Louis Moinet’s New Watch Preserves A Drop Of Old Whisky For Posterity
Boutique watchmaker Louis Moinet has teamed up with Wealth Solutions, a company that caters to elite collectors, to create a watch for whisky lovers with a taste for whimsical extravagance. The Whisky Watch features a clear capsule in the dial that holds a drop of one of the oldest whiskies in the world: Old Vatted Glenlivet 1862—a bottle of which sold at auction in 2013 for $7,735.
Bottled as The Civil War raged, the spirit used in the watch came courtesy of Sukhinder Singh, a British collector and owner of The Whisky Exchange. His precious bottle was opened in March for the project, the third in a series of spirit watches produced through similar partnerships between watchmakers and Wealth Solutions, which curates collections of rare alcoholic beverages, art and watches. Previous watches include a Speake-Marin Rum Watch, holding a drop of 1780 Harewood Rum, and a Cognac Watch, with 1762 Gautier Cognac, by Armin Strom.
Louis Monet's Whisky Watch is available in 18-karat rose gold (10 pieces at $49,900) or stainless steel (40 pieces at $19,900). The time-only watch features a lacquered small seconds dial at 9 o'clock and the whisky capsule at 3 o'clock. The striking three-level dial is distinguished with Goutte de Rosée dew-drop hands and open-worked Roman hour markers, and the in-house LM45 automatic movement has a power reserve of 48 hours.
In the past, Louis Moinet has produced rarefied six-figure watches with dials made from exotic materials, such as fossils and meteorites. The Whisky Watch plays with the notion of a timekeeper that doubles as a time capsule, while also serving as a conversation piece at cocktail hour.
