There is a dilemma that all wine and spirit collectors have to face constantly: should I drink or keep the bottle?
Wealth Solutions, one of the most important spirit and art dealers in the world, having dealt with more than 2,000 bottles of famous spirits. A few years ago, the company had the fortune of obtaining the world’s oldest cognac and rum. They believed there could be a better way to treat these bottles containing the rare drops of God instead of just keeping, reselling or drinking them, and they came up with this groundbreaking idea: after sharing them with fellow connoisseurs, they kept the last drops in tiny bottles. They then put each tiny bottle inside the case of a Swiss made luxury watch for permanent preserving and appreciation.
Armin Strom Cognac Watch
Wealth Solutions selected three independent luxury watch brands to unveil this unparalleled idea. The first is Armin Strom, which is based in Bienne like Rolex and Omega and produces its own movements from scratch. Most of the watches feature a skeleton dial for showcasing the delicate parts of the in-house movement. This watch is equipped with AMW11 manual winding movement. An exclusive drop of the Gautier cognac produced in 1762 is filled in a sapphire capsule and visible at 5 o’clock. The bottle of cognac was purchased by Wealth Solutions in 2014 during a Bonhams auction in New York. 40 sapphire capsules of cognac were filled and embedded into the 40 limited edition watches, with 8 sepcial watches made in red gold, accompanied by a small bottle of the Gautier cognac sample.
Louis Moinet Whisky Watch
Wealth Solutions’ second partner is Louis Moinet. The brand was revived 15 years ago by Jean-Marie Schaller and is named after the great 19th century watchmaker who built the world’s first chronograph. The watch dial has a fan-shaped sealed bottle at 3 o’clock, which holds Glenlivet Scotch whisky, bottled in 1862. The bottle of rare whisky was owned by famous British collector Sukhinder Singh. Thanks to his courtesy, the bottle was opened and 50 watches – 40 stainless steel versions and 10 gold versions – were created. The owner of the watch will have two Guinness World Records on his wrist, namely the world’s oldest whisky and an automatic mechanical watch from the oldest chronograph maker.
Speake-Marin Rum Watch
This Independent watchmaking brand has a mix of British and Swiss background because its founder, Peter Speake-Marin, is a Briton who previously worked for renowned complex watch brands in Switzerland such as MB&F, Christophe Claret and Roger Dubuis. Not all Speake-Marin watches feature an in-house movement but all of them share strong British design characteristics. A sealed sapphire capsule containing a drop of the oldest rum in the world can found at 11 o’clock. This drop of 1780 Harewood Rum was from the bottles being kept in the cellar of Harewood estate in England, and was only discovered in 2011. All 59 bottles of rare Harewood rum were later acquired by Wealth Solutions. 59 limited edition Speake-Marin Rum watches have been created, with 49 units in stainless gold and 10 units in yellow gold. These extremely rare watches are sold at only a few designated shops worldwide, including The Lavish Attic: http://thelavishattic.com.
