Whisky is a complex spirit with a range of flavors. The Macallan recognizes that introducing whisky to some people requires a bit of education. Knowing that smell is such an important element in taste, they thought it would be an interesting experiment to teach people about the flavors of whisky. The Macallan‘s partnership with celebrated British perfumer Roja Dove created an olfactory experience to do just that.

The Macallan and Roja Dove Sensory Experience takes people through the spectrum of scent, educating the nose in common whisky notes. It’s meant to help people approach the whisky palate without the immediate—and often overpowering—alcoholic sensation so that later on, tasting the whiskey may bring out characteristics that may otherwise have been missed. “Everybody so far has said that they are shocked that they are able to smell things in the whisky that they have never, ever noticed before,” explains Dove. I was lucky enough to spend an hour going through the Experience with Dove and David Cox, director of The Macallan’s Fine and Rare whiskies and indeed learned to distinguish the various components that give whisky its flavor.

Dove selected 12 pure essences that he felt were representative of different whiskey traits. The first six introduce scent pairs that help distinguish between things like stillness versus volatility, fruitiness versus spiciness, and maturity versus immaturity. Dove’s experience goes back and forth between scents in an opposite way from traditional whisky-tasting, bringing out base notes after the high notes and the sweet before the dry. The kit provides a certain education that a tasting alone cannot. The second set of six scents creates two aromatic blends that imitate whiskies from The Macallan range, which are later used in combination with the whisky during tasting. By the end, the nose has been properly trained and participants leave equipped with the vocabulary to go forward and taste whiskey on their own. It’s perhaps not a surprise that through his own methods Dove has come to appreciate and enjoy whisky. The box contains scent strips for testing and glasses to combine the scents into a “bouquet,” which mirrors the whiskey-tasting experience. Armed with this educational tool, The Macallan’s brand ambassadors are set to spread the essence of their spirit through scent, hoping to convert non-believers to the fascinating world of scotch whisky and provide connoisseurs with an additional tool for appreciation

Via: psssst

Opera fireplace is a new project created by  Sebastian Errazuriz.
It is a hand-carved from 600 pounds of italian marble,this sculpture reproduces an opera stage complete with curtains, stage, floorboards and stairs, yet is also fully functional, designed to be installed in any house.
The fireplace comes equipped with several wooden figures and a scaffolding structure, constructed from maple logs and carved by hand as well.

Via: Designboom

Copyright@2009 Photography by Fırat Akarsel

“Terrifying beauty focuses on the trends of cosmetic surgery to question conventions of beauty and challenge the function of jewelery as adornment.”

Via Burcu Büyükünal

Ruigwerk (Roughwork) is a food design studio aiming for creating unforgettable moments trough food experience.
Check out their projects here.

KK Outlet is a multifunctional office combining a communications agency with a gallery and bookshop in London set up by the Amsterdam based communications agency KesselsKramer.

For the royal wedding KK Outlet’s recently unveilved ‘unofficial’ Wills and Kate souvenir plates.

Bompas & Parr, is a London based studio which merges food, architecture and art, creating  amazing food experiences often working on an architectural scale with cutting edge technology.

Some of their projects includes:

The Ziggurat of Flavour

The Ziggurat of Flavour is a pyramidal installation containing a cloud of breathable fruit. For the first time ever visitors will be able to contribute to their five-a-day just by breathing.After negotiating the dense mist of vaporized fruit, visitors emerge onto a slide at the top of the structure. As they slide back down  their kinetic energy will be harnessed to make the cloud even denser.

The fruit cloud is formatted as a labyrinth you can taste. The fresh fruit is being prepared onsite, liquefied through Heath Robinesque machinery and clarified though reverse osmosis.

Taste becomes spatialised as a public realm, scaled up from bodily interior to building interior. In this way the fruit becomes architecture – an immersive, habitable environment.

The Ziggurat of Flavour draws inspiration from 18^th Century Cuccagna monuments. These formed the centerpieces for the most spectacular public celebrations in history.  They were vast architectural structures made of food based on the peasant tale of the Land of Cockaigne; a mythical place with mountains of cheese, rainstorms of cake and where all wildlife was pre-cooked and waiting to be eaten.

Architectural Punchbowl

Architectural Punchbowl is a project where the briefing was to  explode cocktails to the scale of buildings. As a result they flooded 33 Portland Place with over four tonnes of punch – enough for 25,000 people. The Punchbowl was so large that engineers Arup had to make sure the building wouldn’t collapse under the weight of alcohol. Visitors rafted across the punch before having a drink and toying with the remote control garnishes.

Alcoholic Architecture

The UK’s first walk-in cocktail

Alcoholic Architecture is a walk-in cloud of breathable cocktail. Visitors donned protective suits before entering into a mist of vaporised gin and tonic which they imbibed through inhaling.

A nice and simple project by the dutch designer Klaas Kuiken.

A simple, nice and beautiful project by Tiziana Haug

RACER DEMO 0.1 – video game mashup from sputnic on Vimeo.

RACER is an analogue recreation of a computer racing game in the style of the classic WipeOut.

It consists of a modified vintage arcade machine, a RC model car with a wireless camera,an a self-constructed racetrack/game level made entirely from cardboard.

The actions of the arcade player are directly reflected by the remote controlled model car in the level.live video image from the car’s perspective  is sent back to the arcade.