Showing posts with label hotel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hotel. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Let's Talk About Luxury: The Macallan's £10 Bar at The Montage Beverly Hills

The names Macallan and The Montage Beverly Hills are already synonymous with luxury, but the £10 Bar is on another level. This Macallan exclusive bar is by-reservation only and has a $50 minimum per person. It's not hard to meet the minimum with the prices. The 12-year old Macallan aged in sherry oak is  £10, and the price goes up from there. Luckily I was there as Shop Eat Sleep's guest on her hosted media visit.

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But I had to do a double take when I saw a $64,000 drink on the menu. Yep. I did say this bar was on another level of luxury, right? The 64-year-old Macallan goes for $64,000. That's for a glass/shot, by the way, but hey, they have the last two ounces of this stuff left on earth.
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That beats the special Royal Marriage edition which was $12,000 for a whole bottle.
We sat outside since it was a nice day. Quiet, breezy, overlooking the garden and fountain. It is certainly a nice place to hang out and chat.
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Of course, we had to order some Macallan. Our server told us that the sherry oak whisky tends to be smoother and fruitier. If you prefer something oaky, go with the ones in the fine oak section where the whiskies were finished in a bourbon barrel. For the smokier ones, there's the Highland Park line. So. When you order whisky here, they will bring you the four different ice options. There's the whisky soapstones, the ice cubes, specially made ice balls, and the one he most recommended - the ice ball made with Highland Springs water.
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They actually ship water from Scotland to make these ice balls, no joke. It's supposed to be best since it's the same water used to make the whiskies. Even the "local" ice ball is no ordinary ball: it has the £ logo carved inside of the ice.
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Monday, August 22, 2011

Anniversary Afternoon Tea at The Langham Pasadena

Every year, The Langham Hotels around the world celebrate their anniversary with a ridiculously priced afternoon tea. The price is what the original Langham in London used to charge back in 1865: 1 shilling and six pence. That, dear readers, amounted to $0.15 this year. Fifteen cents!

Before this, I have not had the chance to try the Langham afternoon tea, and what better time to do it than when it was only 15 cents as opposed to the usual $39?

Afternoon Tea
The afternoon tea is held at The Lobby Lounge of the Langham. We got a nice table by the window overlooking the green expanse of the hotel.
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IMG_1484For this event, the servers also dressed up as if it was 1865. Our server had on a mustard suit and a cute blue ribbon while the female server was wearing a blue dress of that era.

The Langham offers a pretty nice selection of classic and scented teas. I ordered the Orchid Oolong, described as being "highlighted by a touch of coconut to offer the tranquility of a fragrant bouquet of fruit and floral notes in a rich, soothing infusion." Rich, indeed.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Hotel Review: Dolphin Lanai Room at the Kahala Resort (Oahu, Hawaii)

The Kahala Resort is supposedly the first resort in O'ahu (so says my hotel tour guide), opened in 1964 as the Kahala Hilton and cost $12 million to build.

The resort has its own private beach which, according to my tour guide, was the shore that the King Kamehameha landed when he first came to O'ahu (Wikipedia says he landed his troops at Waikiki and Waialae which neighbors the resort).

We stayed at one of the Dolphin Lanai rooms on my latest trip to Hawaii. It faces the "dolphin lagoon" and you pay a premium for the chance to be woken up by dolphins' calls and splashes.

The room itself is standard-sized, though the bathroom had two vanities.
But it isn't just a view of the dolphin lagoon. These rooms are on the ground floor and are literally right next to the dolphin lagoon. If it wasn't for the bushes separating my patio with the lagoon, I could just reach out and touch them as they swim by.
Sit long enough and you'll see one or four of them jump. I wasn't fast enough to take photos of those instances, alas.
A lot of celebrities stay here and I heard George Clooney was there when I was there. While I didn't see him, I did spot Daniel Dae Kim from LOST. Someone had to point him out to me, but I think it really was him. They're supposed to be filming Hawaii Five-O.
What do you guys think?

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