Cadogan launches £25,000 Champagne bath

Knightsbridge hotel the Cadogan has launched a Champagne bath menu in time for Valentine’s Day, and is offering a Dom Pérignon 2002 bath for £25,000. As reported on thedrinksbusiness.com, the 122-bottle Champagne bath starts at £4,000 for a soak in Louis de Custine Brut 1998. Available to hotel guests from 14 February, and running for a year, while the bath is drawn, an optional “bath butler” will be on hand to pour the submerged guest a one of six complimentary bottles offered with the service, and serve chocolate covered strawberries.

Along with Dom Pérignon and Louis de Custine Brut, customers can choose from the Perrier-Jouët Grand Brut 2002 bath for £6,000, the Perrier-Jouët Blason Rosé 2004 bath for £8,000, or the Veuve Clicquot Brut Yellow Label 2006 bath for £8,000. “We’ve had surprising amounts of interest in the baths already,” the Cadogan’s sales and marketing director Lee Jones said. “Most of the interest has been at the top end. We’ve already had one guest pay the deposit for the Dom Pérignon bath,” Jones added.

The service, which can also be booked by external customers, was devised by recently-appointed general manager Will Oakley as the “ultimate indulgence” to mark the five star hotel’s 125th anniversary. Shortly after opening in 1887, the hotel served as the setting for actress Lillie Langtry’s courting of the future King Edward VII. Oscar Wilde was also famously arrested in room 118 in 1895.

Dukes Cognac & Cigar Garden

What does one wear to a Cognac and cigar garden launch in the height of summer? I opted for a purple velvet smoking jacket.

Purple velvet may seem like an odd sartorial choice for a June evening, but the weather is unseasonably awful at the moment. Looking out of my office window at lunchtime onto grey skies and grizzly rain, mother nature threatened to put a dampener on the evening's fun and frolics.

I invited my Finnish friend William along, who, having handed in his Cambridge masters dissertation the night before, was in a celebratory mood. Arriving a little late for our rendezvous in the courtyard, I saw William had dressed for the occasion too, in a Bond-like white tux jacket, navy cravat and dandyish velvet slippers. At 6 foot 8 he barely fitted through the door, but cut a rakish figure through the hotel, once frequented by the likes of Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde and Ian Fleming.

The rain having subsided, we make our way out into the canopied courtyard filled with cosy sofas and lanterns, and are presented with a pair of pink Champagne and Cognac cocktails. The courtyard soon fills up, and I get talking to the lady on my left, who is trying to decide whether or not to go to the Orange Prize after our soirée. The night before she was at the Royal Academy summer party - 'I scooped a pair of Tracy Emin sketches for £200', she beams.

Dukes' legendary barman Alessandro Palazzi emerges with a couple of Cohibas, which he sparks up for us. William is something of a cigar aficionado, and attempts to teach me the art of successful smoking. My Cohiba isn't playing ball, and keeps going out. Alessandro appears again, this time with two balloon glasses of Martel XO.

I'm not a huge Cognac fan, but the XO is seriously smooth and easy to drink, with a soft, sweet, velvety palate. It goes wonderfully well with the creamy Cohiba, the two seeming to bring out the best in each other. The evening fleeted by as the best always do, and soon it was time for William to take his train back to Cambridge. Walking back to Green Park, he admitted to me rather sheepishly that he'd spent £70 on socks that day, in preparation for a month of balls and banquets. A modern day dandy indeed – Beau Brummel would have been proud.