Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2022 i Maxim

The new collaboration between Panerai and Brabus unites two of the coolest brands on the planet; Panerai, the iconic Swiss-Italian watchmaker with an impressive heritage tied to Italy’s navy, and Brabus, the world-famous tuning house which creates incredible custom vehicles based on Mercedes-Benz’s most high-octane models. These include the G63 AMG, Benz’s top-of-the-line G-Wagen, which Brabus turns into an 800-hp beast worth a small fortune. Not as well known is the fact the elite German-based firm now also builds some truly badass boats under the name Shadow Black Ops, which are perfectly in keeping with Panerai’s mission to equip the Italian navy’s elite underwater commandos beginning in World War II, and which served as the inspiration for the collab. Available in a limited run of only 100 pieces, priced at…

Days have passed in the heat haze and a blur of vintage Dom Pérignon French 75s, Boulevardiers, and Negronis. Secret chambers filled with foie gras, lavender, husky voices, and cigar smoke combined to discombobulate the senses and stream visceral inputs. Flapper dresses, live jazz, and a grizzled, tattooed chef. Gallons of Krug and Billecart Salmon. A grey gunship pulling alongside our yacht and armed coastguards boarding us to the tune of our Parisian DJ but a cloudy dream. A fairly normal summer for the yachting set off the iconic Côte d’Azur in other words, as we remember it from a few years back. Then the last hurrah for those still standing. The morning after the night before many times over, with a VanDutch 40 powerboat attending us, tied up, fueled…

When the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s eye-popping 414-ft. superyacht Octopus sold this past August for $278 million, it served as a punctuation mark for one of the most tumultuous times for the segment. As Bloomberg reported, “The sale comes amid a record-hot market for the world’s largest luxury vessels. A surge in personal wealth due to buoyant markets and a newfound interest in private, socially distanced leisure among the ultra-rich are driving unprecedented numbers of sales of both new and used superyachts.” Bloomberg noted that 219 superyachts were sold in the first quarter of 2021, more than double the number during the same period in 2020, according to ship valuation service Vessels Value. “Wouldbe buyers who once preferred to dabble in renting, or chartering, before springing for a purchase…

According to industry authority the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), since 2015, the luxury American whiskey category has grown at an astonishing annual rate of 41 percent. Super-premium whiskies have experienced an even more staggering increase. It’s one of the drinks business’s most toast-worthy success stories, yet it’s hard to attribute the surge to just one source. “Everyone has a pet theory for why whiskey has come back in such a big way,” as seasoned spirits writer Clay Risen puts it in his beautiful new industry bible, Bourbon: The Story of Kentucky Whiskey, recently published by Ten Speed Press. One explanation, he notes, “relies on the logic of generations. Like the ebb and flow of baby names, the love of whiskey skips generations. While that seems too…

Twenty-five beautifully designed wineries by contemporary architects from around the globe form the basis of one of the season’s chicest new books—Wineries of the World: Architecture and Viniculture by Oscar Riera Ojeda and Victor Deupi. Impeccably published by Rizzoli, the wineries on display in the book run the gamut from state-of-the-art structures in Napa Valley and an Italian winery estate in the hills of Tuscany that marries technology with tradition, to an Australian enterprise “at the cutting edge of organic viniculture,” all examples of the “finest taste in both wine and design.” Rather than “repeat established, even ancient traditions cultivated over centuries throughout Europe,” Rizzoli notes, “the contemporary architecture of wine has become a modern celebration of place, reflecting the topography of the landscape in which a winery is…

At some point on the timeline you have to declare what you are for, against, and otherwise not concerned about. Back in the day if you stacked up enough Benjamins, your genes climbed from pond to dry land and memorialized such declarations on a shield. Future generations understood what got them there—and what they were supposed to do. Often it made it onto the seal on your signet ring too. The Herklots coat of arms, and its motto Ferio Tego, is the logo of the new luxury cigar house founded by Michael Herklots and Brendon Scott. It shows Hercules beheading the Hydra, with the words Ferio Tego below. Meaning literally, “Strike and Defend.” Gordon Gekko, Patrick Bateman, and all you boys in Barbarians At The Gate can go eat your…

We grow old too fast, and wise too slow” said the sign above the bar in the historic hotel in upstate New York, given a flash of new life by an artistic couple with plenty of cash—and the renovation skills of an Argentine architect-playboy renowned for his moves on the slopes (and in the bedroom). To get there, I had piloted a Ford GT through a twilight snowstorm chasing the Argentine up winding country lanes to host a meal to rival the feasts of the late, great Jim Harrison. An intersection of all the things I love: Petrol. People. And Parties. Although we were cracking bottles of legendary wines from Burgundy with a chef who would soon become celebrated the world over, one of the introductions which remained with me…

Praise the curves. The shadows. The strength. The skin. The body. Praise for proud women,” reads the card on model Natalie Roser’s website, SERIES. It’s for members only, but one look at her inviting smile and sun-kissed curves and you’ll know that whatever a subscription costs, it’s worth it. “I really love shooting nude. I don’t see shame in it if it’s created for the purpose of self-empowerment. I love seeing my body looking its best. I think there’s something timeless about nude art,” Natalie defends pictures the Daily Mail has called “raunchy.” “It’s not smutty, it’s really classy. It’s photos that I’m super proud of, it’s artwork I would frame in my house. It’s just that my nipples are exposed.” Not only does she find gratification in sharing her…

In 1874 Pierre Louis Adolphe Delage was born in the verdant countryside of Cognac, France. Among some of the finest vineyards in the world, this watchmaker’s son studied the sciences, graduating from the nearby Ecole des Arts & Métiers with an engineering degree. After securing a financial backer in 1905, he founded Delage, which would go on to find great fame in the world of motorsports. With a fleet of hand-built, V12-powered racers, Delage would claim Grand Prix wreaths and world speed records, peaking in 1927 when his Type 15 S 8 crossed four European Grand Prix checkered flags, winning his eponymous nameplate the World Championship and the Légion d’Honneur for his driver Robert Benoist. Sadly, the halcyon years would be short-lived. Despite building some of the most luxurious and…

MAKING THE SCENE IN MIAMI Maxim, in partnership withVIP Nightlife and Capture Studios, hosted an epic Halloween Party in Miami, featuring rap superstar Future live in concert. More than 2,500 attendees comprised of models, musicians, athletes, and celebrities including Flo Rida, Joey Fatone, and the Nelk Boys took over the poolscape at the Fontainebleau hotel for the unforgettable event. The party featured headliner DJs, surprise musical acts, Cirque performances, go-go dancers, mermaids and an exclusive Maxim Model Lounge packed with world’s hottest cover models. The event was sponsored by Animal Concerts and Segi TV, who showcased their elite model team in full body paint. Reign Total Body Fuel brought the heat with a sexy installation by the Black Tape Project and the Nelk Boys powered by Happy Dad Seltzer came…

“Two of Chevy, one of Ford,” with a touch of titanium to add to the witch’s brew of piston mix. Pistons for the fastest motorcycle under 1000cc the Bonneville Salt Flats have ever seen. The bike in question was a highly modified 1919 Indian Scout, built by Burt Munro, an old codger from New Zealand with a dream. The collection of “Offerings to the God of Speed” in his garage underlay his mantra that, “If it’s hard, work harder; if it’s impossible, work harder still. Give it whatever it takes, but do it.” Pistons and other parts blown to smithereens, and then others cast by him to perfection. In 1967 he was 68 years old and taking nitroglycerin pills to combat heart disease, when he hit a new world record,…

It’s not like Olympic swimmer Caeleb Dressel came out of no-where when he won five of his seven gold medals in Tokyo last July. He had already picked up two (the 4×100 free and 4×100 medley) at the 2016 Rio games, and had been blazing a path to Japan by earning seven at the 2017 World Aquatics Championships in Budapest—and a record eight medals, including six gold, two years later at the same competition in Gwangju, South Korea. And then came the pandemic, the Olympic postponement, and the questions about how it might impact training. For Dressel, the answer was, not so much. His five golds in Tokyo put him in an elite class of American athletes. Over the past 50 years only five others have done likewise in a…

Ninety miles of rugged northern California coastline, thousands of acres of vineyards, 24 state and national parks, sublime cuisine, and some of the most scenic and adrenaline-pumping shoreline drives in the country; it’s easy to see why we’d been planning a road trip to Mendocino County for quite some time. Renowned for both its towering redwoods and world-class wineries—over 100 of them—many people have heard of Mendocino but have never made the trip. An error we resolved to correct at the earliest opportunity. Plan the route right (never take the “fastest” one) and getting there is more than half the fun—especially if your means of conveyance is one of the last true European sports cars available with a manual transmission; and the only one with a pedigree going back more…

During the information age of the last three decades, many innovators and entrepreneurs have contributed to the creation, adoption and now near-universal usage of computers and technology in our day-to-day lives. Icons such as Bill Gates (Microsoft), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), and Steve Jobs (Apple) certainly belong in that category, alongside the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Whilst each of these names, and associated companies, have played their role in the current technological state of the world, it can be argued that Google has had the most wide-ranging global impact with the diverse slate of services, products and industries it has come to dominate. Whereas Amazon still largely sells goods (despite a recent move into cloud services), and Microsoft largely sells software, Google is in…

High in the darkening Sicilian sky above us clouds pile up like boulders, their black bellies outlined in a brilliant white from the sun hidden above. We’ve never seen anything quite like it. No wonder this country is so religious—with a celestial display like this it’s easy to understand people believing in a petulant deity who smites sinners yet cares enough to cut through the darkness with his light. Then comes the crackling thunder. Rolling north from the Mediterranean over the hills towards our zooming Bentley Continental GT Speed Convertible, the boom never arrives. I’m unsure if we outrun it or if the combustion from the engine overshadows its clap, what with the twin-turbo powerplant’s dozen cylinders firing their own boisterous orchestra. Even with the sound system turned off to…

An off-piste ski trip should properly blow one’s mind, revealing a subtler truth in the vertical Valhalla, the inner what-am-I-truly-made-of monologue seminal to all ski devotees. Aspen Snowmass has manifested this fantasy for generations of alpha skiers, a beacon to aficionados drawn to America’s elite alpine sports heritage. Celebrating Snowmass’s 75th anniversary in consummate style befitting such storied slopes, this season The Gant resort unveils a new excursion in its partnership with Nomad Inc. And like all high-octane powder hunts, The Gant’s tribute to the majestic mountains involves a helicopter to make it that much more thrilling. From Aspen Airport, an exhilarating 20-minute chopper ride whisks you up to Crested Butte. After a snowcat ride into the pristine wilderness, float atop the most postcard-worthy runs of your life at…