Bordeaux Chance!

Drinks coasters, like the great pyramids of Giza, or Mayan temples of the Yucatán peninsula, are sign of man's achievement as a species. It's true. Those perfectly formed little squares of slate, acacia or nickel that proudly prop up your Petrus, are the only thing that separate civilised man from the wolves.

This weekend I picked up two shiny Bordeaux coasters that mirror the vintage labels of France's finest appellations. In a beautiful moment of design happenstance, the silver coasters mirror the dimensions of Nambé's elegant Twist coasters; adding a pair of carver coasters to enhance the set civilisation in general.

The Wine Room at Ultraloft

Ultraloft, LONDON [2015] - Design Trawler is today pleased to announce the successful completion of 'Phase B' of the Private Wine Room project at Robert's Bar.

Doubling existing capacity from 130, to 260 bottles of cellar storage; spanning six digitally temperature and humidity controlled zones. The Private Wine Room at Robert's Bar will be Ultraloft's premier wine storage tasting drinking facility. 'Phase C' of development will see custom cabinetry adjoin the North and South sections with glazed storage for excessive and extravagant fleets of Riedel crystal stemware. [Ends]

Petrus, Thunderstorms and Pipe Tobacco

Call me a kleptomaniac, but I can never quite bring myself to leave a cork [correctly presented to diners by a smart sommelier] on the dining table after I leave a restaurant. Likewise, even when I open up the cellars of Ultraloft for a splash of Petrus on a Tuesday evening, the noble cork will be salvaged.

From restaurant table to pocket, or from home cellar to hand, corks of all designs and pedigrees invariably end up in vases or crystal platters scattered around Ultraloft. Who needs dried flowers smelling of moon harvested orchids and Indonesian ylang ylang when you can apply a fine mist of 'Thunderstorm' or 'Pipe Tobacco' from Demeter to said bottle-stoppers? This is home fragrance done right.

Hipsters, Handlebars, and Heineken

Contrary to popular belief, London Design Week isn't all Krug and canapes. Well, in the West-end it probably is, but ever the intrepid explorer, Design Trawler also headed out East during this year's Festival. Lured by the promise of container bars, the ever popular Tent and Superbrands exhibitions, a special Tokyo Design Week show-within-a-show and, of course a veritable petting zoo of hipster beards, handlebar moustaches and inflatable animals; Design Trawler documented it all.

Heineken kicked things off with it's pop up City Lounge project. A specially designed container bar with futuristic seating pods and specially designed barware. With a long history of limited edition bottles [because Design Trawler loves a limited edition bottle #1 #2 #3] and a TV campaign based on Design Trawler himself, full marks go to the Dutch brewer for keeping the bar high when the Veuve runs dry. Check out photos from London's East-end below or on Facebook.

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George the Champagne Monkey

Now that Ultraloft holds a fair few bottles of the good stuff, it is only sensible that Robert's Bar puts in place adequate security to keep check on the Wine Room. Any good doorman gorilla understands the need to balance looking smart, with appropriate levels of foreboding menace.

Enter George the Champagne Monkey. A Canadian cousin of Jeff the Balloon Dog from Toronto, George sits atop of the cellars and monitors the comings and goings of Ultraloft's precious fizz. As for foreboding menace, Jeff Koons famously dropped his suit against the likes of George after a court ruled that the balloon form was part of the public domain. Not bad for a blue ceramic monkey... you have been warned!

Design Trawler Central Campus

It was always only a matter of time before Design Trawler would require its own iconic headquarters. Sure, Ultraloft is a spectacular man cave in the making, but there is only so much Marc Newson designed Dom Pérignon; only so many plumen light bulbs, that one residence can accommodate.

Introducing the Design Trawler Campus. This scale model of the sprawling architectural vision features a cascade of geometric modules that'd put the Dame Hadid to shame. At its north point, a Turning Torso inspired tower [of acacia drink coasters by Lou Henry for Nambé] overlooks the suspiciously table-centrepiece-like structure by Sia. Perfect for landing petit-fours helicopters on.

Design Safari - The Flamant Rhino

On a recent design safari, bounding across the plains of Europe in search of wild designlife, I spotted the rare and magnificent Flamant Rhino. Part of a family of refined barware, the Flamant Rhino is bred from solid rosewood and highly valued for it's two brass tusks. When threatened, it is able to quickly dismantle under the protection of eight Glencairn whisky tumblers in to a set of fine coasters. On this occasion, the beast got away, but can be yours for €99 from your nearest Flamant game reserve.

Gin Mare - Designed for Cool

Once the preserve of Queen Mother sorts, gin is now firmly established as the urban tipple of choice on a warm day in the capital. Enjoying something of a renaissance in recent years, graphic designers with skinny jeans can't get enough of small-batch brands distilled in gritty corners of the Capital.

But far away from converted loft apartments, and far removed from tiresome vintage branding, Gin Mare is designing a difference. Spotted at this year's Snow Polo in St. Moritz, fur clad models and heli-skiing millionaires were opting for Mare.

Distilled from olives, thyme, rosemary and basil the Mediterranean spirit was being served up with 1724 tonic - made with organic quinine, hand harvested in Argentina. With an effortlessly smart 'wave' design, it looks like Gin Mare will be equally at home on board yachts in Santorini as it is on the slopes of St. Moritz; which is just as well, as that's where said heli-skiing millionaires are likely to be this summer.