This week: This past week I was away, and doing some much needed R&R before I headed to Pastranaland… Where I think I nearly OD’d on adrenline. More to come on that next week!

The Scotch Whisky Masters 2026 results landed this month, and the story hiding in the fine print is a good one: Islay single malts pulled two Master medals, ten Golds, and a Silver, and six of those Golds went to no age statement (NAS) whiskies, the category most drinkers skip past on their way to something with a number on the label [1]. That's worth sitting with. NAS whisky gets a bad reputation it doesn't always earn, and this flight is a good argument for why.

The science bit first, because it's relevant to why these are priced the way they are. Age statements exist because maturation time correlates with certain flavor outcomes, more time in oak generally means more extraction of lignin-derived vanillin and tannins, along with oxidative reactions that mellow harsher congeners. But correlation isn't the whole story. Cask type, char level, warehouse conditions, and spirit cut all shape the final profile just as much as time does, which is exactly why a well-built NAS release can outperform an underwhelming age-stated one in blind judging. This flight was judged blind, which makes the results harder to wave off as marketing.

The six Gold winners:

Three producers split the six, and the spread says something about where Islay is right now. Kilchoman, founded in 2005 as the island's only farm distillery and the first new Islay distillery in 124 years, was the most decorated of the three, adding a Silver for Sanaig on top of its two Golds [1]. Ardnahoe took the other two Golds despite only filling its first cask in November 2018, meaning everything in its range is young by Islay standards; Jim McEwan came out of retirement from Bruichladdich to set up production, and the distillery runs worm tub condensers, the only ones on the island [1]. Worm tubs matter mechanistically: the long copper coils immersed in cold water give the vapor less copper contact and a slower condensation than modern shell-and-tube condensers, typically producing a heavier, more sulfur-influenced spirit.

The sixth Gold went to Port Askaig, the odd one out structurally. It isn't a distillery at all, it's a name used by Elixir Distillers for whisky sourced from an undisclosed producer, first released in 2015, withdrawn, then brought back in May 2026. Elixir is now building its own distillery, Portintruan, just outside Port Ellen, with Georgie Crawford (previously of Lagavulin) running it [1]. Worth watching for a future issue once that comes online.

Every bottle on this list lands under $90, several under $60. For a category that gets treated as a luxury purchase by default, that's gnarly.

Three limited editions worth knowing about this week, each pulling from a different well: motorsport nostalgia, coffee culture, and Japanese horticulture.

Start with the one that has a hard expiration date. Formula 1 returns to Zandvoort one final time this month, August 21-23, before the Dutch Grand Prix leaves the calendar for good, and the circuit's first-ever F1 Sprint weekend will be its send-off [2]. TAG Heuer, F1's official timekeeper, is marking the occasion with two Formula 1 Solargraph Zandvoort limited editions, both drenched in the Orange Army's signature color. Both versions share a 38mm sandblasted steel case with a bidirectional orange TH-Polylight bezel, running on the Calibre TH50-00 solar quartz movement with roughly 10 months of charge autonomy [3]. The split is simple: 1,500 pieces on orange rubber at $2,150, or 1,000 pieces on a steel bracelet as an online exclusive at $2,250 [3]. Worth noting for the piece: this isn't really a grand complication story, it's a eulogy watch, built for a race that fans fought hard to bring back in 2021 and are now watching leave again. I personally love this release. These new Forumla 1’s are awesome.

Closer to home, Brew just dropped something worth flagging fast: as of this morning the piece is already sold out. The Retrograph Stone Blend Automatic takes a pietersite stone dial designed to evoke the swirl of milk blending into cold brew coffee, a callback to the visual language Brew has built its whole identity around [4]. It's cased in stainless steel with a gold PVD coating at 38mm by 10.4mm, running Miyota's 9015 automatic movement visible through an exhibition caseback, on a pebble grain leather strap [4]. Limited to 250 pieces at $775, and gone already, which says something about where Brew sits with collectors right now.

The third piece leans furthest into craft. Seiko's Presage line has spent years mining traditional Japanese techniques, and the new HCC009 partners with Tradman's Bonsai to bring that discipline onto a dial. The 38mm gold-tone case houses a dial rendered in matsuba-iro green, a traditional color associated with good fortune, with a textured pine-needle finish meant to evoke black pine bonsai under moonlight [5]. It runs on the 6R51 movement, rated for 72 hours of power reserve and accuracy of +25/-15 seconds per day, and ships with a second leather strap featuring a pine-needle motif on the reverse [5]. Limited to 2,000 pieces at $1,350.

Porsche had a busy week reminding everyone why it's still the standard enthusiasts measure everything else against, and it did it three completely different ways.

Start with the most surprising (and exciting) reversal. When the 992.2 mid-cycle refresh landed, Porsche quietly dropped the manual transmission from the Carrera S, and the backlash was loud enough that one outlet called it a global panic among purists [6]. Now Porsche has walked it back. The new Carrera S with MT Package pairs a 3.0-liter twin-turbo flat-six making 473 horsepower [7] with a six-speed manual shared with the Carrera T [8], and it's positioned as the missing rung between that car and the far more serious (and far more expensive) GT3. The number that actually explains why this matters: of the nearly 400 new model-year 2026 trims sold in the US, only 29 come with a manual at all, and above the $125,000 mark that pool is vanishingly small [9]. Porsche is now one of the only manufacturers still willing to sell you a six-figure car you have to actually drive.

Then there's the collaboration that has nothing to do with engineering and everything to do with story. Louis Vuitton and Singer, the California restomod house known for reimagining 964-generation 911s, unveiled two bespoke builds at Monterey Car Week. Worth being precise here: this isn't a factory Porsche project, Singer builds on top of donor 911s independently of Stuttgart.

But the result is genuinely covetable. The whole collaboration reportedly grew out of a simple request for a detachable dashboard clock modeled on Vuitton's Tambour watch [10], which is about as clean a bridge between the watch world and the car world as you'll find.

It expanded into a full co-branded project, the first for both companies, with Vuitton trimming both cabins in its own leather and supplying matching one-off luggage [11]. The accessory capsule is its own small universe: a racing jacket, custom driving shoes, perforated gloves, and a carbon fiber helmet finished in calfskin [12].

The third build is the one that actually required an engineering department. Porsche's Sonderwunsch division, its factory bespoke arm, took a customer's 2018 GT2 RS and turned it into a modern homage to the 935/78 "Moby Dick" Le Mans racer. The customer's brief was simple on paper: more performance, a Flachbau look, and a rear wing inspired by the current GT3 R Rennsport race car [13]. Getting there wasn't simple at all. The project took nearly three years and pulled in Style Porsche, Weissach's development engineers, Porsche Motorsport, and Manthey Racing [14]. The payoff shows up in the numbers: 1,221 pounds of downforce at 211 mph [15], and a rear wing endurance tested to loads equivalent to roughly 93,200 miles of customer driving [16]. It's a useful reminder of what separates a real Sonderwunsch commission from a rebody kit: the original 1980s Flachbau was cosmetic, this one got a development program.

Put together, it's three different answers to the same question. What does a 911 buyer actually want in 2026? Apparently: to row their own gears, to wear the car as much as drive it, or to have Weissach quietly reengineer a race legend just for them.

Outro: This week it was nice to see some “refresh” in the lineup. Seeing the price of the Islays is great. And honestly, seeing that Porsche brought back the Manual in the Carrera S, is huge. Seriously. Maybe, just maybe, the consumer can have fun again.