E N I T H
Te x t b y JAR ED PAU L S T ER N
SUPERCAR
The Plug-In Prancing Horse Putting Ferrari’s first-ever PHEV-powered supercar, the SF90 Stradale, to the test Te x t b y N I CO L A S S T EC H ER P h o t o g ra p h y b y RO B ERT K ER I AN
R
ipping around the narrow roadways that crawl like capillaries across the Hollywood Hills in the Ferrari SF90 Stradale, the thrills are gloriously visceral. Thank the supercar’s futuristic plug-in hybrid (PHEV) powertrain—the first-ever from Ferrari—featuring a re-engineered and enlarged version of the marque’s twinturbo V8 (swollen from 3.9 to 4.0 liters), augmented with a trio of electric motors. With a motor affixed to each front wheel, the SF90’s all-world AWD keeps the supercar seemingly magnetically attached to the pockmarked asphalt of these ancient roads, and the torque vectoring—when one front wheel moves faster than the other to hasten turning radius—makes cornering feel… perverse. But when rare straights appear on Mulholland, and the totality of the quad-motor powertrain’s 986 horses hit, the breath leaves your chest: blistering acceleration (0-60 mph in under 2.5 seconds) slingshots the SF90 Stradale from standstill until the V8 kicks in… and then proceeds to tear the concrete from the firmament, all the way up to a ceiling of 211 mph. There are few, if any, bloodlines more royal in the automotive kingdom than that which begat the SF90. Recall the early ’80s: The first road-legal Ferrari racecar since the early ’60s, the 288 GTO launched the modern Ferrari supercar lineage in 1984. However Porsche’s 959 rival—also developed for Group B racing—surpassed the 288 GTO, forcing Enzo Ferrari to up the stakes with the landmark F40, according to many Ferraristi the greatest vehicle in the Cavallino Rampante’s modern history. The F40 hit showrooms in 1987 loaded with futuristic materials (Kevlar and carbon fiber) and so stripped to the bone—pull-cords replaced door handles—that buyers complained the paint was too
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thin. It was clear Ferrari came ready to rumble. Scions in what some dub the ‘F’ Supercar range followed: the F50, Enzo, and most recently the LaFerrari—the marque’s first hybrid hypercar, with mind-boggling metrics and sheet metal so nextlevel it looked imagined by aliens. So when Maranello decided to unveil a new model in this lineage—SF90 for “90th anniversary of Scuderia Ferrari”, Stradale for “street”—you can be assured of its nobility. The SF90’s looks are there too: sleek like only a mid-engined coupé from Maranello can be. Not quite the extraterrestrial skin of its LaFerrari predecessor, but still radiating enough highborn aura to swivel heads on the jaded promenade of Rodeo Drive. The message from Ferrari is clear: the king has returned.
“THE SF90’S TORQUE VECTORING MAKES CORNERING FEEL DOWNRIGHT PERVERSE”
MOTO
NE PLUS ULTRA Riding the most powerful, fastest, and most technologically advanced production Ducati ever pa Te x t b y D U N C AN Q U I N N
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P h o t o g ra p h y b y M ARCO R I M O N D I
was suffering mild panic attacks, with euphoria and trepidation thrown in. And that was before I’d even swung a leg over. It wasn’t COVID-19. It was two wheels with a power-toweight ratio more than twice that of a Bugatti Chiron. Weighing in at 159 kg, not far north of where I tip the scale after a good twelve-hour lunch at Balthazar, with 224 horsepower on tap from its highly tweaked V4 motor. The beast was the Ducati Super-
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leggera V4. An Exocet missile of a superbike built to annihilate everything in its class, with that Bolognese panache and character unique to Ducati—the most powerful, fastest, and most technologically advanced production bike they’ve ever produced. I’d been chasing this most recent holy grail of superbikes for some time. A global pandemic had quashed plans for a roundtrip test run from Newport Beach to Monterey, CA, as the lone exam-
ple in the U.S. was shipped back to Italy for the duration. And so I waited. And plotted. Eventually I had to get to Europe to renew a passport. Which seemed the perfect opportunity to test the beast in its natural habitat. Borgo Panigale, Bologna, Italy. The home of Società Scientifica Radio Brevetti Ducati, founded here in 1926 to make capacitors and other small electronics. Bombed out of existence in 1944 by the Allies, a new opportunity arose from the ashes of war as individual mobility boomed. Motorized bicycles were becoming all the rage. So the Ducati brothers licensed production of them for SIATA, a company in Turin. Their Cucciolo engine became the foundation for the mighty warhorse that is now Ducati Motor Holdings S.p.A. Many years later, the first superbike I ever piloted was the Ducati 955SP, arguably the first true Ducati 916 track bike. It was a roadgoing homologation special built to qualify for racing. An animal of a bike, burping and roaring and wheelie-ing and wailing as it thumped and spat itself up the tarmac, inhaling every ounce of road in its path. The first of the road-legal race editions of the eye-wateringly beautiful Ducati 916 designed by the legendary Massimo Tamburini. The 955SP was a rollercoaster of an experience requiring skill, faith, and special underwear. Such homologation specials were the basis for the models later piloted by Carl “Foggy” Fogerty, Troy Bayliss, Nicky Hayden, Nick Bostrom, and others to victory in World SBK and MotoGP throughout the 1990s and 2000s. The 916 was the bike that put Ducati firmly on the map as the modern pinnacle of two-wheeled sex appeal. These homologation special bikes were the progenitors of the Superleggera I was to caress in the hills of Bologna. The one I rode simply bore a XX/500 on the plaque on the headstock, indicating it was a pre-production model of a limited-edition of 500 bikes to be made globally for collectors and glitterati alike. At $100,000 per unit, this is the stuff of teenage boys’ poster walls and wet dreams. So gently, and carefully, I took off, babying the beast like riding an unbroken stallion capable of spitting you off permanently into a wheelchair at any minute. The Superleggera V4 is true to its name—light, and nimble, and as fast as a flick of the wrist or touch of the toe. Like piloting a will-
o’-the-wisp. But underneath, this featherweight steed packs the punch of a heavyweight MMA fighter at the peak of his game. Eloquent and expert in every art of the laying down of pain upon the opposition, with no quarter granted. With extreme measures possible at every juncture of the dance. Not for nothing are there computers controlling launch, wheelies, braking, and everything else you could imagine that AI may do better than you, assuming you are not Foggy or Hayden or Bostrom. And frankly, perhaps, even if you are. This thing is a thinly-veiled global thermonuclear weapon, ready to make a bid for global domination. Not until I climbed off, drenched in sweat from hours in the unbridled heat of the midday sun of Emilia Romagna, to switch to the Panigale V4S that was to be my ride to St Tropez, did I truly realize just how fast and nimble the Superleggera was. And what others would see as a superbike of the first order, the Panigale now felt like the huskier cousin with a little too much weight—and not quite enough oomph.
“AN EXOCET MISSILE OF A SUPERBIKE BUILT TO ANNIHILATE EVERYTHING IN ITS CLASS”
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CULTURE
Escape ARTIST Painter Abraham Mojica uses his talents to rise above the challenges of life Te x t b y J O R DAN R I EFE P h o t o g ra p h y b y N ATAL I A S U N
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rtist Abraham Mojica’s career began with an ending, in the form of the sudden tragic death of a family member. It haunted him for months as he sought emotional support in therapy, friends and even the bottom of a glass. Then someone suggested art—to which he responded, “I’m not an artist. I don’t do that,” he tells us from his home in San Antonio, Texas. “But one day I was pretty drunk and I started painting and crying and crying and crying. [And when] I started painting I felt much, much better.” Seven years later, after giving up his contracting business, he now dedicates himself to art full time. He has no gallery representation, but doesn’t need it, selling his oil and acrylic canvases to a list of private clients. “It’s been crazy, man,” he notes. “I have a waiting list of almost six months. Don’t ask me how.” Often painted with two brushes at once, his subject matter ranges from portraits to animal figures— horses, tigers, and bulls, which, for Abraham, mean fertility and intelligence. “Each animal has a meaning. I try to be universal in my paintings.” Also included are enigmatic compositions like Amor est vitae essentia, his version of DaVinci’s The Last Supper in which Jesus wears a medical mask amid a table full of spacesuited disciples. “I try to incorporate all my stuff into the painting, symbols and numerology,” he says of works depicting his own brand of abstraction. Recurring symbols include airplanes and paper boats, like the kind he used to launch as a child after a heavy rain, imagining them sailing off to faraway lands. “The paper boats are about faith and hope. And the airplane—always keep moving forward. Don’t stop, don’t let anyone mess with your hopes or your dreams.” The content of his canvases is a reflection of his years spent growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico, touring in a Mexican circus as a mime and magician. Before that, he travelled solo through Latin America, performing as a mime just for fun. And somewhere in there he attended seminary, thinking he wanted
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“ALWAYS KEEP MOVING FORWARD AND DON’T LET ANYONE MESS WITH YOUR HOPES OR YOUR DREAMS” to become a priest. He would have been the most lethal father in the clergy after 17 years studying and teaching martial arts. Today his arts include music, painting, sculpture and a book of poems. “The only way to be unique is to be honest with yourself,” he declares. “You can fool a lot of people, but you have to be honest with yourself if you want to make it.” When San Antonio starts to feel a bit too familiar, he maintains a studio in New York, and one in Miami for a change of pace. With no formal training, Abraham looks to old masters like Caravaggio for technical pointers. “I try to look out for accidents, I look for the mistakes. I like the accidents that go outside the lines. And it’s 100 percent cathartic, more like therapy,” he says, harkening back to the tragedy that started it all. “I used to live for the wrong reasons—material things, the house, the car and all that. You realize you don’t have time. We spend a lot of time in bullshit, being depressed, being sad.” He points out, “We spend a lot of time being negative, and man, we don’t have time. You can die any moment, so you better be happy. You better enjoy this life, enjoy your situation, no matter what it is. Enjoy it. Be happy.”
PERSONAL CARE
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Te x t b y C H AL L EN G ERC AR E .CO M / P R I M O
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WINE
Petrus in Space Would you pay a cool million for wine that spent 400 days in orbit above Earth?
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hristie’s auction house is now offering the chance to boldly go where no oenophile has gone before—in the form of a bottle of Petrus from outer space. The bottle of Petrus 2000 spent 14 months in orbit as part of a privately-funded research study on food and agriculture. The expected cost to own it, per Christie’s private sales division: a cool $1 million. Which is of course down to its extreme rarity, but also its bespoke presentation trunk, made by Les Ateliers Victor in collaboration with Cyril Kongo in Paris, complete with a cork-
“ONLY A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE HAVE EVER TASTED SPACE-AGED BORDEAUX, AND LIVED TO TELL THE TALE” screw made from a meteorite that fell to Earth—as well as a bottle of Petrus 2000 which wasn’t aged in space, for the sake of comparison. This is one of only 12 bottles that Space Cargo Unlimited sent to the International Space Station (ISS) in November of 2019. It returned unharmed after more than 400 days in space, having traveled around 186 million miles in zero gravity. The bragging rights alone are perhaps worth even more. Only a handful of people have ever tasted space-aged Bordeaux, and lived to tell the tale. Just imagine adding that to your roster of lunch stories for your cronies: there is almost no doubt it can’t be beat. Of course even the bottle which hasn’t been in orbit is pretty exceptional, hailing from the same little 11.3-hectare plot of revered blue-clay soil on the mythical Petrus estate. Widely considered the best wine in the Pomerol appellation since at least 1886, you can find it on the carte des vins in most properly fancy restaurants—and you may well see it priced at many thousands of dollars a bottle, regardless of age or provenance, as it consistently ranks amongst the most expensive wine in the world.
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The distinctive Petrus label designed in 1937 by Monsieur Roganeau, the Director of the Fine Arts School in Bordeaux, stands out as a colorful reminder that characters with passion often beget fantastic wine. In the case of Petrus, Madame Marie-Louise Loubat, who single-mindedly consolidated the ownership of this small plot of rural Bordeaux farmland in the early 20th century into what is Petrus today. She did this while equipped with only her hat, gloves, and charm, plus an unshakeable belief that this plot would one day make some of the finest wines in the world. She was right. But little did she know it would also make some of the finest wines out of this world too. Some things are knowable, and learnable. Multiplication tables for instance. Or chess move permutations. But the real magic lies in the enigmatic. The things that no matter how hard you work, or how much you apply yourself, you can never quite conquer. Wine is one of these things. And an experience like no other. Unique for each of us, it depends upon how blessed or burdened we are by our quota of taste buds, nerve endings, and processing power for all things olfactory and sensory. It also depends, like much of the rest of life, on acquiring a library of experiences against which to recognize and catalogue aromas, tastes, mouth feels, and all sorts of other information you become privy to with the first sniff, and the first sip of any wine. This is why you will see seasoned wine connoisseurs swirl a glass presented to them before they inhale deeply of its aromas first, before taking a small sip to swish back and forth over their taste buds, sometimes noisily, with the addition of sips of air to “open up” the wine, allowing all the flavors and aromas to be experienced before swallowing. We like to think those paying for the pleasure of exceptional wines worthy of this process are not merely substituting for Steel Reserve, Thunderbird, or Mike’s Hard Lemonade. So in a world where any Tom, Dick or Harry with loot can acquire the keys to the tasting castle of almost any wine, no matter how revered, rarity has a particular value. After all, at a certain point, much that is luxury merely becomes a contest of social standing. And if you are sipping space wine you will probably win. The closest analogy to space Petrus in recent memory is perhaps the infamous “Jefferson” wines. Also sold at Christie’s and purported to be from the collection of Thomas Jefferson, acquired while he was the American Ambassador to France in the late 19th Century. No one had ever tasted such old wines from such revered houses; and so the prices achieved were as spectacular as the provenance attributed to them. They remain embroiled in a whirlwind of speculation, as litigation ensued as to their true origins, but for a time this “billionaire’s vinegar” was the most revered wine to own on planet Earth. Now supplanted, it seems, by the Petrus from Space. If you’re the lucky buyer, we urge you to uncork it, and be generous. As this has all the makings of a legendary luncheon to which I may even accept an invite.
L P H OTO S M I D D L E L E F T A N D TO P R I G H T C O U R T E S Y O F C H R I S T I E ’ S B OT TO M R I G H T P H OTO C O U R T E S Y O F P E T R U S
Te x t b y D U N C AN Q U I N N
AN AMERICAN CLASSIC SINCE 1934.
INFLUENCER
Breaking the
BOUNDARIES
A conversation with trailblazing model and philanthropist Rima Fakih Slaiby
N
ot even her experience as a war refugee and hottie from the hood prepared Rima Fakih for the brutal backstage beauty pageant skirmishes she faced on her way to becoming the first ArabAmerican Miss America in 2010. This Beirut-born stunner’s strength is rooted in personal struggle, giving her powers far beyond those she’s chosen to reveal in the photo spread. Rima Fakih was born in Srifa, a small city in Southern Lebanon. She and her four siblings were raised in a Shia Muslim household, though she attended Catholic school near Beirut. Fleeing the Lebanese Civil War in 1993, they landed in the Jackson Heights section of Queens and opened a Mediterranean-style res-
taurant in Manhattan. But business declined following September 11, 2001, and soon they moved to Dearborn, Michigan, one of the nation’s largest Arab-American communities. As Miss USA, Fakih became involved with WWE events, making appearances and even serving as ring announcer before becoming a contestant on Tough Enough, competing for a contract as a professional wrestler. She lasted until week four, but followed with a 2012 appearance at WrestleMania Axxess. Taking a break from the ring, she landed on the dating show, The Choice, as one of four celebrity bachelorettes, including Carmen Electra. With her 2016 marriage to music executive and manager Wassim Slaiby, (who handles red-hot acts like The Weeknd and French Montana), Rima has taken time out of the spotlight to focus on her family and charity work. As a board member of Best Buddies International, she also helps the intellectually or developmentally disabled. Not just an Ambassador for The Children’s Cancer Center in Lebanon, she is also an Ambassador for School on Wheels, providing tutoring and mentoring for homeless children. Earlier this year, she was appointed to the USA’s Board of Directors of the United Nations World Food Program. Here, Rima teaches us how to roll with the punches, whether you’re juggling backstage bitchiness at a beauty pageant, or the women warriors of Wrestlemania. What surprised you most about beauty competitions? I was surprised to see how competitive the girls can get in these pageants. I mean, some can play very dirty to get that crown. There was an incident where one of the girls replaced butt glue [to make bathing suits stick] with super glue to make sure one girl drops out of the competition. I mean, it can get pretty ugly. What kept me wanting to do it all the way until I got to the top was my passion for making a change in this world. I realized I can do a lot with the [Miss America] crown. It combined my love of philanthropy, public speaking, and modeling. You were only 19 years old at your first beauty contest, called Miss Wayne. My mother always encouraged me to enter beauty pageants and modeling and finally at 18 I said, ‘Okay mom, I am ready.’ I entered Miss Wayne alongside many great young women who have been doing pageants since childhood. I was so proud that I got to make it so far, being that I had zero experience. I was nervous but I always used nervousness as a way to make sure I am extra ready, and
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M A K E U P E L I Z A B E T H S E R O P I A N H A I R BY A S S A A D S T Y L I S T A M A N DA M A S S I M E D I A C O N S U LTA N T E L I A N E A L H A J J
Te x t b y J O R DAN R I EFE P h o t o g ra p h e d b y M O H AM AD S EI F
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What’s the hardest part of beauty pageants that people don’t know about? The hardest part is maintaining confidence. Many girls go into the competition thinking they are the only pretty girl with a degree, and possibly a philanthropy background, only to discover that they are not very special because these competitions truly have some amazing women, women who have PhDs, or are lawyers or runway models. What will make you or break you is your confidence in yourself. You have to truly be your own number one fan, and not let any family or social media comment break you or make you think otherwise. After winning Miss USA, you did what most beauty queens do and headed straight to WWE’s Tough Enough. I truly enjoyed competing in Tough Enough and being part of the WWE family. Training was very tough. My body was sore every day and it was so hard to get up in the morning after a hard day of training. I enjoyed it all…. I love pushing myself. I grew up a wrestling fan and for me it was an honor to be in that ring. The hardest punch I ever took was from an inexperienced wrestler who ended up cracking two of my ribs. The hardest punch I’ve ever thrown was against Booker T, who kept telling me that I was the underdog and I had to prove myself, so I did. Tell us about Fox’s The Choice. What’s it like behind the scenes on shows like that? Competing on The Choice was fun! I was grateful to share the stage with Carmen Electra and many amazing women. Honestly it was nice to be with women who were so down to earth and simple; yet the world doesn’t feel the same about hot women. People tend to stress even approaching just to say hi, or even say, ‘You are beautiful,’ because they think [these women] get that attention enough. What were your formative years like? I was born in Lebanon and escaped the war at the age of seven, from Lebanon to New York City. I grew up in Queens and graduated from St. John’s Prep High School. My family then relocated to Detroit where I attended and graduated from the University of Michigan with a double degree in Economics and Business Management. My family managed a Mediterranean restaurant in Manhattan, New York City, called Maryum’s Kitchen. I have four siblings, Rabih, Rana, Rouba, and Rami.
“I WANT TO FIGHT TO MAKE THIS WORLD A BETTER PLACE FOR THE SAKE OF MY CHILDREN”
How important is it to be recognized as an Arab-American in what are admittedly difficult times for some ethnicities in the world today? I am very proud of who I am and where I came from. I encourage everyone to feel the same. It is a great
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thing to stand out versus fit in. I was honored and truly grateful to be a girl who escaped the war in the Middle East, survived living in the hood, grew up poor and made it this far. I wanted to show any girl that anything is possible. How has becoming a mother changed the way you view the world?
“WHAT WILL MAKE YOU OR BREAK YOU IS THE CONFIDENCE YOU HAVE IN YOURSELF”
I can honestly say it has made my heart so soft when it comes to children. I can’t just sit and hear bad news and do nothing. I want to help all children all over the world, and for the sake of my children I want to fight to make this world a better place for them. Tell us about School on Wheels and some of your other philanthropic work. I have been a volunteer with School On Wheels since March of 2019. Since then the crisis of homelessness has almost doubled and only gotten worse. Today I have been named their ambassador, and one of the main goals for me is to remodel one of their largest centers to ensure our homeless kids have somewhere to go to not only learn, but to eat and have support in anything they might need to survive. What is the Best Buddies Organization, and what do you do with them? I joined Best Buddies in May of 2010, and I just fell in with the organization and all the amazing things they do for those with special needs. Currently I sit on the board of Best Buddies, and wherever I am needed, or any opportunity that comes my way for the buddies, I am always first to jump on it and make it happen. I have amazing buddies in the organization and I am very grateful for their friendship. And I want to thank Mark Wylie with Best Buddies for the really hard work he does for the organization, and for always reaching out to me when he feels I am needed the most. What is the most important aspect you look for in a guy? I look for someone confident and comfortable in their own skin. I love when a man can just be exactly who he is, not caring what anyone thinks of him, or in need of owning the hottest car just to feel like they matter. A turn-on is someone who is a man of his word that can say something and actually do it. Turn-offs include someone selfish, disrespectful, and ignorant. How often do you and Wassim hang out with some of his clients like the Weeknd and French Montana? What are your fondest memories with them? My husband’s clients are not clients, they are just like family. We spend holidays together, they are always there for our children. My fondest memories with them are how they always show up to our children’s birthday parties with the best gifts and the greatest energy to run around and play like kids. Truly amazing humans!
S T Y L I S T : A M A N D A M A S S I H A I R S T Y L I S T : E D D I E C O O K M A K E U P A R T I S T : YA N I V K A T Z AV
have researched and studied everything I would need to do my very best. I like to give everything I do in life a hundred percent!
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ROAD TRIP
SIDEWAYS IN SONOMA An epic excursion through California’s other wine country in the gentlemanly McLaren GT
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P H OTO C O U R T E S Y O F M C L A R E N B OT TO M L E F T C O U R T E S Y O F P E AY V I N E YA R D
wave of calm descended as my first round of hyperfresh briny oysters slid down. I was sitting at the Saltwater Oyster Bar in Inverness, a white clapboard ode to local ingredients with gastro-nautical chops, on a stretch of sleepy road in Marin County, California. Across the mists of Tomales Bay, past the siren curves of the McLaren GT calling me from the carpark, were my next pit stops, the more famous Hog Island Oysters and The Marshall Store. My Mission Impossible for the weekend: escape from New York to indulge in an oenological expedition to Sonoma County, seeking out the finest wines known to humanity. All while piloting a grand tourer of the first order on the incomparable roads of the raggedy Marin coast, laying down a roadmap for eats, drives and drinks à la Sideways. It was to be a blast from San Francisco up through Mill Valley, Stimpson Beach, Inverness, Marshall, and Nick’s Cove to Bodega Bay. Following Route 1 as it twisted and turned along misty bays and ocean whitecaps, past multimilliondollar oceanfront shacks on stilts. I’ve often driven the Pacific Coast Highway from L.A. to San Francisco. It can be glorious from Hearst Castle to Pebble Beach, but is often intractable unless attacked at the crack of dawn, or on
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A L L P H OTO S C O U R T E S Y O F M C L A R E N
a superbike capable of overtaking a snake of RVs with one flick of the wrist. The route up from San Francisco into Marin is just as beautiful, less populated, and more to the point, leads into wine country I had long been itching to attack. Napa’s rendition of old world Bordeaux and its blends of cabernet sauvignon and merlot are more accessible and perhaps more broadly known and understood, appearing on every wine list in the country. But the wilds of Sonoma are home to the grapes that make true gems. Thus with the ‘Rona mist lifting, the Roaring Twenties recommencing, and people turning out in droves to book tastings in California wine country, it was time to go see what this stuff was all about. With the keys to a McLaren GT, the British supercar marque’s most gentlemanly—but no less Herculean—and elegant vehicle, this was set to be a high-octane tour to see if Sonoma could hold a candle to my favorite old-world wine region, Burgundy, the gold standard against which all others are measured. So having had my fill of oysters, and beautiful bays along an otherworldly coast, when I reached Bodega Bay I turned inland towards the Russian River Valley, headed for Healdsburg, center of the action for the Sonoma wine industry. After a delightful visit to
Bricoleur and Flowers wineries, warming up you might say, I went north to Cloverdale, where I discovered something truly singular at Peay Vineyards. Deep in a custom-built concrete bunker under a state-of-the-art stainless-steel winemaking facility, I was transported to wine nirvana, experiencing the story of the juice in my hand and its transformation from grapes farmed in the fog of nearby Annapolis, to liquid velvet in a glass. I had discovered the Sonoma equivalent of Gus Fring’s lab. Complete with its own version of Walter White’s sidekick Jesse Pinkman. And hot damn was the product in the glass the real deal. Nothing else would come close on this trip. It wasn’t exactly white Burgundy made with chardonnay grapes in France, or red Burgundy made with pinot noir for that matter. But it had all the aromas, depth, nuance and complexity that a Burgundian annex in the valleys of California should have. No fruit-bombs falling flat after the onslaught of alcohol that I was expecting, just sensory delights. The Peay family bought a farm on a fog-enshrouded hilltop above a river gorge four miles from the Pacific Ocean in the 1990s, and turned it into what is today. And I’d suggest you go take a peek, or ask for a spot on their list for a taste, before word fully gets out of what these guys are up to. Obviously, I didn’t want to leave. And regretted the early hour, and the spittoon. But the beauteous, sleek missile of the McLaren GT was sitting outside, at the ready to catapult me back to SFO at a rate of knots more than sufficient to put other GTs to shame.
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“THE GORGEOUS ROUTE LEADS TO WINE COUNTRY I’D BEEN ITCHING TO ATTACK” Equipped with a 4.0L twin-turbocharged V8 pumping out 612 hp and 465-lb.-ft. of torque, fed through a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, it hits the 60 mph sprint in a shade over three seconds, and storms on to 203 mph (if you let it). That isn’t where the magic lies, however; as so many things are fast as balls in a straight line these days, the drag-strip shtick can be boring. What is more fascinating is how all this performance translates on the road. Particularly twisty roads of the caliber I was on along the breathtaking coastal vistas of Marin. The short answer is the GT is fantastic. Crisp. Tight. Responsive. Communicative. With enough slack in the lifesavers that you can have fun and convince yourself you can really drive. So much so that on roads you have never driven before, chasing a local friend in
his Porsche 911 Turbo S, you may find yourself chuckling, as no matter how hard he tries, and no matter how hard your foot stomps from right to left peddle with fierce, biting, directional changes in between, he knows he is fighting a losing battle; to the point where he finally pulls over and waves you through. As I ragged across the country lanes of Marin, I pondered how to get more Peay in my life. The wines and the GT were both sublime. And everywhere I went the car raised wide grins, solicited requests for photos, received insider intelligence on who and where the local cops were—and in one case even fulfilled a karmic obligation by putting a smile on the face of a local 94-year-old naval aviator, whose family told me McLarens are his favorite cars of all time. Of course I had to let him sit behind the wheel. But not for long.
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TITAN
HENRY CLAY FRICK TITAN OF INDUSTRY, FINANCE, PHILANTHROPY & THE ARTS
The billionaire’s impact on the steel industry is matched only by the museums that bear his name
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s the story goes, sitting in his mansion on New York’s Upper East Side, industrialist and entrepreneur Henry Clay Frick scanned the letter which had just been hand-delivered. Sent by his former business partner and friend, and fellow titan of the industrial age, Andrew Carnegie, the correspondence sent to the 69-year-old Frick was one of hindsight and regret with the specific goal of reconciliation. It spoke of the chance to make amends with one another before they reached the end of their lives. It was genuine, sincere and a legitimate attempt to end the enmities that had existed between these two giants for years. And Frick wasn’t interested. He was at the twilight of his life, and he could look back with enormous satisfaction on his career and empire. While Carnegie had been an important ally, Frick had proved the more courageous of the two, and, some could argue, the better man of business. Despite his relatively humble origins, and dropping out of college, he became a millionaire by the age of 30. According to Forbes, in 1918, the year before he died, his net worth was equivalent to about $4 billion (in today’s dollars). His impact on the birth and growth of the modern American industrial complex cannot be understated. Having started his career as a salesman, he went on to become chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, and played a major role in the formation of the giant U.S. Steel manufacturing concern. He invested in railroads, utilities, mining, banking, and manufacturing, and owned property in and around Pittsburgh, as well as in Massachusetts and Indiana. His neoclassical mansion in New York City—one of a few he built over his lifetime—became The Frick Collection museum, home to one of the finest collections of European paintings, and Old Masters in particular, in the United States. Frick was born in 1849 to a Mennonite family living in rural southwestern Pennsylvania. He set to work at a young age, including time spent as a
sales clerk, and overseeing the bookkeeping for his family’s distilling business, which produced Old Overholt, said to be America’s oldest continually-maintained brand of whiskey. While his future wasn’t to be spent in alcohol production, his dazzling skills in accounting and efficient management were the cornerstones on which his fortune would one day be built. Frick happened to be living in the center of what was becoming a major economic powerhouse, the seams of high-quality bituminous coal that existed around the nearby town of Connellsville. Unlike other forms of coal, the kind in Frick’s region was especially well-suited to coking, the creation of a carbon derivative, coke, that is integral in the creation of steel. In 1871, Frick and a cousin decided to seize their opportunity, and with some family money purchased low-priced coking fields and built fifty coke ovens. When the economic troubles of 1873 arrived, the duo used the chaos to grow their holdings even further, and at a discount. By the end of the company’s first decade, Frick’s company operated over a thousand coke ovens and produced roughly eighty percent of the coke being used in Pittsburgh to create the steel and iron that was transforming the nation from coast to coast. After his marriage to Adelaide Howard Childs in 1881, the young couple traveled to New York City for their honeymoon. It was in New York that Frick got to know fellow industrialist Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-born steel titan. The partnership between the two men wouldn’t just make them enormously wealthy, it would transform America itself into a behemoth of manufacturing, transportation and economic growth. It was a partnership of obvious synergy, as the mills churning out Carnegie’s expanding steel empire were in constant need of the coke supplies that Frick had almost monopolized in western Pennsylvania. Formalized in May 1882 with the joint partnership of H.C. Frick Coke Company and Carnegie Brothers and Co., Ltd., it became an integrated steel business that would make both men amongst
“HE WAS EQUAL PARTS BRILLIANT AND BRASH, AND A CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF ALMOST UNMATCHED ABILITIES”
This page: Henry Clay and Helen Frick, circa 1910, painted by American Impressionist Edmund Charles Tarbell. Opposite: An iconic portrait of Frick taken by photographer Oscar White 26
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the target of an attempted assassination by an anarchist during the Homestead strike. Frick survived the point blank shot and stabbing, and in an example of his iron will, courage and indomitable nature, cabled both his mother and Carnegie with the same message: “Was shot twice, but not dangerously.” Needless to say, the relationship between the two men had reached an irreparable phase. Rumors abounded that Carnegie was blaming Frick for everything from the Homestead mill strike, which turned violent, to simple business operations decisions. It reached such a fevered state that Frick eventually had to interrupt a company board meeting to exclaim, “Why was he not manly enough to say to my face what he said behind my back? I have stood a great many insults from Mr. Carnegie in the past, but I will submit to no further insults in the future.” Eventually conflicts between the two would lead to Carnegie demanding Frick’s resignation from the board of Carnegie Steel in 1899. He also demanded that Frick relinquish his shares at book value. Frick took Carnegie to court over the value of his interests. An agreement was finally reached that did make Frick’s shares, and therefore Frick, worth an even greater fortune, but it was the end. The two great men, Frick and Carnegie, never met again. Frick continued successfully, forming the St. Clair Steel Company, a division of which operated the largest coke works in the nation. Then in 1901 Andrew Carnegie sold his remaining interest in Carnegie Steel to financier J.P. Morgan. Morgan in turn created U.S. Steel, and in an ironic twist that certainly must have made Frick smile and Carnegie displeased, Frick was asked to serve as a director and become a member of the powerful finance committee. US Steel was larger than any company Carnegie had ever run -- it was the largest corporation in the word, in fact. The rivalry was never truly settled. Frick made sure that his mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan would make Carnegie’s own mansion nearby seem pedestrian at best, and continued assem-
This page, top: An editorial cartoon from a 1901 edition of Punch depicting Frick’s longtime friend and business partner Andrew Carnegie. Bottom: Frick sitting in a rickshaw in Palm Beach in 1916. 28
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T H I S PA G E B OT TO M P H OTO BY B E T T M A N N TO P PA G E P H OTO BY S TO C K M O N TA G E / G E T T Y I M A G E S O P P O S I T E PA G E TO P L E F T P H OTO BY L I B R A R Y O F C O N G R E S S / C O R B I S / V C G V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S B OT TO M P H OTO BY R O B E R T A L E X A N D E R / G E T T Y I M A G E S P H OTO TO P R I G H T BY N I C H O L A S H U N T/ G E T T Y I M A G E S
the richest in the world. Over the next few years, Frick impressed his partner immensely with his business mind, acuity for efficient production, and his ability to limit costs and thus increase profits. By 1887, Carnegie decided to bring Frick directly into the steel business by selling him a two percent interest in Carnegie Brothers and Co. Frick had proven himself absolutely invaluable to his partner. As Carnegie consolidated his companies, Frick would become instrumental in the successful reorganization. Carnegie would go on to discover that there was only one man for the job of overseeing such a vast empire. Despite some tensions between the two over the years, and with Carnegie eager to step back from some of the more tedious aspects of overseeing a steel empire, he sent Frick a request. Carnegie trusted Frick’s business acumen implicitly, and requested that Frick become chairman of Carnegie Brothers & Co. in 1889. “Take supreme care of that head of yours. It is wanted,” Carnegie wrote to him. “Again, expressing my thankfulness that I have found THE MAN.” Carnegie was a ruthless businessman, but he was also keenly aware of how his public image would affect not only himself but his empire. He knew that he and his wealthy peers were being referred to disparagingly as robber barons by the public at large, and were often blamed for society’s woes, economic or otherwise. Perhaps nowhere could the tension between those getting enormously wealthy and the general pubic be more vividly on display than at the mills of Carnegie Steel. While the pro-union movement grew and gained strength in the latter stages of the 19th century, Andrew Carnegie made a point of publicly supporting labor, unions and the improvement of pay and conditions for workers. He wrote profusely in favor of the workers’ goals, and put on an impressive façade of sympathy for the enormous numbers of workers who toiled for his company. But he also knew that increased wages and costs meant decreased profits, and therefore, despite his public proclamations, his workers were strongly discouraged from unionizing. Fortunately for Carnegie, he seemingly had the perfect man for the job once again, Henry Clay Frick. Already well-known for his fiery temperament, strong anti-union beliefs and a willingness to stand up for both his beliefs and his profits, Frick was entrusted to oversee the labor issues occurring at the company’s Homestead mill. Carnegie essentially used Frick to do his dirty work where suppressing the unions was concerned. Frick essentially became the scapegoat for actions that Carnegie was loath to declare his support for. And Frick’s public image suffered to the extent that he became
“IN AN EXAMPLE OF HIS COURAGE, HE CABLED CARNEGIE, ‘WAS SHOT TWICE, BUT NOT DANGEROUSLY’ ”
bling his unparalleled art collection, featuring works by the likes of Rembrandt and Vermeer. He also bought a parcel of land in Pittsburgh next to Carnegie’s office building, and designed a skyscraper on it specifically so it would cast a perpetual shadow on his rival’s building. That two men who had worked together, in one of America’s most effective and profitable business partnerships, were now so far divided by their complicated history gives us insight into Frick’s delicate balance between administrative genius and ruthless entrepreneurial drive. He was equal parts brilliant and brash, and a chief executive of almost unmatched abilities. Establishing his philanthropic legacy, he gave generously to the cities of New York and Pittsburgh, where he had lived, and upon his death, approximately $117 million of his fortune—about $1.8 billion in today’s dollars—was designated for philanthropic and charitable causes. He bequeathed 151 acres of undeveloped land to the City of Pittsburgh for use as a public park, together with a $2 million trust fund to assist with the maintenance of the park, which was opened as Frick Park in 1927, and over the years land has been added, and the park is now Pittsburgh’s largest historic regional park, covering
644 acres. More than 60 years later, following the death of his daughter Helen Clay Frick, Clayton, his gentlemanly estate in Pittsburgh, opened to the public as as part of the Frick Art & Historical Center (known today as The Frick Pittsburgh). So while Frick, holding that letter from Carnegie in his hands, to which he responded, essentially, “See you in hell”—might have been right in proclaiming their next meeting would take place in the afterlife, perhaps he got the location wrong. To be sure, Frick has left an incontrovertible impact not only on the modern industrial nation he helped build, but on the cities and communities in which he lived. So after all of the bitterness, Carnegie ended up being right after all. In the world of business titans, Henry Clay Frick was THE MAN.
This page, top: Alexander Berkman speaks in Union Square at a gathering of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1908, two years after his release from prison for the attempted assassination of Frick. Middle: A scene from The Frick’s Young Fellows Ball in 2017 at The Frick Collection in New York City. Bottom: Exterior detail of The Frick Collection in New York MAXIM.COM
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COCKTAILS
The New
NEGRONI
Style
Why the world’s most gentlemanly cocktail has become more popular than ever
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hen the Negroni trend first started to peak several years ago, it was still something of a “secret handshake” as Bon Appétit put it, a sign to bartenders, and fellow drinkers, that you were a man of substance, well traveled and wise to the ways of the world. Now we have an annual Negroni Week and whole bars dedicated to amaro, the bitter liqueur that makes up the classic Negroni’s key component—the other two being gin and vermouth—and yet the Negroni has somehow only increased in insider status, blossoming into a symbol of personal style for well-dressed gentlemen everywhere. How has the Negroni kept from being bastardized? For one thing, with its potent combination of spirits, devoid of mixer or any other non-alcoholic nonsense, it is unlikely to appeal to the casual drinker. Not nearly as accessible as its crowd-pleasing cousin, the Aperol Spritz, the Negroni is content to be appreciated by a more discerning class of drinker. And during the pandemic, it seems to have acquired an even more dedicated following, following the New
York Times having declared it the “perfect cocktail for 2019.” As The Rake wrote recently, “When 2020 happened and the lockdowns began, the Negroni somehow gained a different and, to us, even more important significance. It became a symbol of resistance against the encroaching darkness. It was almost as if, amid the miasma of confusion, its bright red color stood out like a steadfast beacon of solidarity. More and more around the world, it seemed like Negronis were raised almost like defiant middle fingers at the COVID pandemic, as if to say it would not crush our spirits.” Two new books on the iconic cocktail, which is said to have been invented in Florence in 1919 (though accounts vary), when an aristocratic souse named Count Negroni asked his favorite bartender to make him a stronger version of an Americano by substituting gin for soda water—are adding fuel to the fire, so to speak. What all can agree on is the proportions of the classic Negroni—equal parts gin, bitter liqueur, and red vermouth. Campari is the traditional bitter used for the drink, though these days it is often substituted.
Above, left: Matt Hranek, author of The Negroni: A Love Affair with a Classic Cocktail, enjoying his favorite libation. Right: Classic Negroni components, arranged with Italian grace and style, from Hranek’s book 30
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T H I S PA A G E P H OTO S BY M AT T H R A N E K O P P O S I T E PA G E P H OTO BY A N T H O N Y D I B I A S E / V I A V E C C H I A
Te x t b y JAR ED PAU L S T ER N
Above: The incredible array of amari on offer at Via Vecchia, the beautifully-designed bar in a historic building on a cobblestone street in Portland, Maine MAXIM.COM
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and the Negroni was a kind of bridge.” The sartorial connection is an increasingly important one; French luxury watchmaker Bell & Ross recently created a limited edition chronograph with a dial the color of a Negroni for The Rake, while Hranek has collaborated on a Negroni-hued tweed as well as a shirting stripe. Among those quoted by Hranek is Linden Pride, owner of New York City’s Dante, one of the best bars in the world and the epicenter of the new Negroni culture. “The Negroni is such a simple cocktail,” he points out. “And in this sense, it’s almost impossible to make a bad one. The bitter component of the cocktail is usually what pulls you in—especially as this is a taste that is generally acquired, over time, as our palate matures. Once you’re hooked on that bitter profile, though, the real fun begins. I’ve always felt that the true wonder of the Negroni is that sense of discovery you embark upon once you start to unpeel the layers. Swap out the base spirits with mezcal, bourbon, or variants of gin, or exchange sweet or dry vermouth with an ever-increasing variety of Italian bitters; the complexity and variations on the drink are seemingly endless.” Hranek is more of a traditionalist when it comes to bitters versus other spirits, though he enjoys a range of them instead of always reaching for the Campari, including Cappelletti and Meletti 1870. In addition, he notes that Negronis always taste better in Italy, writing, “As with real estate, sometimes the most important factor in determining the enjoyment of a Negroni comes down to one word: location. For me, nowhere is that more evident than at the bar of the Hotel Il Pellicano in Porto Ercole, on the Tuscan coast. There is something about the caught-in-time elegance, the view of the sea from the clifftop, and the expertise and charm of the head barman, Federico Morosi, that makes it a singular experience. Federico considers the Negroni a symbol of Italy, especially of Florence—like a bespoke suit in its eleganza and singular character. He enjoys the drink just as much with a square of dark chocolate and a superb Tuscan cigar after dinner, as with salty snacks during the aperitivo hour.” In their beautiful new book from Ryland Peters & Small, as the title suggests—Negroni: More Than 30 Classic and Modern Recipes for Italy’s Iconic Cocktail, David T. Smith and Kelli Rivers note there are myriad ways to make one, one of their favorites being the White Negroni. “The Negroni in all its incarnations has inspired social clubs, clothing, books, badges and pins,” they note. “The cocktail even has a whole week dedicated to it in June!” And such are the strong feelings of the drink’s legions of supporters, they write, “that some even have tattoos with slogans such as ‘Equal Parts or Die!’ to show their dedication.”
Top left: The cover of Hranek’s book, published by Artisan. Top Right: Photographed by Alex Luck for Negroni: More Than 30 Classic and Modern Recipes for Italy’s Iconic Cocktail, from Ryland Peters & Small. Bottom left: Photographed by Matteo Zed for The Big Book of Amaro, from The Countryman Press. 32
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At least some of the credit for the Negroni’s resurgence goes to Anthony Bourdain. As quoted in Matt Hranek’s new book The Negroni: A Love Affair with a Classic Cocktail, published by Artisan, Bourdain once declared it the perfect drink because of its inherent contradictions, noting, “It is three liquors that I don’t particularly like. I don’t like Campari, and I don’t like sweet vermouth, and I don’t particularly love gin. But you put them together with that little bit of orange rind in a perfect setting…. It sets you up for dinner, in a way it makes you hungry, sands the edges off the afternoon. After dinner, it’s settling. It is both aperitif and digestive. It’s a rare drink that can do that.” A similar sentiment was earlier expressed by Orson Welles, who wrote from Rome in 1947 after imbibing several, that, “The bitters are excellent for your liver, the gin is bad for you. They balance each other” Hranek, quoted in The Rake, traces the Negroni’s resurgence (it’s a century old, after all), a bit further back. “I look back at the Negroni and see it staging a return following the financial crisis of 2008,” he muses. “I think that people were searching [for] more authentic timeless things to connect with, and the Negroni, because of its long, enduring history and because it is a genuinely great-tasting and uplifting cocktail, became the drink of choice for many of us.” Angel Ramos, founder of the tailoring brand 18th Amendment, agreed, telling the magazine, “The Negroni became a statement that you loved things that were authentic. That you wanted to have cocktails in places where you could have conversations, that you loved dressing in a tailored jacket… It was about an attitude of life that took classic values and connected them to the modern world,
“THE NEGRONI BECAME A SYMBOL OF RESISTANCE AGAINST THE ENCROACHING DARKNESS”
Top left, and bottom right: The barrel-aged Julian Negroni made with Ron Barceló Imperial rum. Top right: The beautiful Bar Pisellino in NYC’s West Village, well known for its aperitivi; Bottom left: The Negroni Frappé from Dante in New York City, photographed by Matt Hranek MAXIM.COM
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THE HEDONIST’S GUIDE TO
MYKONOS
Seize the Endless Aegean Summer in style on Greece’s posh island escape for the jet set
This page: Mykonos is known for its sinuous, whitewashed architecture and striking Greek Orthodox churches. Opposite: Anise, a ten-bedroom seafront villa listed for sale with Greece Sotheby’s International Realty, features a vanishing-edge, sea water pool “where you can swim into infinity” 34
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T H I S PAG E P H OTO BY M Ü L L E R - S TAU F F E N B E R G/ U L L S T E I N B I L D V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S O P P O S I T E PAG E P H OTO CO U RT E SY O F G R E E C E S OT H E BY ’ S I N T E R N AT I O N A L R E A LT Y
Te x t b y S I S I P EN ALOZ A
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Modern Mykonos, a sublime new ultra-luxury private villa on the exclusive Aleomandra peninsula, is part of the Icon Private Collection 36
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O P P O S I T E PA G E P H OTO C O U R T E S Y O F C A M I L L A A K E R B E R G ( @ C A M I L L A _ A K E R B E R G )
Giorgio, fetishistically reimagined by the Soho House team, just a few minutes from the Scorpios beach club that the group recently acquired. The design of Soho Roc House takes cues from the carefree sensuality of Mykonos; think polished floors, warm, inviting tones accented with timber fittings, and woven wall tapestries. Like most Soho House properties, the crowning glory is the Pool Bar, complete with lush greenery, and a seamless plaster floor that extends right through the pool. Sun loungers abound, perfect for canoodling couples. Here, barefoot luxury means never having to carry a wallet. At Scorpios, you’ll find more buff Insta-models, trippy beats, and barely-there bikinis than you can shake a squid skewer at. It’s this seize-the-day vibe that draws real estate impresario Ryan Serhant to Mykonos every season. To say Serhant has gone Greek is a gross understatement. The Million Dollar Listing New York star married Grecian beauty Emilia Bechrakis in an over-the-top episode of a series shot on location in Greece in 2016. With his feelgood bravado and telegenic confidence, Serhant has emerged as one of the most-watched luxury lifestyle property virtuosos. “You can’t be sad in Mykonos—it’s impossible,” he tells us. “You just have to smile when on the island.” Serhant’s sweet spot? “We really like Mykonos Blu, and we stay there each summer. It’s a great location, awesome staff, good beach, and food. Other than that, I leave all Greek choices up to my Greek wife!” The Blu Villas on Psarou Beach are obscenely spacious, giving their budding family room to entertain. Imagine magazine centerfold-worthy villas flanked by cool shaded stone terraces and private swimming pools and you’re halfway there. Whitewashed walls drip with hot pink bougainvillea, cradled by cliffs overlooking the endless sapphire sea. Optimism around Greece’s vaccination campaign allows for nightlife to mount a comeback. Perhaps the most hotly anticipated
T H I S PA G E P H OTO BY M O D E R N M Y KO N O S E S TAT E
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ykonos is all dressed up, ready to preen and party like it’s 1999. Or, at best, like it’s the summer before a global pandemic drove us apart into pods. Greece was among the first European travel destinations to welcome back foreign tourists without requiring them to quarantine, given they are fully vaccinated or have a negative COVID-19 test—thus the Endless Aegean Summer was born. Emirates resumed routes between Newark and Athens, enabling a tsunami of hope in the hearts of pale travelers thirsty for sunkissed Grecian shores. And according to Bloomberg, travel-related search terms for Greece hit peak metrics. By June, the Greek Reporter noted that the bays at Ornos and Psarou looked like “a parking lot for luxurious vessels designed for posh travel on the water,” with more than 50 yachts anchored in Psarou bay; while luxury travel network Virtuoso tallied a 225% jump in new hotel reservations across the mainland and Greek isles. Luring glitterati for generations, Mykonos proves a seasonal staple with jet-setting celebrities and hot young things drawn to renowned dance clubs. Case in point, Mykonos is Kendall Jenner’s go-to summer chill-out island of choice. And momentum has only grown as Mykonos moves to reclaim its reputation as the prestige party capital of the Med, drawing coveted high-profile guests from around the globe. The island has long been the seasonal rendezvous point for billionaires, or those simply swimming in disposable income. Little wonder then, that Soho House, the reigning private members’ club of the creative class, tapped this swank location for its newest club and hotel, Soho Roc House. Set in a sheltered cove on the southern tip of Mykonos, the bright new beacon is housed in the former San
SPOTLIGHT: Camilla Akerberg (@camilla_akerberg) Scandinavian/Australian model Camilla Akerberg unravels and unwinds on Mykonos, drawn to the laid-back, laissez-faire vibe of the island. The svelte siren-cum-wellness entrepreneur thrives on all the fresh, sunkissed Mediterranean fare, while exploring fitness with locals and global travelers alike. As a content creator, she also thrives on creating a variety of images showcasing adventurous, playful moments, capturing compelling footage from unusual angles or by drone. The tall-and-toned blonde beauty works with select luxury hotels to emphasize wellness and sustainability, and the sensual beacon of Mykonos never fails to inspire some of her best work. Her signature style is sexy elegance, and videos that capture and showcase a sense of place, but also the emotional reward of actually being there. As a personal trainer and yoga teacher, Akerberg runs her online business alongside traveling and teaching her own series of fitness and yoga retreats. Her motto? “Be good to your own body and the environment around you.” For now, you can find her kicking back poolside on a daybed, planning a new series of core-igniting asanas to appeal to her more-athletic private clients.
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debut of them all is from Ibiza nightlife legend Pacha which opened its first hotel outside Spain this summer, Destino Pacha Mykonos. Pacha’s venues are favored by the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Leonardo DiCaprio, Gerard Butler, and Michael Jordan, to give you a sense of who may be holding court on any given night; Idris Elba not only held down a DJ residency at Lío in Ibiza in 2018, he also threw down killer tracks at Pacha. The brand new hotel features just 34 guestrooms, including six sea-view suites. Bedrooms feature natural wood, stone, linen, and an abundance of glass to open up the ocean views. Platters of honey-swirled Greek yogurt topped with fresh figs appear by magic, seamless service of the highest order. Expect its signature buzzy pool scene and an immersive cabaret restaurant Lío, featuring performers prowling among the tables, fusing burlesque, circus arts, and gastronomy in exotic over-the-top displays. Ready to stoke your inner bohemian wearing next to nothing? You belong at Alemàgou, the sexiest all-day restaurant and beach bar in Ftelia Mykonos. Laid-back and eclectic, yet impossibly elegant with cosmopolitan influence. We welcome the return of the three-hour lunch while on vacay; think bites of sea urchin bruschetta and a succession of killer sangrias, with a quick dip in the sea before the lobster spaghetti arrives. Resist pestering the resident goat, Maggie. She’s over Snapchat filters that make her look like a unicorn. Sublime and superfluous, Modern Mykonos is a brand new, ultra-luxury private villa on the exclusive Aleomandra peninsula. A jewel of the Icon Private Collection, the property boasts mindblowing Aegean views. Well-heeled guests fully lean into the fullfrontal hedonism of the estate’s flair for indulgence. Imagine reclining on soft, whitewashed sunbeds while dipping warm, olive-doused pita into picture-perfect bowls of impossibly creamy hummus. Inte-
riors draw from traditional tones, bright white mixes with natural stones, and decorative motifs. A sprawling pool deck and beach access give big boisterous groups ample room to roam. Active types go Jet Skiing between Negronis and sunset paddleboarding sessions. Much-buzzed Kalesma Mykonos debuted this season to insider fanfare, atop a hillside overlooking Ornos bay. Only 25 suites and two villas all have a private deck with a pool overlooking the sea. Known for their hotspots in Athens, the seasoned team behind Kalesma are all local to the island; the land has remained in the family of one of the owners for over a century. The reception area—stylishly outfitted with Rick Owens furniture—sits at the peak of the property, along with the promising restaurant, Pere Ubu. Dive into Cycladic specialties like cheese saganaki spiked with spicy honey, thyme, and roasted almonds. The house signature cocktail, the Mediterraneo, feels perfect for the climate and is made with Greek Mastiha—a liqueur from mastiha trees found only on the island Chios—infused with thyme and lime. Kalesma’s kinship ethos kicks off with nightly sunset celebrations featuring DJs and culinary events exclusively for in-house guests. For foodies, Kenshō Psarou is a serious slice of nirvana southeast of Mykonos town. Mykonian award-winning chef, Ippokratis Anagnostelis infuses Greek, Japanese, and Peruvian flavors into modern Mediterranean cuisine. Think tagliata Japanese Wagyu served up along with equally sinful cocktails. Care to spend the night? Kenshō is home to 31 luxury rooms and suites plus a four-bedroom villa, each bearing a bespoke design. The resort attracts the rich and famous who come to “flock and dock” their yachts and soak up the Grecian sunshine in style. For the crème de la crème, the Grand Suite showcases a phenomenal private pool. If you prefer to crash where you party, the Belvedere Hotel is a Continued on page 43
This page: A poolside supper setting at the Mykonos Grand Hotel & Resort, part of Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH). Opposite: Inspired by Ancient Greek Cycladic architecture, the Elysium estate is listed for sale with Greece Sotheby’s International Realty at about $9.7 million 38
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T H I S PA G E P H OTO C O U R T E S Y O F M Y KO N O S G R A N D H OT E L O P P O S I T E PA G E P H OTO C O U R T E S Y O F G R E E C E S OT H E BY ’ S I N T E R N AT I O N A L R E A LT Y
“YOU’LL FIND MORE BUFF INSTA-MODELS, TRIPPY BEATS, AND BARELY-THERE BIKINIS THAN YOU CAN SHAKE A SQUID SKEWER AT”
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This page, top left: Stylish duo Alexandra and Lydia Economou at Panormos beach. Top right: A traditional fishing boat in the Old Port. Middle left: The cover of the book. Middle right: Lizy Manola on Mykonos in the late 1970s. Bottom left: Sunset vibes at the Alemàgou beach bar. Bottom right: One of the island’s iconic windmills, built in the 16th century. All images from Mykonos Muse by Lizy Manola, published by Assouline 40
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T H I S PA G E A L L P H OTO S C O U R T E S Y O F A S S O U L I N E O P P O S I T E PA G E P H OTO C O U R T E S Y O F S O H O - R O C - H O U S E
he 40 square miles that constitute Mykonos are prized for incredibly beautiful architecture, a surreal party atmosphere, and transcendent beaches beside the sparkling bluegreen Aegean sea. So it’s only fitting that French luxury publisher Assouline has included it in its beautifully-designed and highly coveted Travel Series, devoted to the world’s most desirable destinations from Tulum to Tuscany. Mykonos Muse, by Greek photographer Lizy Manola, chronicles the culture and society that has defined Mykonos over the past century, “from its days as a hideout for such luminaries and elites” as Le Corbusier and Aristotle Onassis, to its never-boring club scene—“all the while indulging the reader with the ruins and myths hidden there.” Manola writes that on Mykonos in the golden days, “everything was possible, and nothing was off-limits. The jet set felt at home, seduced by island’s pure beauty and carefree spirit—a bohemian hideaway where they could go wild, undetected by gossip columnists and paparazzi.” And when in the 1960s photographers did start staking out the island, “Hollywood stars, fashion emperors, shipping tycoons, [and] gorgeous models disembarked [from their yachts] and smiled under the golden sun.” The real stars of Mykonos, however, “were the Mykonians, these hard-working, sun-kissed, and openminded people who opened their island for the world to enjoy.” Until you can charter that yacht yourself and set course for Mykonos, this book is the next best thing, and a fitting addition to any stylish library. — Jared Paul Stern
“MAGAZINE CENTERFOLD -WORTHY VILLAS FLANKED BY COOL SHADED STONE TERRACES AND PRIVATE SWIMMING POOLS”
Soho Roc House, new Mykonos outpost of the Soho House group of super-cool private members’ clubs, hotels and restaurants, is set in a sheltered cove on the southern tip of of the island MAXIM.COM
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Luxury real estate sales on the idyllic island are booming According to Despina Laou of Greece Sotheby’s International Realty, Mykonos has “become a magnet for affluent property buyers from all over the world”—and it’s not hard to see why. “Mykonos is known for its vibrant and cosmopolitan lifestyle,” she tells us. “People are drawn to the unique atmosphere and impeccable services the island provides.” Laou notes that “in the second quarter of this year, directly compared with the second quarter 2020, we have seen a 45% increase in enquiries specifically for Mykonos,” with several high-end property deals having closed. “The countries leading the demand are the UK, followed by Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria, [and] the majority of buyers leading the demand fall within the Gen X age group.” The median value of property requests for 2021 is €2,300,000, or about $2.7 million, which is above 2020 levels. “Whilst our priorities have changed over the course of the pandemic, the increased trend towards islands such as Mykonos is set to continue,” Laou predicts, “in large part due to the lifestyle offered by
such destinations.” The most requested features are sunset views and close proximity to Mykonos town, “whilst privacy and private pools are a must,” in addition to an increasing trend towards indoor gyms. Sotheby’s currently has a decent amount of inventory on Mykonos, with prices starting at about $2 million for a six-bedroom, sixbathroom villa, going up to about $14 million for Casa Reale, “an expansive property with appealing aesthetic equilibrium both inside and out,” that ranks as one of the island’s loveliest estates, in Aleomandra. Some of the six master suites have private pools, while others offer a jacuzzi on the terrace, all the better so soak up the world class views. Mykonos attracts its share of billionaire buyers. CEOWORLD magazine recently reported that Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, one of the richest men in the Middle East, bought two houses on the island four years ago, then recently built another on a plot of land he had also purchased near a site where he also plans to build a fivestar hotel.— Jared Paul Stern
This page: Stargazer, an “extraordinary estate [that] seems to be suspended between sea and sky,” is listed for sale with a local affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate for about $12.5 million. Opposite, top: A scene at Salacia, a lavish estate listed with Greece Sotheby’s International Realty, which sits in a prominent seafront position. Opposite, bottom left: A poolside vignette at Soho Roc House. Bottom right: A table set for an intimate dinner in the wine cellar of the Mykonos Grand Hotel & Resort 42
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T HI S PAGE L P H OTO CO U RT E SY O F C HR I ST I E ’S I N T E RN AT I O N A L R E A L E STAT E O P P OS I T E PAG E P HOTO TO P CO U RT E SY O F G RE EC E SOT HE BY’ S I N TE RN AT I O N A L R EA LTY B OT TO M P HOTO L E F T CO U RT ESY O F SO HO - RO C- H O US E B OT TO M P HOTO R I GH T CO U RT E SY O F M YKO N OS G R A N D H OT E L
BUYING INTO MYKONOS
MYKONOS
Continued from page 38
one-stop haute spot on the edge of Mykonos town. Picture a sunbleached labyrinth of hanging balconies, stone-paved paths, and secret hideaways. At magic hour, the pool—a swimming and lounging area by day—transforms into the centerpiece of a buzzing nightlife scene. Then there’s the beauteous Belvedere Bar, the more-recently launched poolside Sunken Watermelon Cocktail Bar, and
the incredibly popular Matsuhisa Mykonos (Nobu Matsuhisa himself checks into the Belvedere during the annual Nobu Food Festival). Private dining venue Thea Estiatorio lies gracefully above, while the Belvedere Cellar beckons inside. Brimming with a bevy of Mamma Mia! magic, the Belvedere gives your good-time muscles a monumental workout. There’s never been a more meaningful time to seize every day like it’s your last day on Mykonos.
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PHOTOGRAPHY
A TRICK OF
THE LIGHT
An interview with master of fashion and portraiture Vincent Peters on the occasion of his new book
At 52 years old, German-born photographer Vincent Peters is quite young in relation to the great lensmen with whom he is often compared. Peters, whose portraits and fashion editorials have graced the pages of major magazines such as Vogue, Glamour, GQ and many others over the past 25 years, prefers to shoot on film, and favors black-and-white for most of his work; his photographs have a classical, timeless quality. This elegant approach to his chosen medium is evident in an alluring new book from German luxury publisher teNeues, Vincent Peters: Selected Works, brought out in conjunction with a major solo exhibition titled Light Within, at Fotografiska museum in Stockholm. The book features over 200 images selected by Peters, including some of his most iconic celebrity portraits of Emma Watson, Scarlett Johansson, Charlize Theron, Laetitia Casta, John Malkovich, and Mickey Rourke, among others. Peters strives to “convey human contact, without the need of being provocatively shocking to make an impact,” as Fotografiska puts it. This page: Nudes, Paris. Opposite: Charlize Theron, New York
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“He feels that we’re losing the value of human contact, and that increasingly more of our digital age is about eliciting a reaction rather than establishing communication.” We spoke to Peters about this and other subjects: Was your work considered a bit too artistic initially? What drew you to fashion and portrait photography? I actually came from gallery work—but when I started in fashion photography that was a certain opening of painting, fashion and conceptual ideas blending together. Magazines like The Face and Dazed and Confused were mainly searching for photographers with ideas rather than an established status. Authorship was very important. How did you develop your personal style over the years? And how have you remained true to your vision and yourself? I think there it is a long searching process that leads you back home if
A L L I M A G E S @ V I N C E N T P E T E R S / C O U R T E S Y O F Te N E U E S
Te x t b y JAR ED PAU L S T ER N
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It’s a very different approach! A model knows exactly what you want but the celebrity brings in personality and character on a very different level. If you have a strong vision it may be better to work with the model because it’s more neutral. A celebrity will be always more of a portrait…. I definitely like to shoot people and make them be part of the scenarios I have in my head. I love seeing how they play the role and how the camera interprets/captures it. Where do you think the future of photography is headed in the next decade? Social media and iPhone cameras completely changed photography. It turned everybody into photographers. There is a lot to say about why photography is so successful and why we feel we have to capture all the moments in our always-exhilarating lives. Photography is a reaction of the deeper cultural need of making everything available and attainable. What are the biggest challenges facing young photographers today? I feel a difficult challenge for young photographers today is to develop their own ideas and style in a market that is more and more commercial and result orientated. There is little space to experiment and make mistakes!
you’re honest about yourself. There is a revelation process of discovering deeper levels of early influences in your work that are actually surprising. I believe that your personal style is just a way to visually manifest those sensibilities that you always had in your mind. Why do you prefer film? What are your views on digital technology? It’s a very emotional process and I react a lot more to film and the quality of it. I also prefer the production process [of film] because I’m not confronted with the result immediately, as I would be if I was shooting digitally. It usually takes days, sometimes weeks until I see the results. My mind has by then already moved on and I see the pictures in a different way. Shooting film means you have a lot less control, and I like that.
Who would you most like to work with next? There are always names and people that I would love to get in front of my lens or see how that would come out in “my movie,” like you want to see certain actresses in the Hitchcock film and see how it would turn out. That said, I would also love to go to Kabul and shoot women on the street, and wonder how it would look like if I take a picture of them in a way that it speaks to me. We all have some kind of subconscious filter of how we see reality. As a photographer you just have a better technical understanding of how to visualize it.
“SHOOTING FILM MEANS YOU HAVE A LOT LESS CONTROL, AND I LIKE THAT”
After 25 years, what things continue to inspire you, and where do you find fresh inspiration? What I always like to remember is ”Don’t look for the universe, if you have the stars inside yourself.” I think any true artistic process is turning inward. There is an inspiration inside of you through everything that we collect over time. It just needs to be developed like an unexposed film. What are the differences, and different challenges, in photographing models and celebrities? This page, top: Laetitia Casta, Paris. Bottom left: Emma Watson on the cover of the book, published by teNeues. Bottom right: Amanda Seyfried, Paris. Opposite page: Monica Bellucci, Rome 46
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Why did you decide to only include black-and-white images in the book and exhibition? Photography is a lot like music—you choose the instrument to play your melody or share a certain mood. The mood of black-and-white is the instrument that plays the music I like to hear. It’s more like jazz.
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COVER STORY
FAN
N0.1
Danish supermodel Josephine Skriver is the sexiest football fanatic we’ve ever encountered When I speak to Josephine Skriver over the phone, she has just returned from vacationing in Iceland with her fiancé, the musician Alexander DeLeon, also known as Bohnes. “Oh my God! It was so fun!” the 28-year-old Danish supermodel, who has modeled for the likes of Victoria’s Secret, Maybelline, and Versace, gushes. “I don’t know if there’s another place quite like it. We were able to see lava, glaciers, and so many things in one day. It really is the land of fire and ice.” P h o t o g ra p h e d b y G I L L E S B EN S I M O N S t y l i n g b y C AR O L I N E C H R I S T I AN S S O N A N D R AP S A R M I EN TO Te x t b y T H O M A S FR EEM AN
This page: Shorts, CHROME HEARTS, Ring, ALICE PIERRE.
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Visiting Iceland seems like the sort of trip most people would anticipate all year, perhaps their entire life, but Josephine is noticeably more excited for the fall—not for the return of Fashion Week but instead football season. She is the first supermodel I have ever interviewed who’s more interested in sports than high fashion. “Soccer is the biggest religion in Europe, probably worldwide,” she says. “Sports have always been such a big part of my life, but there was not this fan community that I have found in American football.” It is surprising to hear Josephine profess to be such a football fanatic in her cool Scandinavian temperament. It is even a bigger surprise to learn her favorite team: the Las Vegas, formerly Oakland, Raiders, who have the most notorious fans in sports. “My fiancé is a third-generation Raiders fan, so it was an easy sell,” she says. “As a European, it was awesome that they were silver and black, something that could fit into my style. I also loved the backstory of Al Davis and that they were the underdogs, the black sheep of the whole league.” When asked if she gets as rowdy as fans in the Black Hole—the notorious four lower-deck sections at the Oakland Coliseum—Josephine coyly says, “It would have been hard to do an interview today if we had a game the day before, because I tend to lose my voice. I turn into a different person when a game is on.” Staring
down opposing team members from the Black Hole may seem a far cry from her upbringing in Copenhagen, the Danish capital known for its charming cobblestone streets, eclectic cafes, and attractive locals. Although she recounts her life with a calm pragmatism, nothing has gone according to script. Skriver is the product of a thoroughly modern family. Her mother is a lesbian, and her father is a gay man. She and her younger brother were conceived through IVF after her mother placed an ad in a local gay newsletter seeking a sperm donor. “Copenhagen is such an open city,” she says. “It’s such a safe space to be LGBT. The truth of being LGBT didn’t really hit me until I got to America. I didn’t think I was ever fully introduced to the trauma somebody can have from [being gay].” Skriver however claims her upbringing was conventional—that is, until a growth spurt around the age of 15 caught the attention of model scouts. She was first approached during a soccer trip to New York and repeatedly after returning home to Copenhagen. She took her time, taking local modeling jobs until she turned 18. When she finally moved to New York in 2011, she was an instant success, booking around 70 shows, she says, during her first season. Then, after three years of steady runway, campaign, and editorial work, Victoria’s Secret came calling. When she became an Angel in 2016, Josephine was no longer another clothes hanger but instead a household name. “I was so used to not being recognized, even if I was hanging on all the billboards and the covers,” she says. “There’s such a mystique and allure to fashion, but with social media and brands like Victoria’s Secret, modeling has had to adapt to let people in, which has been an interesting journey for me.” I tell Josephine that she seems naturally extroverted, which elicits a chuckle. “That’s something that the American culture has taught me,” she says. “You could say America is an extroverted country, whereas Denmark is a lot more introverted as a culture. We don’t necessarily talk to strangers. Now, when I get home, people are like, ‘Why do you smile all the time?’” Skriver’s Danish accent is now fading. She is considering becoming a U.S. citizen. She and her fiancé now split their time between Los Angeles and Nashville, a city she came to love while visiting for a Raiders game. They plan to attend the team’s opening game in Las Vegas, the first with fans in their new stadium. “I’m always going to miss Oakland because there is something special about the grit in that city, and it fit the Raiders so well,” she says. “But knowing you can now attract players with a great stadium, I think in the long run, once the fan base is no longer just in Oakland, it’s going to benefit us.” She adds, “I was lucky enough to have seen the new stadium a little while ago. Of course, I’m biased, but that is the coolest stadium in all of football. Are there bigger, better-designed ones? Probably. But this one screams the Raiders. It’s one big celebration of the team. Everything is silver and black, even the advertisements.” When asked about Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib coming out, becoming the first openly gay NFL player, Josephine’s response suggests how a supermodel from Denmark can feel so welcome among such a raucous fanbase. “I’m so proud that he’s a Raider. He’s definitely the first jersey I’m wearing to the opening-night game,” Skriver says. “I hope one day that it’s not big news. It should be like, I don’t care who you date, as long as you do well on the field.” “That’s what I love about sports,” she continues. “When you’re on the sidelines and you look at the other fans, it doesn’t matter what color, ethnicity, religion, or political point of view they are. That day, you’re all one unit because you’re all Raiders fans.”
This page: Earrings, HOUSE OF EMMANUELE, Thong, VICTORIA’S SECRET, Socks, LOS ANGELES APPAREL. Opposite page: Top, MODEL’S OWN. 50
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This page: Earrings, JENNIFER FISHER. Mesh top, LOS ANGELES APPAREL, Swim bottom, VICTORIA’S SECRET, Flannel top, DSQUARED2. GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI.
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“WHEN YOU’RE ON THE SIDELINES WITH THE OTHER FANS, IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT ANYONE’S COLOR, ETHNICITY, RELIGION, AND POLITICS ARE”
Opposite page: T-shirt, VINTAGE.
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“THERE’S A MYSTIQUE AND ALLURE TO FASHION, BUT WITH SOCIAL MEDIA, MODELING HAS HAD TO ADAPT AND LET PEOPLE IN”
This page: Blazer, ST. JOHN, Shorts, CHROME HEARTS. Opposite page: Raider’s Jacket, MODEL’S OWN. Hair by Rebekah Forecast using John Frieda at The Wall Group. Makeup by Brigitte Reiss-Andersen using Makeup Forever @ A-Frame Agency Production by Jessica Athanasiou
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RACING
THE LAST BUGATTI RACERS Here’s why racing examples of the famed French marque’s EB 110 can be worth millions Te x t b y JAR ED PAU L S T ER N
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here has been much speculation of late that Bugatti will finally return to racing after a 25-year absence with the Bolide, its new track-focused, W16-powered hypercar reportedly packing 1,825 horsepower, and capable of blasting past 300 mph. So, this seems like a fitting moment to take a look at the famed French marque’s last two race cars, the EB 110 LM (Le Mans) and SC (Sport Competizione), which competed in 1994 and 1996, marking the end of an era for Bugatti. It was an all-too-brief racing revival for the marque, which competed at Le Mans from 1923 until 1939, the year Pierre Veyron triumphed over the competition in a Bugatti Type 57 C. Fast forward to September 15, 1991, which would have been marque founder Ettore Bugatti’s 110th birthday, when its then-owner Romano Artioli
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unveiled the EB 110. Capable of a top speed of 218.5 mph thanks to its 560–610-hp V12 engine (depending on the variant), and equipped with four turbochargers and a lightweight carbon monocoque, it was the most modern, most advanced, and fastest production supercar ever built. A remarkable new book, The Last Bugatti Racing Cars, by motorsport experts Johann Petit and Pascal van Mele, and edited by Bugatti’s former Head of Tradition, Julius Kruta, examines the racing variants of the EB 110 that looked for a time as if they would carry on Bugatti’s historic racing success. While that turned out not to be the case, the race cars and the vehicles they were based on—the built-to-order EB 110 GT (Grand Touring) and SS (Super Sport)— have become modern icons, among the rarest and most valuable ve-
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Hill, race engineer Dieter Gass, and Bugatti test driver Loris Bicocchi. The latter recently took an EB 110 SS out for a run. “I’m still amazed at just how modern the EB 110 SS still feels to drive,” he marveled. “It’s direct, to the point, light, and incredibly fast. It boasts good roadholding and offers top grip.” In 2019, Bugatti paid tribute to the EB 110 by unveiling the Centodieci (Italian for 110), a re-interpretation of the original, celebrating the marque’s 110th birthday. With just 10 examples built for collectors worldwide, the 1,578-hp rocket ship, which has an (electronically limited) top speed of 240 mph, is priced at about $9 million. Fittingly the Centodieci shares its drive strategy with the Bolide, which may pick up where the EB 110 LM left off, should a run at Le Mans in 2022 be feasible—no doubt ushering in a new era of racing domination for the brand that has been not-so-quietly biding its time.
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hicles of their era. Jakob Greisen, Head of U.S. Motoring for world-renowned UK auction house Bonhams, says the Super Sport versions, of which only 32 examples were built, hold the most attraction for top-class collectors. Although, he tells us, “In my opinion, the EB 110 of any variation was bound to increase in value, and be more appreciated as a collector car for a few reasons: it is of the age and era which generally a car has to be when starting to appreciate; it was made by a renowned manufacturer; and it made its mark on the era in which it was built [breaking several world records]. In other words, people remember them, and there is a certain affection and romance for them.” While EB 110s have not always commanded the attention, or prices, of the likes of the McLaren F1, even a “base model” EB 110 GT (of which only 96 were built) can currently fetch as much as $1 million at auction, “if the miles (or kms) are low, and the car is original, well-preserved and serviced—sometimes even more if the color is rare and desirable,” Greisen says. Given the same conditions, he notes that a Super Sport can bring in as much as $3 million. The two incredibly rare official racing versions would go for far more than that, in the unlikely event that one will ever be offered for sale. Equally desirable, should it ever come to market, would be the yellow EB 110 SS owned and raced by legendary F1 driver Michael Schumacher. The Last Bugatti Racing Cars is an extraordinary tribute—limited editions of the book range from about $550 to over $1,000—to an extraordinary car, and features many previously-unreleased photographs and a trove of archival material, alongside remembrances and eyewitness accounts from key figures involved in the EB110’s development and racing career—including racing driver Derek
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“ALMOST 30 YEARS LATER, THE EB 110 IS STILL AMONG THE WORLD’S FASTEST CARS”
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STYLE WATCH
The Eye of the Beholder Brazilian fashion and beauty star Camila Coelho tells us how she achieved success her way Te x t b y N I CO L A S S T EC H ER S t y l i n g b y JAR ED EL L N ER P h o t o g ra p h y b y DAV I S BAT E S
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rowing up in the small town in Minas, Brazil, Camila Coelho moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania with her family at the age of 14. Her early days as a non-English speaking immigrant cut her teeth for the challenges that lay ahead, built up her indomitable determination, and set the stage for the powerhouse she was soon to become. Working as a Dior makeup artist behind a Macy’s department store counter, Coelho quickly displayed an aptitude in the world of beauty, and for kicks started filming a series of YouTube makeup tutorials—way before that was actually a thing. Unsurprisingly the young star showed prodigious skill and charisma and quickly garnered a worldwide following (over 15 million and counting) as a beauty and fashion influencer, collaborating along the way with iconic brands like Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Valentino and Kerastase. Her debut Camila Coelho Collection sold out online in minutes in 2019, and was followed up with her new beauty line Elaluz last year.
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Recently the alluring entrepreneur revealed she has suffered with epilepsy since childhood. Initially ashamed of her affliction, only last year Camila decided to share with the world in order to de-stigmatize the neurological disorder, and assure people—especially young girls—who suffer similarly that they’re not alone. Her efforts have now made her into an official board member for the Epilepsy Foundation. We caught up with the natural-born beauty as she celebrated twin accomplishments: raising nearly $40,000 for the foundation on her birthday, and launching the second season of her swimwear line. One of my favorite things is talking to people who found success just by doing something they love. Everybody’s trained to chase money or celebrity, but it’s fulfilling to speak with someone who just followed their passion. When I started doing videos it took a lot of time. I was working as a makeup artist and then I would have to take the weekend, when I
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“WHEN I FOLLOW MY HEART IN THINGS THAT I’M PASSIONATE ABOUT, IT’S ALWAYS SUCCESSFUL”
What were you trying to achieve with your beauty line Elaluz? What was the halo goal? I actually thought my beauty line was going to come before my fashion line, before I found out how much more work goes into a beauty line. And I wanted it to be perfect. I’ve been very passionate because I started with beauty. I thought it could be stronger putting my name on it because a lot of people already know me, but I wanted even the name to have a meaning to me. Elaluz means She is light, so believing in your inner light. It can sound clichéd, but it’s something I truly believe: the moment you look in the mirror at yourself and you
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love it, anything that you wear, you’re going to feel beautiful. And if you’re not well with yourself, you can wear the most expensive outfit and you’re still going to feel dull, right? I also decided I wanted a clean brand; my goal was to launch clean products that would excite people and that would bring innovative formulas to the market. Elaluz is my baby. I work every single day on this brand, strategizing and thinking and developing. I’m involved in every single angle of the brand, from marketing to developing to approving, and it has been a huge challenge. Tell me about your new swimwear line. I started with only clothing, and we launched the swimwear category last year. It was during a pandemic, but this year we just launched our new collection. I love making swimwear. I love being out in the sun at the beach and playing volleyball, and I’m always in swimwear, and it’s so much [a part] of my Brazilian blood. Swimwear also brings out the sexiness side of me, which so many people see. A lot of bikinis in Brazil are homemade, and they sell them at the beach for so cheap. Crochet, for example, reminds me so much of Brazil. It’s something I’ve put a lot in my brand as well, and I love going home. Brazil is such a cool country—I’ve never seen a place that is so ready to party. Oh my god, yes. The launch party for my clothing brand was in Rio, and of course we hosted a bunch of Brazilian celebrities and people that I love there. And I was like, We need to have the best party that these people are going to experience! I had the carnival dancers come and perform, it was incredible. But yeah we love to party—it’s in our blood, so I’m a party girl for sure.
HAIR: JOSEPH MAINE MAKEUP: OLIVIA MADORMA
would probably have gone out with my friends, to stay in and make these videos because I loved it. Then it got to a point that I was like, Wait, do I really want to keep doing this? It was completely a hobby, but in my heart I just loved how people reacted to it. I knew that in a way I was helping people, not just by looking pretty, but also helping their self-esteem. I would receive so many amazing messages from women who just had a baby and were feeling self-conscious, and my talking to them on a tutorial made them feel better, and encouraged them to get out of the house. I feel like when I followed my heart in things that I was passionate about, it was always successful. And having no idea that it could become my career, but still doing it because I loved it was very impactful... And my friends didn’t understand at the time, some actually became a bit distant because they didn’t get it, like, “Why are you not going out with us and just staying home to do silly videos?” But I was really passionate about it, not knowing that it could become a business, but I just knew I was making other people happy— and that’s what made me keep going.
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COLLECTING
GUNSMITH
OF THE GODS Cabot Guns celebrates its 10th anniversary with a new collection of impeccably crafted pistols Te x t b y JAR ED PAU L S T ER N
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ost people would say a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite that fell to Earth in prehistoric times belongs in a museum. Robert Bianchin decided to use it to make the world’s most expensive and exclusive set of pistols.
Bianchin, a Canadian by birth, moved to the U.S. in 2002 to pursue a career in economics and finance, and quickly devoted himself to obtaining citizenship after becoming enthralled with the American Constitution. A recreational shooter, the Second Amendment in particular called to him, and a decade ago he decided to start creating American-made pistols of incomparable quality and craftsmanship. He based them on the Colt 1911, the iconic .45 caliber automatic that served as the standard-issue sidearm for the United States Armed Forces from 1911 to 1985 in its original form. When he was first starting out, “There was no business case study in making extremely high-quality pistols at the time,” Bianchin says. “The industry had been on the decline for decades, and while there was a small but vibrant niche for high-end long guns, all of those options were located in either Britain, Italy or Germany.” Bianchin has said his “thesis was simple; If there are folks who can appreciate fine mechanical watches, there would be some who would recognize the same quality in a handgun. It was our goal to create an
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intermingling layers of carbon steel with fragments of Gibeon meteorite and nickel. Other pistols in the earth-shattering collection are created with newly-developed patterns of Damascus steel, colored meteorite fragments, or both. “For the past ten years, we have been pushing the boundaries in the exploration of construction with rare materials, finishing and design,” Bianchin tells Maxim. “We are now in the golden age of the 1911. The quality which is available today to folks is unparalleled as compared to any time before. We are in the final act of the attempt at perfection of the 1911. I hope I am wrong but I don’t think you will see the quality which is being produced today continuing beyond another 20 years.” “Many of the highest-end pieces”—costing up to six figures—“will never be shot,” Bianchin concedes, though some clients have done so and enjoyed it immensely. “Clients who purchase high-end arms as an investment tend to keep pieces unfired and mint in order to obtain a higher resale value down the road,” he notes. “There is definitely a growing number of clients purchasing high-end firearms. The most typical buyer is a successful business owner who is enthusiastic about both firearms and art. I have also noticed in the past year a trend in folks purchasing upper-end firearms who have never purchased a firearm previous to 2020.” As for the anniversary pistols, “We’ve had several clients fighting over the purchase rights of each of them”, Bianchin tells us. “I have never seen anything like it. The pistols were generally in the $35,000 to $60,000 price range and sold out instantly.” The price range for Cabot’s highest-level, custom engraved guns is $50,000 to $150,000. However, “I have no doubt that years from now, folks will marvel over many of the pieces we have produced, and current prices will be considered inexpensive.” Experts consider the Big Bang Pistol Set to be the “holy grail of firearm collectibles.” Some would be content to rest on their laurels, knowing the feat may never be replicated. However, Bianchin insists, “I’m not done yet.” There is, after all, Cabot’s second decade to consider; and “we are currently working on pushing the boundaries even further on a couple of super-secret builds,” he confides. One can only imagine what he’ll come up with next.
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important and enduring American brand, with the stipulation that if one wanted the finest pistol in the world, it would be completely American made”—down to grips made of mammoth ivory found in Alaska, dating to the Ice Age. It turns out he was right. Now based in Pennsylvania, Cabot Guns has become one of the world’s top makers of collector-and investment-grade firearms, found in some of the most prestigious collections on the planet. “We challenged America’s top engineers, machinists and master craftsmen to build the perfect precision handgun from scratch without compromise,” eventually setting on aerospace technology to achieve this; and then figured out how to go beyond what any gunsmith had ever dreamed of in finishing them. According to Forbes, Bianchin has had offers of upwards of $1 million for the pair of pistols made from the Gibeon meteorite, dubbed the Big Bang Pistol Set, which was completed in 2016; having already broken the world record for the highest price ever paid for a new pistol, he is holding out for much more, confident the right buyer will come along soon enough. Meanwhile, in celebration of the company’s 10th anniversary, Cabot has released several bespoke and limitededition pistols, some of which include both meteorite fragments and Damascus steel, Bianchin’s other great innovation in gunmaking. Dubbed “the metal of kings and royalty,” Damascus steel has been “prized for thousands of years for its mythical beauty and strength,” Cabot notes, by Samurai warriors among others. Only two metalsmiths are currently capable of replicating the ancient way of forging the precious material in a way comparable to the earliest artisans, and both produce intricately-patterned Damascus steel for Cabot. ”These rare one-of-a-kind masterpieces are perhaps some of the most extraordinary pistols ever built,” they declare. Which is not to say that Cabot guns are merely for display. “In over 100 years of competition, only two civilians have taken first place overall in the NRA National Pistol Championship,” the company states, “and both did it shooting a Cabot pistol…. Cabot 1911’s have set a new standard in precision tolerances and quality not seen before in the gun world.” The 10th anniversary offerings are headed by the Impact ONE, featuring a “meteor shower” pattern in Damascus steel, created by
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“FOR THE PAST TEN YEARS WE HAVE BEEN PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES WITH RARE MATERIALS, FINISHING AND DESIGN”
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SPIRITS
ONE FOR THE ROAD I
America’s premier luxury rye distillers WhistlePig reveal their most innovative whiskey yet
Te x t b y N I CO L A S S T EC H ER
aged whiskey.” While Newell admits the whiskey-fueled Hellcats are just for show, tire-shredding ornamentation for this epic journey, the actual RoadStock “rolling rickhouse” behind him is anything but. Inside the sprawling Class 8 semi, 80 barrels of WhistlePig slosh about, the flagship whiskey that put America’s premier luxury rye label on the map. Half the whiskey is stored in WhistlePig barrels, and half in barrels supplied by the Jordan Winery in Sonoma County, CA. We’re here to document this adventure that’s taking the whiskey aging inside the semi from Vermont all the way to Central California, to the Firestone Walker brewery. There the juice within will be disgorged and transferred into Firestone Walker barrels, and WhistlePig’s barrels will be gifted to the famed Paso Robles craft brewery. Firestone will then use the newly acquired whiskey-soaked American white oak to age their beer, while the RoadStock rolling rickhouse will U-turn and head back to Vermont. All in all the whiskey will cross America two times, in five distinct barrels: WhistlePig’s own, Jordan Vineyard’s cabernet/merlot blend, and three Firestone Walker beers: Bravo Imperial Brown Ale, Helldorado Blonde Barley Wine, and a handful of Parabola Imperial Stouts. “All these barrels, with the sloshing around, the elevation changes, the extreme temperature changes, all affect the aging process,” WhistlePig Chief Blender Meghan Ireland will explain to me later. “There’s an interplay between wood, climate, et cetera. That’s all being played with, so over the 6,000-something miles you’re creating a very unique aging situation and environment.”
This page and opposite: The 500-acre Vermont farm where WhistlePig grows much of its barley, distills its whiskey in the ancient barn, and ages it on property
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t’s barely past nine a.m. and the temperatures at the Radford Racing school outside Phoenix are already eclipsing triple digits. The smooth blacktop appears to be cracking before our eyes, but it’s all good—it’s a dry heat. Veteran automotive T.V. hosts Chris Jacobs (Discovery) and Cristy Lee (ESPN, SPEED, MotorTrend, etc.) have just spent the last half-hour lighting up the skid pad in a most curious vehicle: the WhistlePig Dodge Hellcat. Onlookers whoop it up as their twirling donut dance gushes volumes of white smoke into the morning air. The shenanigans, and torque, are dialed up to eleven. This is no ordinary Hellcat mind you, it’s the WhistlePig edition—modified to run not on pure petroleum, but fuel of another sort altogether: premium rye whiskey. Vinyl-wrapped with bowtied pigs, barrels, wood, and all things cooperage, the gurgling muscle car draws stares wherever it rumbles. “We took 10-year WhistlePig Rye and it had to go through three additional distillations to get it to like 99% ABV,” explains WhistlePig’s Chief Marketing Officer Jason Newell of the unorthodox petrol. “After multiple distillations and another process to increase the ABV, it’s super pure—so our partners at VP Racing fuels were able to engineer a performance fuel mixture for us to play with.” “Well, if you’re going to distill the whiskey into fuel, why not just use straight-up white dog off the still?” I yell over the din of supercharged V8s. “Why use a whiskey that’s spent a decade aging in a barrel?” Jason blinks, as if teaching quantum theory to a two-yearold. “Because it’s WhistlePig,” he says flatly, “and we wanted to use
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The level of creative experimentation should not be a surprise, given RoadStock is part of WhistlePig’s ambitious LTO (Limited Time Offering) program, one built on the soil of rigorous exploration. “LTOs give me a chance to have some fun and experiment,” continues Ireland, a trained chemical engineer and the person at WhistlePig most responsible for the Dr. Bunsen Honeydew-like R&D department. “When you’re given the freedom to color outside the lines the results can be groundbreaking, and I think our past successes prove that.” This sense of innovation dates all the way back to WhistlePig’s launch in 2007 and the brand’s early commitment to playing with unexpected wood. Their acclaimed barrel program has already been responsible for innovative ryes finished in casks of Calvados, Cachaça, Madeira, Sauternes and even Umeshu, a Japanese plum wine. So what inspired RoadStock, you might ask? Quite simply the global zeitgeist. “We were thinking about what’s going on in this moment in time,” Eliza McClure, VP of Marketing & Innovation,
journey over Route 66, from Vermont to California. Which also coincidentally happened to be the home of our partners for the barrel finishing.” “Honestly, it’s such a unique aging process,” Distiller Mitch Mahar tells me over Zoom just after they began bottling the final RoadStock blend. “I went into it with a wide-eyed curiosity of, What’s going to happen when we do this? Because other distilleries have done the whole aging across the ocean thing, some have made big temperature swings in their rickhouse, this, that and the other. But we organically had a really dynamic aging process. You can’t duplicate it; there’s no way that we could really do this twice.” It’s been well over a month since I’ve seen Mitch’s amiable mustachioed face squinting in the California sun as we headed from the Arizona racing school to Paso Robles. Since returning to Vermont he’s been sequestered in the lab, mixing and blending these 80 barrels with Chief Blender Ireland to try to find the exact right formula to create the very best RoadStock. “One of the fears I had, especially given some of the big temperature swings in the Southwest, was that some of the flavors from the cask would lead to over-extraction,” he notes. “But overall everything came across really nice and subtle and floral. It’s a really delicate whiskey. I thought I was going to get a sort of brash younger brother of a whiskey, but instead we ended up with something way more elegant.” Which reminds me of something Newell told me on that torrid Arizona blacktop as the WhistlePig Hellcat twirled smoky rubber donuts around us: “We’re always experimenting, and sometimes it doesn’t go as planned,” he admitted, smiling. “Ninety-five times out of a hundred the finish is amazing, that’s where the magic happens. But as we joke around at WhistlePig: at least we get to drink our mistakes.”
reveals . “We’re just coming out of COVID, people are just starting to travel again, and there’s this huge resurgence for the American cross-country road trip.” Considering the brand’s authentic connection with automotive culture—WhistlePig recently sold Barrel No. 0001 of their FarmStock Rye Beyond Bonded at a Mecum car auction (100% of proceeds went to Farm Aid), and they are a racing partner of IMSA and have held tastings at vintage car events—the idea materialized before their eyes. “It all came together in this concept of let’s take the whiskey on the road,” McClure continues. “So we created this giant ‘rolling rickhouse’ semi truck, loaded it up with barrels and thought, What’s the most classic American road trip? It’s the cross country This page, top and bottom: The RoadStock Rolling Rickhouse, a Class 8 semi loaded with 80 barrels of WhistlePig’s best rye whiskey; and the WhistlePig RoadStock Hellcat, modified to run on pure aged whiskey. Middle: A bottle of RoadStock rye. Opposite, top: Whiskey barrels aging to perfection in Vermont. Bottom: A selection of WhistlePig’s award-winning ryes 72
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T H I S PA G E P H OTO S C O U R T E S Y O F W H I S T L E P I G O P P O S I T E PA G E P H OTO S C O U R T E S Y O F W H I S T L E P I G
“OVER 6,000 MILES YOU’RE CREATING A VERY UNIQUE AGING SITUATION AND ENVIRONMENT”
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ADVENTURE
RIPTIDE
A new book pays photographic homage to the world’s biggest and most dangerous waves
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Te x t b y JAR ED PAU L S T ER N
Kai Lenny in Pe‘ahi, Hawaii, home of the “Jaws” surf break, in 2019. Photo by Fred Pompermayer
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I
n the world of extreme sports, there are few things as formidable, and hazardous, as big wave surfing. By big we’re talking 20 feet high or more, something nearly impossible for outsiders and casual riders to comprehend. American legend Shane Dorian, who quit championship competition surfing in 2003 to go all in on big waves, calls them “the ultimate challenge,” noting, “They can also present the ultimate life-or- death situation.” He makes the remark in the foreword to one of the most impressive photographic tributes to the sport ever published, Big Wave Surfer: The Greatest Rides of Our Lives, new from Rizzoli and authored by another surfing legend, Kai Lenny. The book profiles the world’s top competitors on the big wave scene, accompanied by jaw-dropping imagery. “It is hard to define big
wave surfing as just a sport for me,” Lenny writes in the introduction. “Sports have rules that must be followed. But in the water, the only rule is that you respect the ocean for its relentless yet somehow comforting presence…. [As] the saying goes, ‘The greater the risk, the greater the reward.’ And I believe that is true.” He writes that while “I still don’t believe I have ridden a wave that can top my very first one, but all the waves that I have ridden after, especially the giant ones, have been stepping-stones toward my next goals. It is important to remember that you don’t become a big-wave surfer overnight. Sure, you could catch one huge wave by sheer luck and reckless abandon; that may work once, but most likely won’t work twice. [And] when things go wrong, they go wrong really quick. Before you know it, you’re skipping down the face until the wave starts to
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faith. Regardless if you make it or not, there’s an incredible rush. Kicking out of the ride of the day, the ride of the year, and possibly the ride of your life—while everyone is cheering on the boats, in the lineup, and on the cliff—is what I imagine winning the Olympics feels like in a stadium.” The rush of the moment isn’t his only motivation however. “I surf because I love it, and when faced with a towering mountain of water, it becomes something more: a mirror reflecting who I am as a person in the moment. I will admit I have been disappointed, and other times proud. When facing fearful odds, the fog of self-reflection is lifted. I believe it’s possible to find this anywhere as long as you are pushed to your limit, truly living in the moment, and free of caring what anyone else thinks. That’s when time slows down; that’s when anything becomes possible.”
This page, top: Kai Lenny at the Eddie Aikau Big-Wave Invitational Opening Ceremony, O‘ahu, 2019. Photo by Brian Bielmann. Middle: The cover of the book, published by Rizzoli. Bottom: Nazaré in Portugal is home to the biggest surfable waves on the planet. Photo by Mattias Hammar. Opposite page: Kai Lenny surfing Jaws in 2016. Photo by Fred Pompermayer 76
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suck you vertically into space. Everything is lightweight; it feels like floating, and then, a lung-collapsing slam. You want to fight it, escape it, but there is nowhere to go. You, my friend, are at the mercy of the ocean, and it’s not letting you come up until it says so.” Struggling against the omnipotent force of the water will only make defeat more crushing—literally. The only way to survive, Lenny counsels, is to “Relax, let it take you [and] go with the flow. While all this is happening, you haven’t taken a breath in what feels like an eternity. Thirty seconds feels like three minutes; time moves at a snail’s pace. Only when it’s finally over can you break the surface; time rushes back to full speed, and there’s suddenly five seconds before the next wave lands on your head.” He notes that immediately trying to go out and ride the biggest wave you can find is sheer madness: “Before doing anything extreme and possibly life-threatening, it’s essential to create a foundation that you can build off of. For me it wasn’t instantly going out and trying to ride a big wave; it was taking baby steps toward riding incrementally bigger waves up the coast... until I hit Jaws”—the legendary surf break on the north shore Maui known for its monster waves. “It certainly is a radical feeling to paddle into a lineup and look around at your peers, who are the best of the best, and feel astonished at what they are able to do in such intense, unpredictable scenarios,” Lenny writes. “It’s a feat that truly inspires me to go over that ledge when the next wave comes in. There’s no pulling back; it’s full blind
“THEY’RE THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE [AND] THE THE ULTIMATE LIFE-OR-DEATH SITUATION”
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One of the amazing photographs from Big Wave Surfer, a cool new book on the extreme sport published by Rizzoli
CREDITS
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