The making of a diamond.

How exactly does a 100,000 pound bottle of whisky look like? More importantly, what makes bottle of whisky that expensive?

The answer well be the Johnnie Walker Diamond Jubilee that Diego launched in February to commemorate the 60^th year of accession of Queen Elizabeth II.

Fiery golden liquid inside diamond-shaped crystal decanter rests on a crystal stand with six radial legs capped by fine silver and diamond stud.

Each of the bottles come with a pair of Cumbria Crystal glasses engraved by Phillip Lawson Johnston and a commemorative artefact book, hand bound by Laura West at her Isle of Skye Bindery and personalized for each owner by Sally Magnum, calligrapher by appointment to Her Majesty. 

All these elements are housed in a chest made by the cabinet makers at N.E.J Stevenson.

The whisky was distilled in 1952, the same year the queen acceded to the throne, and was launched on 6 February 2012, the day she completed 60 years of her reign.

The project started two years ago and involved 60 craftsmen. Apart from the Queen’s Decanter, there are only 60 bottles of this limited edition available in the world and each comes for 100,000 pound plus taxes.

A minimum donation of 1 million pounds from the sales of the Diamond Jubilee Edition will be given to the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust, a registered charity in England that will help support excellence in craftsmanship.

Driver has told Global Crimson that the company has allocated two bottles for India based on the market feedback and believes it will be able to sell more.

1.    Master Blender Jim Beveridge (right) and apprentice Matthew Crow check the blend.

2, 3. Artisans at Cumbria crystal combine rare, traditional glass making skills with contemporary design to create a bespoke glass.

4. All glasses hand engraved by Phillip Lawson a distinguished craftsmen with 40 years of experience.

5. Yves Parisse works at Baccarat. Eight of Baccarats best craftsmen created the multi-faceted, crystal shaped decanter.

6, 7. Artisans work at silversmith Hamilton and Inches. Hamilton and Inches made a silver collar set with a half-carat diamond for Walkers and Sons Royal Warrant, entwined JW&S monogram and a numbered seal to adorn the crystal. 

8. Laura West works on the book that is printed on a traditional hand press then hand bound. The sculpted boards are covered with alum tawed cream leather.

9,10. Calligrapher Sally Magnum uses antique 19^th century steel nibs hand-dipped in iron gall ink, and a copperplate script based on an 18^th century hand.

 -Sources

Nobody's Child

Article about an adopted NRI who is a global orphan at 40.


★The TOI view:
After loosing her adoptive mom, Kairi has been disowned by both India and US. Orphaned at birth and loosing her adoptive mother at 8 was rough enough. But stateless at 17, after being disfranchised and disowned by both her adoptive country and her country of birth. How much more cruel can the world be? except of course to punish her with multiple sclerosis when she is fighting a pitiless legal system? 
"She just fell between the cracks"
- Alan Smith (Kairi's attorney)


No word from New Delhi as yet.


★ In depth Analysis-
Kairi Abha Shepherd, now 30, who was adopted from Kolkata when she was only three months old by an American single mother from Utah, has been ordered to be deported to India, a country she has never live in or visited. Kairi's mother Erlene, an American do-good-er who adopted 11 children from across  the world, many of them with disabilities, did not complete the paperwork and other formalities that would have made her a US citizen, before she died of cancer.


"All the information available to us on this case indicates that it has a clearly humanitarian dimension that cannot be ignored. As reports indicate, Kairi Shepherd was brought to the United States after adoption, as a baby, and has known no other home," the Indian Embassy 

★What we make of it- Unalloyed response
Looking at this article last Thursday,May 24Th on times global page moved me; not as in to gout on the streets and march bu to tell the world what injustice has been done with this poor soul.

It is an exclamation, an ejaculation on the satanic behavior of both the governments. If one could envision what she has gone through, you will might as well understand why this concerns me.

Disconcerted is what I am. It really doesn't matter if the US government has rejected her, we are humble in nature, will it hurt to tweak the laws here and there for a person who is technically an Indian citizen? I feel the need for a response, an immediate one, as it is true as said by Kairi-

"No one is born illegal" 

-Sources