The Glendronach Celebrates 200 Years With Its Oldest Whisky Yet

22hJohn McMahon

The luxury travel industry is in turmoil this week... And it’s pretty red hot. A couple of days ago, independent hotel reviewer and YouTuber, Ryan Walker, was refused entry to the brand-new Amanvari resort in Cabo.$6,000 USD per night. Paid for himself. Day two of the hotel’s official opening week.He arrived at the front gates only to be told that his reservation was cancelled, the manager was not available to speak to, and when they stood their ground, the cops were called to escort them out.Absolutely unbelievable scenes. What’s since unfolded is arguably just as crazy – luxury travel advisors defending Aman online, the hotel’s GM deleting his LinkedIn, the same GM allegedly getting his friends and family to write positive reviews on Google, Aman’s social team turning off the comment function on Instagram, and, get this… absolutely no word from Aman at all. Not even an acknowledgement. Watch the video for yourself, and then enjoy the Reddit threads, and get up to speed on all the goss here.

I've just discovered Blancpain and Biopixel have tagged two whale sharks as part of the movement-research side of their partnership, with Richard Fitzpatrick and Dr Adam Barnett tracking how they move between protected and unprotected reef zones around Australia.The best bit is that the two fish are named Blancpain and Fifty Fathoms, after the brand and its dive watch. Both are trackable in near real-time through the Great Reef Census's citizen platform so you can see distance covered, swim speed, days tracked, the lot. Pretty cool, I thought.

Suntory House is taking over Sydney's late-night Japanese izakaya Sakura House for the third year running. Well, its basement, to be more specific, for nine weeks all the way through to 3 October. The brand is calling it Sydney’s latest nomika (a Japanese drinking sesh), with experimental cocktails, Japanese shareplates, and a stacked vending machine. No bookings required, so perfect to duck into for some late-night revelling.

We've just landed back from Melbourne where ASICS SportStyle's second annual Pop Up on Exhibition Street had us debating which pair to chase first. The EARLS collab is the one everyone will no doubt rush for, exclusive to the Pop Up and probably your last shot this weekend (8 August) before it's gone. I heard one bloke flew to Singapore to get his hands on a pair. The food was also worth the visit, with Melbourne's local sandwich legends Hugo’s serving lunch, and a matcha banana smoothie made me forget I was in Australia’s coffee capital. 264 Exhibition Street until Sunday, with free entry at the door.

Some good news for your Thursday Aussie researchers have now developed a blood test that detects early indicators of Alzheimer’s within 18 minutes. It has 90% accuracy in detecting markers 20 years before the disease develops visibly. They’ve greenlit trials, with a goal to eventually include this as a part of your regular checkup. Without a known cure, it’s the leading cause of death in Australia. So would you take the test?

Stop the search; call off the dogs. Five years after Daniel Craig hung up the Walther PPK in ‘No Time to Die’, the search for the next James Bond has finally been given a deadline, with producer Amy Pascal revealing that we should have a new man in the hot seat by the end of 2026. It’s the clearest indication we’ve had yet, though that doesn’t exactly mean we can’t speculate on every rumour until then.