Celebrity Life

We don't have the frosty air and snowy settings of Europe, but we sure do know how to bring on the festivities and get everyone feeling merry and bright.

Stuck at home this holiday season? There are more ways than one to get into the Christmas mood. Besides picking up gifts for your loved ones and enjoying a beautiful light show, here are all the pop-ups and Christmas markets to help light up your Christmas this 2021.

This Christmas, here are all the Christmas markets and pop-ups you should know about.

Central Market's Christmas with Heart 2021

An 8-metre-tall Santa Claus, a dreamy Christmas forest and reindeers await at the newly-revitalised Central Market, which has opened its first ever Christmas market, Christmas with Heart 2021" from now until January 16th.

The iconic historical architecture serves as the backdrop to 20 meticulously designed Christmas characters, making the Central Market a go-to spot for photos this festive season. The market is rich with Christmas carols, performances and charity activities, but what's exciting is the integration of NFT art – guests are invited to create their very own NFT as souvenirs in two art workshops hosted by Pantone C Workshop, while 1,000 limited edition event-linked NFT Tokens will also be given out to Central Club members, who can redeem one piece valued at 1,500 points on a first come, first served basis.

You won't miss the inflatable Santa Claus perched on the rooftop, but another highlight is the simulated large-scale snow installation at the Oasis, possibly one of the most photogenic spots at the market. Afterwards, spend time browsing the three Christmas markets, offering Christmas gift ideas from urban-design products, to metro wellness and start-up creativity.

Santa will make a stop between December 24th to 27th from 4 to 8 pm, so be sure to be on your best behaviour when you visit at those times.

Central Market, 93 Queen's Road Central, Central

Christmas Pop-up Market at K11 MUSEA

The cultural Silicon Valley in Hong Kong, K11 MUSEA, will arrange a series of pop-ups just for Christmas time. The festive pop-ups will be on the 6th floor and at MUSE EDITION on the ground floor from December 11th to 13th and December 17th to 27th. Packed with gift shopping, gourmet tasting, and even Christmas bauble personalisation, these pop-ups can meet all your Christmas needs.

At the end of the shopping day, a delightful spectacle awaits. The light showcase, Globoscope will be available on the 7th floor’s Bohemian Garden from now until January 3. Globoscope, which debuted in the Fête des Lumières de Lyon in 2014, is shown for the first time in Asia. More importantly, the art director Maxime Houot​ adapted the lighting set to the landscape of Bohemian Garden to create a dreamy space for you to relax at the end of your day.

K11 MUSEA, Victoria Dockside, 18 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui; +852 3892 3890

Winter Wonderland Pop-up at Rosewood Hong Kong

As part of “The Holiday Edit” at Rosewood Hong Kong, the luxury hotel is presenting a cosy wooden chalet pop-up store at its main entrance from now till December 26th.

Filled with festive gifts from Butterly Patisserie, guests can also enjoy roasted chestnuts, mulled wine and hot chocolate in the chalet daily between 6 to 7 pm, until December 19th, and between 6 to 8 pm from December 20th to 26th.

To add an extra touch of magic, guests at the chalet will be able to experience a sprinkling of evening snow between 6 to 9 pm daily, until December 31st. And of course, if you've been good this Christmas, you'll be able to catch Santa on December 24th and 25th, making his rounds between 12 to 1 pm and then again from 4:15 to 5:45 pm.

Rosewood Hong Kong, Victoria Dockside, 18 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong; +852 3891 8888

A Very Big Christmas at Lane Crawford

This Christmas, gift shopping, food market, and charity sales are all in Lane Crawford.

Lane Crawford’s food market will introduce Michelin-star Chef Ryota’s curated traditional Japanese sake, French treats, Italian’s all-time classic Panettone, and more. Unique gifts like healing crystal grid by Ariana Ost, sauna blanket by Higher Dose, and laser kit by LYMA can also be found here.

After shopping, select a floral wrapping paper to dress your present. The money you paid for the wrapping paper will be donated to Po Leung Kuk to help children in need and elderlies with disabilities. Lastly, brands like Jovens, Johnstons of Elgin, and Dreyden will also offer Christmas services such as monogramming or embroidery.

Lane Crawford, Podium 3, ifc mall, 8 Finance Street, Central; +852 2118 2288

Orient Express at ifc mall

ifc mall will present a story-like Orient Express from now until January 2 to celebrate this Christmas. The pop-up is inspired by the original Orient Express, the first transcontinental train in Europe that was developed by Belgian engineer Georges Nagelmackers in the 1880s.

Besides the train, there are other zones to give guests different experiences. Guests could learn about the history of the Orient Express, mail cards at the vintage post office, and immerse themselves in the traditional European street with twinkly lights and baubles.

ifc mall, Podium Level 1, Oval Atrium, 8 Finance Street, Central; +852 2118 2288

Winter Wonderland European-style Christmas

Winter Wonderland will be held at the AsiaWorld-Expo from December 13th to January 2nd, bringing a European Christmas Village to town. A mecca of dining and shopping experiences, the Village will also be filled with photo opportunities and tons of exciting performances.

Glacier Ice House is one of its highlights. Built from hundreds of gigantic ice blocks, people can have a drink in the Arctic Circle world. House of Light is another highlight, an immersive interactive art installation developed by XCEPT that will present a crystalline tree under northern lights in Winter Wonderland. The venue is also great for those with children: MR. MEN LITTLE MISS Xmas Maze and a Christmas theme inflatable play zone can give children memorable moments.

Winter Wonderland, AsiaWorld-Expo Hall 2, Airport Expo Blvd, Chek Lap Kok, Lantau; +852 3606 8888

Citygate Outlets Outdoor Christmas Market

This winter, Citygate Outlets is celebrating the beloved tradition of Christmas Markets with renowned German handicraft brand Wendt & Kühn. The Jolly Christmas Market in Tung Chung is set to open for three consecutive weekends from December 10th, under a 4.3-metre German-style Christmas Pyramid in the outdoor areas on Level 4. Joined by Wendt & Kühn's mischievous angels, the Christmas market will host over 40 unique stalls to offer shoppers an array of gifting ideas, delightful Christmas ornaments, clothes, handicrafts and festive delicacies.

Apart from shopping – don't miss highlights such as Poki Ng's trendy brand Lost Life, jewellery brand ohmydeer designed by Adrian Wong, and Lantau social enterprise Tai O Fei Mao Li, German organic honey Hexapi Honey – you'll also catch music performances from local rising star MC Cheung, as well as newcomers Alfred Wu, Tracy Chow and Ho Pui Ting.

The Jolly Christmas Market is open from December 10th to 12th, December 17th to 19th and December 24th to 27th.

Citygate Outlet, 20 Tat Tung Rd, Tung Chung; +852 2109 2933

Après-Ski Village at the HK Golf and Tennis Academy

Another Christmas event that cannot be missed is the Après-Ski Village if you are a sports lover. Hosted by the Hong Kong Golf and Tennis Academy (HKGTA) the Après-Ski Village will run on its Sai Kung premises until January 2nd. This pop-up event brings a series of sports challenges, a brand new ice rink, and fantastic winter market to its members. In Tai Chung Hau, guests at the Après-Ski Village will be greeted with welcome drinks before they immerse themselves in golf experience sessions with the help from top-tier golf coaches in Hong Kong. What's more, Little Ice Town and Little Christmas Chalet will be serving delicious foods and warm drinks. The finest delicacies and traditional holiday favorites can be discovered at the Global Winter Fair.

Hong Kong Golf and Tennis Academy, Hong Kong Golf and Tennis Academy, 81 Tai Chung Hau, Sai Kung; +852 3187 8900

The post A Taste of Christmas with Glenmorangie (A Christmas Giveaway) appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Today’s world of whisky is a complex one, with the spirit’s explosion in popularity bringing to light several different characters, from the simple drinker to the collector, the investor and the dreaded “whisky flipper”.

Wind the clock back 10 to 15 years, when things were less complicated. Sure, people collected whisky, drank whisky and invested in whisky, but these were simpler pursuits, and the hobby was significantly less mainstream. Japanese whiskies were still relatively unknown, new whisky releases didn’t cause websites to crash due to excessive traffic (or road blockages due to actual traffic), and overpriced, over-marketed and often immature whiskies were nowhere near as prevalent.

The meteoric rise in whisky’s popularity has, however, led to a number of positives, with most distilleries now offering a much larger range, “independent bottlers” (who buy casks from distilleries and bottle the spirit under their own label) increasing in prominence, and a sharp rise in “new world” or “world whisky” producers – which, interestingly, includes old-world wine countries such as France and Italy, alongside the likes of Australia, India and Taiwan.

So, where does this new-found mainstream popularity leave each category of whisky lover?

The Whisky Drinker

First of all, whisky drinkers – particularly those who’ve been enjoying whisky for a decade or more – may be frustrated by the current state of the market, with bottles they previously knew and loved either no longer available, or prohibitively expensive (Macallan 30-Year-Old, which was once available for a few thousand dollars, now commands prices of HK$45,000 – if you can find it at all). On the other hand, whisky drinkers are spoiled for choice, with an abundance of whiskies from distilleries new and old, large and small, to suit any budget. The surge in demand has also seen the opening of a number of bars in Hong Kong – Club Qing, House Welley and Tiffany’s New York Bar, for example – all serving whiskies to suit everyone from the most dedicated enthusiast to the rank beginner.

Lars Ruecker, director of F&B at the InterContinental Grand Stanford (home to Tiffany’s New York Bar), sees these changes impacting customers’ tastes. He notes “a shift in demand from mainstream whiskies towards smaller distillers, with a focus on craftsmanship as well as local-inspired bottles, either bottled in conjunction with an event or venue, or exclusively for an Asian market”.

The Whisky Collector

Whisky collectors – those who collect out of sheer passion and are often by definition whisky drinkers themselves – might say they have it good or bad, depending on which of them you ask. These days, the options available for collecting are immense, to the extent that some collectors focus almost exclusively on specific niches, such as English distilleries (Bimber especially, which is seeing enormous popularity despite only releasing its first whisky two years ago) and Australian whiskies (particularly those from Melbourne’s Starward and Sydney’s Archie Rose). Of course, there are still plenty of collectors with their sights set on rare vintage Scotch (most notably Macallan, Ardbeg, Springbank and Bowmore) and popular Japanese bottles (including Karuizawa, Hanyu, Yamazaki and Chichibu), but these endeavours now require deep pockets.

Although spirit auctions were held in Hong Kong long before the current popularity surge, the rise of online whisky auctions has been a good indicator of increasing collector demand, with tens of thousands of lots available monthly via a plethora of sites. Kam Daswani, managing partner of local whisky business Dram Good Stuff, actually sees the auction market driving demand for high-end bottles in retail too. “Led by large jumps in the auction market, clients are now not only looking to buy for immediate consumption, but are increasingly educating themselves to purchase also for long-term holdings,” he says.

It’s not just bottles that are being collected either. Whisky casks have become a popular choice, whereby an entire cask of whisky (most commonly 200 to 500 litres) is bought and either bottled, or left to further mature for bottling at a future date. Although ownership of casks from popular Scottish distilleries has become more difficult in recent years (a combination of increasing demand and decreasing supply), there’s a growing number of newer distilleries willing to sell a freshly filled cask to potential owners for a single up-front payment (for example, I bought a small cask of Archie Rose whisky to celebrate a family milestone). Turn-key cask purchases such as these (which include the spirit, cask, maturation/storage, insurance, bottling, labelling, taxes and shipping) differ from the traditional model, where the additional costs are often separate and at the owner’s (sometimes significant) expense. Cask ownership can be fun, but the industry is rife with tales of those who’ve overpaid or been scammed, so it pays to do ample research.

Garreth Christopher, a whisky lover who buys casks for personal enjoyment and to share with friends, likes Diageo’s Casks of Distinction, which are available from the drinks giant’s Scottish distilleries. “I own a few CoDs, because they can guarantee their sourcing and the liquid is just fantastic,” says Christopher, who recently bottled a 33-year-old from Dalwhinnie distillery.

The line between investors and collectors can often be a blurry one, but investors looking to make a return must ensure the whisky is unopened and kept under suitable conditions (upright, and away from sunlight and extreme temperatures). This category, too, has seen a surge in participants, and it’s not hard to see why when firms such as Knight Frank quote (via its Rare Whisky Index, which tracks rare Scottish single malts) a 586-percent growth over the past decade.

To put this growth into perspective, a pair of Ichiro’s Malt Hanyu “Jokers” bottles sold in 2017 for HK$122,000 at Bonhams; earlier this year, another two sold for HK$446,000 (and in November, a full set of 54 “Cards” bottles fetched HK$11.89 million). Two years ago, a bottle of 1926 60-year-old Macallan sold at Sotheby’s for £1.5 million, whereas in the late 2000s a similar bottle is said to have sold for “just” US$75,000.

These are extreme examples, but they do illustrate the popularity of whisky as an investment. Of course, as with casks, caution and research are important.

The Whisky Flipper

Last (and least) are the “whisky flippers”, despised by many in the whisky world but simply a function of the current state of the market. Flippers look to make significant financial returns in a short space of time by buying whiskies at retail prices when demand outstrips supply, and then selling for profit later. Flippers aren’t unique to whisky (just look at eBay shortly after a Supreme drop), and though they’re not going anywhere, at least some distilleries have made laudable efforts to deter them. Dornoch Distillery, for example, hides a Willy Wonka-esque “golden ticket” beneath the cork of one first-release bottle, which rewards the lucky purchaser with a free cask of whisky if it’s redeemed within two years – thereby encouraging the opening of the bottle and the consumption of at least some of its contents.

With so many changes in the whisky world, do whisky lovers have it better or worse today? As with many things in life, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. In the opinion of this author, it’s best simply to embrace it by sitting back, pouring yourself a dram and enjoying the scene for what it is today.

The post Kindred Spirits: A Profile of Whisky’s Many Personalities appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.