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The Rolls-Royce of cocktails is a coddling ride for your tastebuds

In our last installment of the irregular and irreverent series on drinks loosely connected to – or named after – automobiles, we sipped a Speedway Cocktail, a drink that was as exciting (and dangerous) as the early Indy 500. This time, we're stirring a Rolls-Royce Cocktail with a silver spoon. And, as always, enjoy cocktails (and reading about them) while you're not behind the wheel. If the rumors we hear are correct, Rolls-Royce will be unveiling an all-new Phantom this summer. The arrival of a flagship Roller isn't quite as rare as the coronation of a new member of the British Royal Family, but is tres recherche nonetheless. Since the nameplate's founding nearly 100 years ago, this will be only the eighth generation of Phantom to be delivered into the greedy hands of the world's vilest oligarchs. If you're one of the .01 percent, this is cause for a drink, and what better cocktail to raise in toast than one named for the brand itself? (For us 99.99 percenters, the answer is easy: Molotov.) As you might expect, the Rolls-Royce cocktail is kind of a classied-up version of an upscale iteration of an already elegant drink, conjugated from the classic (gin) martini and it well-married brother, the Martinez. "It's basically a very wet martini," says Paul Hletko, founder of FEW Spirits, an Evanston, Illinois gin and whiskey distillery acronymically (and winkingly) named for local maven Frances Elizabeth Willard, who helped found the Women's Christian Temperance Union – one of the forces behind Prohibition. "Two-to-one is a fantastic ratio of gin to vermouth that really lets the vermouth shine, and then having that split between dry and sweet vermouths gives you fantastic and rich complexity, with that little bit of Benedictine being that really nice herbal add," Hletko told us. It all sounds intriguingly botanical, and the drink itself has a reputation as being a favorite among bartenders, a coupe brimming with insider insight. "In the history of drinking there are many cocktails made with vermouth and gin," says legendary mixologist Charles Schumann from Schumann's Gastronomie in Munich.

U.S. issues new tariff threat, this time against British-built cars

WASHINGTON — Britain is the United States' closest ally but their long friendship may be sorely tested as the two countries try to forge a new trade agreement after Britain's exit from the European Union. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday in London that he was optimistic that a bilateral deal with Britain could be reached as soon as this year. But Mnuchin gave up no ground after a second meeting with his UK counterpart, Sajid Javid. Javid has insisted that Britain will proceed with a unilateral digital services tax, despite a U.S. threat to levy retaliatory tariffs on British-made autos. Mnuchin told reporters after Saturday's meeting that such taxes would discriminate against big U.S. tech companies like Alphabet Inc's Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. The UK Treasury declined to comment on the private meeting. The divide highlights the challenges ahead as the Trump administration seeks a new bilateral agreement with Britain, part of a broader push to rebalance relations with nearly all its major trading partners. The stakes are high — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has pegged the trade deal with United States as a way to ease the pain of breaking with Europe, Britain's largest trade partner. U.S. President Donald Trump, has promised a "massive" trade deal to support Brexit, the product of a populist movement similar to his "America First" agenda. The goodwill and special relationship the two countries have enjoyed for decades may not count for much, experts say. "Trump is not going to be doing Johnson any favors," said Amanda Sloat, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution in Washington. "He's not going to give him a trade deal without major concessions." Even before the digital tax issue arose, the Trump administration threatened to tax foreign car imports, which could hit British-made Jaguar, Land Rover, Mini, and Honda Civic hatchback cars. Stiff U.S. trade demands include increased access for U.S. farm goods, concessions that will be difficult for Britain's entrenched natural food culture to swallow. The United States also wants Britain to change the way its National Health Service prices drugs and allow in more U.S. pharmaceuticals, which could prove politically unpopular for Johnson's government. Washington's demand that London block Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co Ltd for national security reasons could also cloud talks.

Rolls-Royce might 'enter into fuel cells'

Rolls-Royce released its first series-produced EV, the Spectre, in 2022, and the brand plans to launch additional battery-powered models in the coming years. It's not closing the door to other powertrains, however, and it's notably open to experimenting with hydrogen fuel cells. "Why not? I would say so when the time is right for us, and when the technology is so much advanced, that it is definitely something we would pursue as Rolls-Royce. Why not? We might exit batteries, and we might enter into fuel cells," company boss Torsten Muller-Otvos told British magazine Autocar. He stopped short of revealing whether engineers are currently testing hydrogen fuel cell-powered prototypes. It's too early to tell whether Rolls-Royce would develop a hydrogen fuel cell on its own or whether it would source some of the drivetrain's parts from parent company BMW, which has dabbled in this technology for decades. BMW notably began building an X5-based, hydrogen-powered prototype called iX5 in 2023, and it plans to ultimately funnel the feedback it gathers by testing the model into a production car. Muller-Otvos has already ruled out building a car powered by a hydrogen-burning engine, however. "I think a hydrogen combustion engine is nothing I would in any way look into, because that was tested already years ago. This is not the most efficient way to use hydrogen. If hydrogen will be used in the future, then it's fuel cells. And fuel cells are nothing different from a battery. It is just how you get the energy," he told Autocar, referring to the hydrogen-burning 7 Series prototype tested by BMW in the 2000s. Rolls-Royce, like nearly every brand looking at hydrogen technology, warns that the infrastructure needs to improve before the fuel cell can merge into the mainstream. "You can't obviously have hydrogen charging at home, whereas [with EVs] you have one big advantage, and all of our clients have big garages. There is lots of space at home and there is lots of space in office buildings to install charging," the CEO said. As it stands, Rolls-Royce wants to sell only electric cars by the end of 2030, and it hasn't announced plans to launch a series-produced hydrogen-electric model. It's not unreasonable to assume that this outlook could change during the second half of the 2020s, however.