Who would drop $6,000 for a dram of whisky? The answer is in The Book. Only a handful of people have ever seen its moss-green cover, inscribed with gold lettering. Hidden like a Horcrux on the tony resort of Sea Island, in Georgia, the volume simply referred to as “The Book” is taken out only when a guest orders a glass of Macallan 1950 at the resort’s sumptuous Georgian Rooms restaurant bar.
When a $6,000 order for this 74-year-old elixir from the Scottish Highlands is placed, an entire ritual is set in motion. A bespoke Lalique tumbler appears. The kitchen sends out a suite of hors d’oeuvres. A bat signal goes out to the resort’s beverage director, Nic Wallace, who drops whatever he’s doing to deliver The Book to the guest, like an altar boy bearing a Bible to a priest.
Inside, the ivory paper bears messages from others who have tasted this particular liquor. One visitor who, Wallace tells me, had just sold his company for $2 billion offers a challenge: “For those of you that are worthy … take the journey.”
Who is worthy of such an experience? The question nags me as I consider that bottle, sitting in pride of place on the top shelf of the brass-and-glass back bar. “We’re the only place in the country where you can have that by the glass,” Wallace says. “It’s a snapshot of history. Just being able to taste throughout those decades is really special.”
I believe it. But whenever I’m confronted with any version of such a refined experience, I can’t help but ask myself, Am I tasting what I should be tasting? Am I doing this right? A florid distiller points out notes of blackstrap molasses and sun-warmed chamomile in an añejo rum, and I outwardly nod while inwardly straining to catch those elusive flavors, like butterflies in a net.
There can be something profoundly awkward about the experience of luxury, I’ve found in the two decades that I have been writing about it—an impostor syndrome that creeps into the periphery. No matter how many vineyards I’ve visited, I feel a twinge about wanting red wine colder than is deemed proper by the authorities, and white wine less wildly acidic than is currently in vogue. And I still can’t swirl either without looking like a T. rex holding a glass for the first time.
Perhaps that’s the value of all the ceremony surrounding that Macallan 1950. The ritual around drinking that precious Scotch gives the experiencer a way to mark the moment in memory, something to do: take one’s time reading through notes from previous inductees, perhaps add some thoughts to The Book with an elegant felt-tipped Macallan pen. There’s even a certificate, embossed with a wax seal.
“It’s a whole dog and pony show,” Wallace tells me, “and so much fun.”
That show is of course the point, as much as the taste of the whisky itself. You may remember from Psychology 101: Ritual gives meaning to experience. This is especially true in the luxury space. Stripped of pomp and circumstance, the customer is just another high-net-worth individual blowing a mere mortal’s mortgage payment on a sip of old liquor.
And that’s true far beyond the leather banquettes and billiard-green walls of Sea Island’s Georgian Rooms restaurant. Without the pageantry and performance (whether in real life or on social media), a hyped Nike sneaker drop is just a shoe; 50-yard-line Super Bowl tickets are just seats; an $880 meal at Noma is just … dinner.
That influential Copenhagen restaurant, now in the midst of a Cher-like extended farewell before its closing at the end of this year, is perhaps the epitome of this kind of elevated sensory experience. By the time they have trekked to Denmark to sample the culinary stylings of René Redzepi, most have already digested reams of discourse: endless exultation and criticism; detailed explorations of every peculiar berry and foraged limpet. The film The Menu roasted this style of fine dining like campfire marshmallows. And—spoiler alert—the person deemed least “worthy” of the rarefied luxury is rewarded for her skepticism with a perfect, Proustian cheeseburger.
Sometimes it’s that contrast, the high-low juxtaposition, that contextualizes the luxury experience. Years ago when I visited Orcas Island, Wash., the bijou tasting menu of indigenous critters and flora at Hogstone’s Wood Oven featured a surprise pizza course—served in a brown cardboard takeout box. (A similar stunt involving a Pequod’s Chicago deep-dish pizza wowed a diner in the restaurant dramedy The Bear.) Hogstone’s has since closed, and that pie is what stands out in my memory: a joyful disruption and nod to the restaurant’s humble origins.
The ultimate flex, perhaps, is transforming something simple and prosaic into a high-level luxury experience. That’s what Randy Rucker, a talented and cerebral chef disguised as a jolly Texan, pulled off when I dined at his award-winning Philadelphia restaurant River Twice. He served a half-dozen inventive little haikus of winter citrus, esoteric herbs, oysters, seaweed, and caviar before introducing the “Mother Rucker.” This obscene double cheeseburger, its grass-fed patties glistening with fat and blessed with Cooper Sharp and pink pickled onions, remains the best burger I have ever eaten.
Taking a moment to educate oneself can also enhance an experience of true luxury. On a recent trip to Kyoto, I could have just bought the yuzu-scented incense off the shelf at POJ Studio, the beautiful boutique at my inn, Maana Homes Kiyomizu. Instead, in a private incense-making workshop in the store’s sun-dappled upstairs atelier, I participated in a tea ceremony and learned what goes into making those fragrant cones.
Incense isn’t lit lightly in that ancient capital, and so after a day of sightseeing I indulged in my own ritual back in my room: I filled the Shigaraki ceramic bathtub, touched a match to a cone, and inhaled deeply as citrus filled the bathroom.
Back at Sea Island, Wallace, a retired Hollywood stuntman with the slicked-back black hair and bone structure of a Tim Burton character, arranges himself on a plaid barstool to talk me through Macallan’s Fine & Rare collection—he also stocks bottles from 1952, 1989, 1990, and 1991.
That’s when the general manager comes over and politely asks whether he can bring me a jacket.
“Actually, the temperature is perfect,” I tell him. He hesitates. “I’m so sorry to ask …” And suddenly I understand. Among all the gentlemen in jackets, I’m a rebel in charcoal cashmere. He returns with a black blazer.
That’s the thing about rituals: They’re only valuable if everyone agrees to participate: play by the rules, perform the moves, wear the costume. I shrug on the coat, eye the Macallan, and instead order the Ex-Pat, a spiced bourbon cocktail anointed with tart cherry and saffron bitters.
It’s $18 and perfectly delicious. But there’s still about half a bottle of the 1950 left, if you’d prefer.
This article appears in the February/March 2024 issue of Fortune with the headline, “What even is luxury?”
