5…4…3…2…1…
For a most distinctive bubbly to accompany the ringing in of the New Year, consider this rare magnum Armand de Brignac Ace of Spades presented by the One & Only Reethi Rah beverage manager Craig.
…Happy New Year!
Best of the Maldives: Mini-Bar Wine – Soneva Fushi
Not all ‘minis’ are mini. The ‘mini’-bar at Soneva Fushi’s Jungle Reserve Suite is an entire wine cellar! It contains several hundred bottles of fine vintage wines. No little single serving, screw-top bottles here.
Best of the Maldives: Secret Bar – LUX* Maldives
Secret bar! ‘Nuff said.
That was certainly the reaction by the TripAdvisor Maldives Forum when word got out about the ‘Secret Bar’ at LUX* Maldives. It’s just one of the countless surprises in the neverending adventure that is a stay at LUX* resort.
The ‘Secret Bar’ is on wheels so it can change location daily. When our family would visit the Maldives each year with our children, one of the ritual highlights was a treasure hunt we would stage for them on our own buccaneers isle. If we stayed at LUX* back then, I know that one way I would get an extra hour’s sleep and get them nice a tuckered out would be send them on a daily sortie to find Dad’s ‘Secret Bar’.
It works like a public mini-bar on an honesty system (genius) and so far they haven’t had any problems with unsavoury scallywags pirating liquid lucre.
Shiver me timbers! Me’ll have two black jacks’ of grog.
Best of the Maldives: Breakfast Juice – Soneva Gili
This is photo of Soneva Gili by Six Senses is courtesy of TripAdvisor.
If you prefer your revitalising fluids inside you rather than around you, then you might want to start you day off at Soneva Gili. I was first alerted to Soneva Gili’s exceptional juice array by Sakis in a Trip Advisor Forum post where he noted proposed Gili as one of the best breakfast buffets in the Maldives: “One of the best is Soneva Gili for breakfast buffet, the choice among 60 fresh juices makes it also unique.” Few people have seen more Maldive resorts than Sakis so it’s a pretty compelling endorsement to me.
Their juice menu is full of healthy and tasty concoctions like…
- “Ocean Basic” – Apple and Carrots
- “Morning Berry” – Raspberry, Apple, Orange, Spirulina
- “Bloody Carrot” – Carrot, Beetroot, Celery, Lime).
- “Green ‘n Pear It” – Broccoli, Celery, Pear (great name for anything with broccoli in it).
As you can see, their offerings include veggie juices as well as fruit. Each item on the menu also has a complete nutritional breakdown as well as notations on benefits to Energy, Detox, Immunity, Degestion and Skin.
Best of the Maldives: Whiskey – Island Hideaway
“Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.”
– Robert Burns, Address to a Hagis
Scots at heart around the world will be raising a wee dram in honour of ‘Rabbie Burrrns’ tonight. And if you are in the Maldives, then the best place for a Burns Supper is Island Hideaway with its Meeru Bar which boasts “the largest malt whiskey selection in the Indian Ocean.” Indeed, they serve up 60 different types of whiskey including Macallan 25 Year and Handmade 1976 Vintage Bourbon. The bar manager tells me that Macallan and Glen Moray are the most popular.
If you are having difficulty deciding on which malt to fill your glass with such a baffling array of options, then I suggest the following handy guide – Single Malt Whiskey Flavour Map.
To the health of the women!
Best of the Maldives: Vodka – W Retreat
Today is the Red Bull Air Race over Hulhumale capping off yesterday’s Red Bull Air Show (see photo below)
The classic, near iconic, Red Bull cocktail is the ‘Vodka Red Bull’. And if you are looking for the best place for vodka, the barn storming winner is without doubt the W Retreat. Specifically, it’s night club ’15 Below’ which prides itself on its dozens of varieties of vodka on offer in its vodka wall (see photo above).
Their most unusual vodka is Roberto Cavalli from Italy. Their most popular vodka cocktail is ‘Kiwi Spring’.
Right up there with the Ice Bar at the Ice Hotel as one of the best vodka bars in the world.
Check out series of videos from the event on YouTube.
Best of the Maldives: Hot Drinks Cafe – Kandooma
At first glance, one would expect that refreshing pina coladas and tropical coolers would be more the order of the day than a steaming mug of brew. Coffee and tea is more the craving for those colder, cloudier climes (like today which saw our first frost of the year at our home in England).
But for those visitors like myself who hail from those areas, our caffeine and other pet addictions don’t necessarily disappear despite the sunshine. I still love a satisfying latte in the morning or a cappuccino to top off a lovely meal. I find that one of the find things I have when I get back home is a fresh cup of home brewed coffee as one of the things that I miss during my trips to the Maldives. Relatively few resorts get this important beverage just right by the standards of the European and American cafe and Starbucks culture (though the rise and popularity of Nespresso machines have become de rigeur accessories for a 5-star room these days). Those that do don’t have anywhere near the decadent array of choice that we are also spoiled by. But Kandooma has introduced its Bokkuraa Coffee Club with a broad range of specialty coffees and teas served in an stylish outdoor cafe. It even has soy milk.
Best of the Maldives: Re-fresh-ment – Kandooma
Kuramathi wasn’t the first resort to offer locally made beverage. While coffee presses are all the rage at the luxury resorts, Kandooma offers a more natural orange juice press in every room. My wife and I enjoyed fresh OJ the mornings we were there and it was a real re-FRESH-ing treat and change from the bottled, processed stuff normally found in a mini-bar. As the old jingle goes, ‘A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine’…and that would be a real shame in the Maldives!
Best of the Maldives: Bottled Water – Kuramathi
If you prefer to imbibe rather than immerse in Maldivian aqueous refreshment, then Kuramathi has developed the tipple for you…
“Kuramathi Water. This clean, potable water made on the island emanates from a Classic Crystal purification system, ensuring the highest levels of quality and standards. The finished product is a glass bottle containing fresh drinking water. The bottle comes in two sizes, 500ml and 1 litre, and is a complimentary amenity for guests staying on Full Board. The bottles are also replenished from the guest’s stock every day. Reusing glass bottles is a milestone for Kuramathi, making our carbon footprint smaller as it would save the usage of about 300,000 plastic bottles discarded every year. To provide our guests with a memoir of Kuramathi, the bottles will be sold at the bars for very reasonable prices. One other interesting aspect about this water is that they are bottled in two forms; as still and sparkling waters.”
Perfectly timed launch coinciding with the Maldives’ ‘Always Natural’ campaign.
Among the old-timer Maldives aficionados, there is a bit of nostalgia for the ‘no shoes, no news’ simplicity of old school Maldivian simple paradise. One of the details of that nearly by-gone era that my wife Lori and I miss are the battered ‘re-used’ soda bottles. With the ecological mantra of “Reduce-Reuse-Recycle”, the re-used bottles were actually more environmentally progressive than the current practice of recycling. They had a sea-glass charm covered with the patina of many quenched thirsts. They also had sturdy heft to them for durability, but also making drinking from the bottle like holding a sculpted glass mug. But, Kuramathi now takes it a reuse a step further adding locally produced beverage.
Best of the Maldives: Japanese – Vadoo
If Zen is your thing, then Vadoo might just be another resort to consider. Vadoo has developed an entire Japanese experience including Ryokan style water villas designed and services by Japanese, Japanese Tea ceremony, and a traditional Japanese ‘Kaiseki’ dinner served at the restaurant or in room.
“The tea ceremony is a very special event in Japanese culture. The host spends days going over every detail to make sure that the ceremony will be perfect. There are various styles of tea ceremonies and it is recognized that every human encounter is a singular occasion, and so every aspect of the tea ceremony is savored. The ceremony takes place in a room called the chashitsu.”