The company name “Wealth Solutions” may make you think of a vehicle in which ultra high net worth individuals can invest their money. In a way, it is. But rather than deal in the mundane worlds of equities, trust funds, hedge funds and investment banking, Wealth Solutions comes up with unique products for aficionados of “exceptional goods such as fine Bordeaux wines, top quality whisky, unique Swiss watches and art.” Three of the company’s quirkier projects actually involve combining two of these exceptional goods into limited editions of even more exceptional luxury products for the connoisseur of fine spirits and fine watchmaking.
The Cognac watch
In February 2016 Wealth Solutions teamed up with Armin Strom to present the “Cognac Watch” as a limited edition of just 40 pieces, each containing a tiny drop of the world’s oldest cognac – a Gautier 1762.
The Rum watch
Speake-Marin followed in the same year with the world’s oldest rum inside one of its watches. The 1780 Harewood rum is preserved for posterity inside a small sapphire crystal capsule inside the watch.
The Whisky watch
The latest watch brand to team up with Wealth Solutions is Louis Moinet, which has incorporated the world’s oldest whisky – Old Vatted Glenlivet 1862, into a limited edition of 10 watches in rose gold and 40 in stainless steel. This latest project was only made possible with the support of Sukhinder Singh, a British collector of rare alcoholic beverages, who wanted to pass one of his greatest treasures on to future generations. It’s the kind of values that those in the watch industry are only too familiar with.
What’s next – the absinthe watch?
Swiss cheese has already been immortalised in a one-off Swiss timepiece, so why not absinthe – the spirit that originate in Switzerland and was a favourite tipple of famous authors and artists, from Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce to Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh. Because of spurious claims about the danger it posed, absinthe was banned in the United States and across much of Europe (including its native Switzerland) at the turn of the twentieth century. Its revival only started in the 1990s and it now flourishes in its original homeland in the Val de Travers. So although the absinth watch is a stunt you might expect from the same people who brought you the cheese watch, there are three other watch brands with a much more legitimate reason to preserve a capsule of the “Green Fairy” in their watches. Bovet, Chopard and Parmigiani all have production facilities in the Val de Travers and are thus primate candidates for an absinthe watch. There is no shortage of “pre-ban” bottlings available if you know where to look.
