Mantrack

Dialed In

In just eight years Kobold has made its mark on the American watch industry with a small range of handcrafted mechanicals limited to 2,500 units annually. Though the Phantom Tactical ($4,550, kobold watch.com) was designed for law-enforcement types, we like it for its matte-black finish, an ice-cold take on the classic steel sports watch. So shoot us.

Kentucky Thoroughbreds

For a bluegrass cocktail, mix two ounces of bourbon with a beautiful Southern belle

The Story of Bourbon is a great American tale, and you can taste it in every sip. The liquor takes its name from Bourbon County, Kentucky, where the world's fastest horses are bred. A Welshman named Evan Williams founded the first commercial Kentucky whiskey distillery, on Main Street in Louisville, in 1783. The original Jim Beam, who made his fortune after Prohibition, always wore a suit and tie, even when he went fishing, and he drove a 1939 Cadillac coupe. Thirsty? A few of our favorite small-batch bourbons: Ridgemont Reserve 1792 ($30), aged eight years and named for the year Kentucky became a state, features vanilla and caramel notes. Booker's ($50), the barrel-strength (roughly 127 proof) six-to-eight-year-old made by the late Booker Noe, Jim Beam's grandson, goes nicely with a plate of thick-cut apple-smoked bacon. Bulleit ($25), aged six years, has plenty of rye in it, so it's mellower and drier than most bourbons. Woodford Reserve ($30), aged about six years, is currently our editorial office's house bourbon. Seems we're always running out of it.

American Spirit

When it comes to whiskey, the Scots get all the credit. Fact is, we make three great, distinct whiskeys in the USA. Bourbon: By law it must be made of at least 51 percent corn (the rest is rye, malted barley or wheat) and aged a minimum of two years in new charred-oak barrels. Tennessee whiskey: Only two of these distilleries remain--Jack Daniel's and George A. Dickel & Co. Like bourbon, Tennessee whiskey is made of at least 51 percent corn, but it's filtered through sugar-maple charcoal before it's aged to make the sippin' mellower. Rye: The original American whiskey, it was first produced in Maryland and Pennsylvania in the 18th century. By law it can be no less than 51 percent rye, the rest being corn, malted barley or wheat. Try Michter's single-barrel straight rye ($35) in an old-fashioned.

Quest for Fire

The Playboy Testing laboratories use one surefire standard to determine whether a piece is truly bachelor-pad material: when four out of five women surveyed let an unprompted oh pass through their lacquered lips. Such is the case with the Fireorb (from $5,800, fireorb.net), a steel fireplace that hangs from the ceiling and rotates 360 degrees, ensuring more ohs to come.

Road Rager

In the seven years following 1923, Britain's oversize, oversexed Bentley touring cars won the Le Mans 24-hour race five times. So the notion of a four-seat Bentley convertible that can hit 195 miles an hour shouldn't surprise you. In the new Continental GTC ($190,000, bentleymotors.com) you get a six-liter, 48-valve, 552 bhp W12 engine, a paddle-shifted six-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel drive. The disc brakes are the largest on any series production car. Inside, handcrafted wood veneer and supple leather adorn this future classic, which is perfect for everyday use and just the ticket (careful!) for a high-speed cross-country blast.

Great Escape

The Ritz-Carlton recruited A-list talent to create the company's new $440 million Grand Cayman hot spot. Golf course by Greg Norman. Tennis center by Nick Bollettieri. Spa by La Prairie. And for the seafood restaurant, Eric Ripert of New York City's Le Bernardin. But credit the Big Man upstairs for the resort's finest attribute, a strip of glorious white-sand beach locked in an eternal kiss with the sea. Pure heaven. Rooms from $300; ritzcarlton.com.

Lap Dancer

A laptop is like a woman. It should be lithe, shapely, a joy to travel with and equipped with lengthy battery life for when you want action all night long. And you shouldn't have to empty your bank account to get it. Meet Ms. Right. With its roomy 12.1-inch screen and speedy 1.20 GHz processor, Fujitsu's new LifeBook Q2010 (from $2,000, fujitsu.com) is a knockout. If it were any slimmer (2.2 pounds), you'd have to fight the urge to stuff a cheeseburger into its disk drive.

We're as in love with this frightfully modern world as ever, but that doesn't mean we don't occasionally long for a simpler time, a time before MySpace, cell phones and Kevin Federline ruined everything. The folks at Speck Products understand our pain. Connect any MP3 player to their SpeckTone Retro speaker system ($150, speckproducts.com) and you'll get big sound with a design aesthetic even your grandma could dig on. The little number belts out 28 watts' worth of audio, has a built-in subwoofer and comes in three colors of high-gloss piano-finish wood.

Phones, Holmes

Hot Wheels and Fab Threads still count, but these days a modern man's style is expressed at least in part through his phone. From left: The talker of choice for the scruffy set, the T-Mobile Sidekick 3 ($300 with two-year contract, sidekick.com) has an MP3 player, high-speed Internet access and tri-band support for world travelers. The Helio Hero ($275, helio.com) has a great interface, a gorgeous display, a two-megapixel camera and exclusive support for MySpace Mobile. It's pricey and chunky, but then again so are some of the women on MySpace. The Motorola Q ($200 with two-year contract, motorola.com) is the epitome of executive chic and, despite its supermodel profile, has a full keyboard, a 1.3-megapixel camera, a killer display and Windows Mobile--you may even get some work done. The Nokia N93 (coming soon, $700, nokia.com) is spendy and looks like an alien robot, but its video camera is the best we've seen on a phone. It captures DVD-quality footage (as you can see, we took advantage of it), and you can plug it into your TV for playback.

Where and how to buy on page 143

Old-Time Rock and Roll