Robb Report July 2016

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald  The beginning of one thing often constitutes the end of another, as readers of Fitzgerald’s The […]

The head of Mercedes-Benz USA picks his favorite routes for the new flagship convertible. The new Mercedes-Benz S-Class convertible—the brand’s first open-top four-seat flagship since 1971—has gone on sale in the United States. The company is presently offering two variants: the Mercedes-Benz S550 Cabriolet and the higher-performance Mercedes-AMG S63 Cabriolet. The former is powered by […]

Richard Mille enlists an Airbus designer to incorporate aeronautic elements into A new watch. When I started this project, I was not an expert on mechanical watches,” admits Sylvain Mariat, head of creative design for Airbus Corporate Jets (ACJ), who collaborated with Richard Mille to develop the new RM 50-02 ACJ Tourbillon Split Seconds Chronograph. Mariat, […]

A tiki revival is in full swing, resurrecting classic cocktails and creating complex, moDern drinks. The blank facade of Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco offers few clues that it is a pilgrimage site for all kinds of drinkers: lovers of tiki, rum enthusiasts, cocktail obsessives, and seekers of rare spirits. Its owner, Martin Cate, has […]

A nevis resort introduces guests to a national pastime. The sun is a flaming golden ball dancing in my sightline as I raise the bat above my shoulders. Scanning the field, with its low-cut grass and two bases, I clutch the bat the only way I know how: like a baseball player. From the look […]

Silver manufacturers in the States found relatively little demand for the modern-looking services, sets, and pieces they produced in the 1950s and ’60s. It seems that the designs, some of which could double as abstract sculpture, deviated too far from the heirloom items that they continued to make. “They were radically, radically, radically different designs,” […]

At the Biltmore Estate’s Land Rover driving school, you can pay attention or pay the consequences.  For close to an hour, each diesel-powered Range Rover Sport HSE Td6 in our four-vehicle caravan had flawlessly navigated the nearly 50 miles of trails that compose the Land Rover Experience Driving School’s course at the Biltmore Estate in […]

Using the Range Rover SVAutobiography platform, Jaguar Land Rover Special Vehicles Operations has developed a limited-edition Range Rover in partnership with Holland & Holland, the British sporting-gun manufacturer. The Holland & Holland Range Rover is painted forest green—the gunmaker’s signature color—and displays several decorative elements modeled on those of the company’s bespoke firearms.  The cabin […]

Humbly and traditionally, France’s quiet northern region is reasserting itself as a one-of-a-kind escape. It is just after sunrise, and all of Normandy appears to be fast asleep as I wander through the misty gardens of Le Domaine d’Ablon. I stroll past turnips and plump cabbages, rounding the resort’s stables, where a tawny-colored pony peers out […]

Distillers are blasting spirits into space, or anchoring them to the ocean floor, in their extreme quest for flavor. It could be a plot from a science fiction movie: Vials of experimental whisky distilled on a remote island are put aboard a Russian spacecraft, which blasts off, destined for a space station orbiting the Earth. […]

While one distiller considers the effects of aging whisky in space, another has been developing a proper glass to enjoy whisky while floating around your rocket ship.  Last year, Ballantine’s commissioned the first whisky glass engineered to be used in space, where the liquid would otherwise randomly float around as shapeless globules. The Ballantine’s Space […]

A conversation with the auction-house veteran and avid sailor. As chairman and ceo of the auction house Phillips, Edward Dolman knows a thing or two about the finer things in life. The Manhattan-based Brit—who began his art-world career as a warehouse porter at Christie’s in 1984—is a consummate connoisseur, collecting everything from vintage cars to […]