The Boston Beer Company has created a unique program to benefit low and moderate income microentrepreneurs seeking to make their fortune in the food and beverage industry. Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream will provide these entrepreneurs with the tools they need to help them grow and succeed. Boston Beer has partnered with Accion USA which is the country's leading not-for-profit micro-lending organization providing critical capital and other types of assistance to small businesses. Boston Beer has made an initial $250,000 commitment to establish the Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream Micro-Loan Fund at Accion to provide much needed capital for lower and moderate income microentrepreneurs whose businesses would not be approved for a bank loan. Accion USA business loans range from $500-$25,000.
Boston Beer also plans to develop and execute a series of business education and financial literacy seminars aimed at the educational needs of food and beverage entrepreneurs and offer microentrepreneurs access to the advice and expertise of Samuel Adams employees through regular events. Brewer and founder Jim Koch says he was driven to create this program because he was one of the "little guys" when he started Samuel Adams back in 1984. He's shown above handing a check to the first recipient of the program, Carlene O'Garro, a Boston baker who runs Delectable Desires, a dessert bakery and caterer.
Today's home is located in a prime area off Dupont Circle in Washington D.C. This home was built in 1890 and is a stately townhome on Massachusetts Avenue next to many other similar homes which are embassies, cultural institutions, foundations, associations and private residences. The first floor of the home is given over to grand public rooms for entertaining including double formal parlors and a large dining room with a fireplace. There is also a catering kitchen and a custom wine cellar . The second through fourth floors are the family space including a family kitchen, living room and five bedrooms. The home is done in a luxurious and formal style that would befit the family of a senator or dignitary. It is listed at $17.5 million.
Summertime in the sweltering South calls for that thirst relieving concoction known as sweet tea. Now a South Carolina distiller has created a liquored-up version. Firefly Sweet Tea vodka is an infusion of American Tea and Firefly Vodka which is a muscadine grape vodka. The new flavor is a huge hit in Charleston where local bartenders are creating new tasty drinks for summer sippers. The vodka is sold in South Carolina, Colorado, Nevada, New York currently and will soon be making its way to other states but it's perhaps best experienced in states where sweet tea is already a beloved drink.
Thistle & Bee sells a variety of luxury objects including jewelry, picture frames, home goods and baby gifts. The company has a full range of sterling silver products including a large range of enameled pieces such as cufflinks and keychains. The American flag keychain shown above has handpainted enamel detail and sells for $250.
Thistle & Bee has now expanded into gemstones and fine jewelry with new collections of gold pieces featuring diamonds and colored stones. Examples and prices are in the gallery below.
In the summer months the American Red Cross often struggles to collect much needed blood because many potential donors are on vacation and colleges are not in session. In southern New Hampshire, International Cars, Ltd. and the American Red Cross have a unique solution to this problem. They are offering the Drive of a Lifetime, a summer promotion at the grand opening event for the new Porsche of Stratham and Audi Stratham. The care dealer is raffling off a one-year lease of a new Porsche to presenting blood donors in New Hampshire this summer. Those who donate between now and Sept. 30 will have the opportunity to enter to win. All who donate blood and visit any of International Cars' five New Hampshire locations can get a second entry through a test drive or vehicle service.
It's a bit bulky but if you your weekends involve a lot of tailgating, the Party-A-CarGo just might be for you. The Party-A-CarGo is a hitch-mountable, self-contained beer kegerator/entertainment system. It can pour up to 160 ice cold beers, play 12 hours of music and TV without having to recharge the battery. It has its own power source, a deep cycle marine battery, and a built-in battery charger. It also includes a five pound CO2 tank, a keg tap D-system, faucet wrench and drain tray. The entertainment package includes 230 watt, 6 X 9 speakers, a 10" subwoofer, 2 or 4-channel amplifier, CD player, satellite radio and a LCD screen with TV tuner. The dimensions are 50 w x 35 h x 26 d with 10" hitch post and it weight 80 pounds empty. It sells for $2,900-$3,800 depending on options.
Here in the U.S. real estate woes have been common for a few years but lately it's not so rosy overseas either. The IHT reports that luxury-home prices in central London, the world's most expensive location for prime real estate have fallen for two months in a row. Knight Frank's analysis reveals that the average price of houses and apartments in London's nine most expensive neighborhoods fell 1.7 percent in June from a month earlier which cut the annual increase to 7.5 percent, down from a peak of 38 percent in August.
Like other markets, the peak end is doing well. In the London market homes costing more than £10 million did fall for the first time in three years on a monthly basis bit values are still 23 percent higher than a year ago. The market for the prime properties at this level is partially fueled by international buyers, especially from Russia, India and the Middle East, including billionaires like Roman Abramovich and Lakshmi Mittal.
Today's grand estate is located in Malvern, a small town that was once the end of the Mail Line railroad in Pennsylvania. Today's home is located on a quiet country road and expands over 19 acres. The six-bedroom home has an original part that dates back to 1755 but had a major addition six years ago. There are 40 rooms total including a home theater, a large kitchen, hand-carved Parisian paneled living room and a billiards room in over 18,500 square feet. The grounds include a pool, tennis court, pond and there is a beautiful terrace that looks out over rolling green lawns. This home is listed at $10.5 million.
Rapper Lil Wayne is the latest celebrity to announce his own booze brand. Lil Wayne is partnering with Milestone Brands and French grower Voirin-Jumel to create Halo Champagne. A bottle of the appeared in the video for his song "Lollipop." The Halo Champagne will be available in four styles, Brut, Brut Vintage, Rose and Halo Pinnacle and will be out this fall. He joins a long list of actors and musicians with their own wine-related projects, check out the gallery below.
Italian accessories company Breil Milano has opened a new flagship store at 148 Spring Street in Soho, New York City. The stores is one in a series of flagship stores which Breil Milano is opening luxury cities. It evolves from the new monobrand boutiques recently opened in Berlin (February 2008), Florence and Barcelona (April 2008) .
The New York store is located in a historical building but the boutique has a modern contemporary style which combines warm color tones with bronze and green tints. The entire left-hand wall is covered by original tiles by Dutch artist Edwin Vlassenroot who also sculpted lampshades in copper.A more private space has been created at the lower level where jewelry and watches are available to the public. The next stores are planned for Rome and Milan.
Philippe Starck has designed yachts, hotels and countless household items but his latest challenge might just be his greatest. Starck is helping to design the accouterments of France's turn at the European presidency. France is famous for style and wants to carry that into this new regime and so the foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner hired Starck as an artistic director: Philippe Starck. As Starck, who is not known for his modesty, explains it to the AFP, there are a lot of things that are given to journalists, ministers, delegates and now "for the first time in the history of the EU, everything produced will be of high quality."
Items produced so far include pens, notebooks and a goodie bag sent to all French MPs that included stationery and a pale gray tie. Some of the women MPs, who all received the ties weren't too thrilled with the gift. Starck has also designed a special two euro coin.
There are few apartments in New York more romantic than this one. This penthouse in the St. Urban building at 285 Central Park West is a writer's dream with a library that makes me weak in the knees. The circular, two-level library is inside the domed northern turret of the building. The lower floor has bird's eye maple bookcases, and the top floor or thinking level is designed as a reading retreat inside the dome, opening to a private rooftop reading terrace and observation deck. The library looks out over the park and the city.
The penthouse also includes a living room with wood burning fireplace and access to a terrace, two-story greenhouse, dining room, chef's kitchen and a master suite with two dressing rooms and two marble bathrooms. The second bedroom has a wood burning fireplace, and both the second and third bedrooms have marble baths. There are also two laundry rooms.
The apartment was cobbled together by architect Lee Harris Pomeroy from several different spaces to create one unit with two wings which are anchored by the central turret. It was no easy task, new windows were cut through the mansard roof for better park views. The apartment is 4,000 square feet total and the St. Urban includes amenities such as a 24 hour doorman, a basketball court, full gym, and bicycle storage. This apartment is listed at $14.5 million.
The Wall Street Journal has tackled a story we first heard about last February, the rise in prestigious license plates in Abu Dhabi. In this growing area more and more pricey cars are hitting the road every day and a prestigious license plate number is a hot accessory. In Abu Dhabi, monthly auctions of worthy numbers, (typically 1-10 and 11-99 are the most popular), bring high bidders and license plate collectors forward to spend millions on that perfect number. Lower numbers are particularly prized as are combinations of digits that are the same as luxury car models. The normal price for five random digits is a $95 registration fee.
Earlier this year, license plate number "1" sold for $14 million making it the world's most expensive license plate. Abu Dhabi businessman Saeed Khouri bought that one and his cousin, stockbroker Talal Khouri, paid $9 million for "5" which became the second-largest sum ever paid for a license plate. His brother paid just over $120,000 for the "430" plate to match his red Ferrari F430. While Abu Dhabi might not be as as over the top as Dubai, it is still a booming area and it is the heart of the license plate craze partly because it is the capital of the UAE. The WSJ reporter Margaret Coker was at the monthly auction recently and watched as "9" sold for $4.2 million through an agent purchasing for a man who had been trying for months to get a single digit plate.
As the WSJ reports Abu Dhabi isn't the first place with a license plate craze. Hong Kong has had license plate auctions for years and Russian executives have gone to great lengths to secure custom tags. We aren't immune here in the U.S. either. In Massachusetts where I grew up, low number plates have a certain preppy prestige. Just ask my mother who has moved to Florida and is currently agonizing over parting with her beloved Massachusetts plate "2002" which belonged to her mother.
The celebrities who espouse a green lifestyle often find themselves in trouble when they indulge in some of the privileges of the wealthy. Al Gore has taken the heat for his energy consumption and now Sting is in the spotlight for a private jet splurge. Sting took a solo flight to Germany recently on a Falcon 2000 to meet the rest of the band, The Police for a concert in Leipzig. A spokesperson for the airport confirmed that he was the solo passenger on the plane which can carry 14 passengers. He flew back to England less than 24 hours later via private jet but it's not known if he was alone. According to the Daily Mail, the Police was named 'dirtiest band' in January for the scale of their carbon footprint. It's been a tough year for Sting and his eco-actions. He started off the year by renting a private yacht in Australia and as I mentioned back in May, his Rainforest Foundation has come under fire for its record of giving. Sting also starred in an ad-campaign for the notso eco Jaguar cars.
The designs from EV Jewelry's Masterpiece collection are meant to have a look that harkens back to ancient cultures and a time when jewelry had both aesthetic and spiritual meanings. EV Jewelry was founded in 2006 by master craftsmen Elias Vayas and Dimitri Mitsukos and each museum quality piece is designed, cast and set by hand. The Masterpiece collection features a variety of distinctive pieces, shown here on model Yamila Riaz. The ring is the Fteros which is an 18K yellow gold ring with webbed brown enameling and a large 35 carat citrine. This piece sells for $12,000.
On her wrist is the Cleopatra bracelet. The bracelet was inspired by scrolls dating back to the era of queen Cleopatra's reign. The gold surface is hand chiseled and the piece features a diamond-covered connecting lock which is set on either end with rubies.It sells for $65,000.
