“We’ve been planning this release for a long time.”
When Benjamin Boice, the single malt whisky specialist at Whyte and Mackay Americas, talks about the upcoming release of several ultra-aged expressions of Fettercairn, he’s understating the whisky’s journey to America. While the brand expanded across Europe in 2018 and is only hitting our shores this month, the history of Fettercairn goes back over two centuries.
Two years ago in Dubai, I handled what immediately became one of my favorite modern watches, the Ming 29.01 Dubai Edition Worldtimer. Housed in the Malaysian brand’s distinctive 29-series case and featuring numbers and city names in Arabic on the dial, it was unlike any travel watch I’d ever seen, and completely captured my imagination. (For those who agree with my assessment, it’s actually still available on the brand’s website for 22,000 CHF, or about $26,500.)
Now, Ming has released a new version of this model that, somehow, may be even more compelling: the 29.01 Midnight.
Where they’re from: The ready-to-drink brand, founded in 2015, teamed up with The House of Suntory and acclaimed Japanese bartender Hidetsugu Ueno to create these two limited-edition bottled cocktails.
Why we’re drinking these: I like the previous releases from On the Rocks, which include a Cosmopolitan and an Old Fashioned. But I’d also love to see these bottled cocktail brands craft something unique — classics with ingredients that maybe you couldn’t easily replicate at home, coupled with the ease of pouring from a bottle (maybe with a quick shake with ice first).
