It was the unusual pattern of marbling that caught Bryan Flanney’s attention. Much like the better-known wagyu, Holstein flesh is generously flecked with what he calls “pinpricks of fat.” As a result, these flecks supercharge any Holstein steak’s juiciness and flavor. Flannery Beef offers only Southern California-raised Holsteins that have been grain- rather than grass-fed, as the carbohydrates are crucial to maximizing that marbling. He calls it California Reserve.
Flannery sells a variety of dry-aged Holstein cuts, including the signature Jorge, a bone-in rib-eye cut from the chuck end of the prime rib with a generous portion of the rib-eye cap that’s aged for about five weeks; it serves up to four people. You can order that steak for delivery by mail anywhere in the country, but better to send your driver to collect an entire, custom-butchered carcass, which Flannery will gladly age to order.
Cost: From $30,000 for an entire cow to be butchered, dry-aged, and delivered
A Solid Diamond Ring
Who needs Marie Antoinette’s old baubles when you can dispense with the metal setting altogether and get your best billionaire a thoroughly modern pièce de résistance.
The 2,000 to 3,000 facets are laser-cut from a single giant gemstone, a hint at what’s possible in the burgeoning lab-grown diamond market. Sure, it may not have been dug out of the ground—Diamond Foundry created it safely and sustainably utilizing plasma reactor technology—but even De Beers is now a player in the market, and the bling factor here would certainly rival any enormous, glittering tree it’s placed under on a snowy Christmas morning in Aspen.
Sir Jony Ive, Apple Inc.’s chief design officer, and industrial designer Marc Newson joined forces to imagine this unique piece of jewelry, which will be auctioned by Sotheby’s in Miami, as part of the third (RED) auction, with proceeds going toward the fight against AIDS. The interior is cylindrically cut for smoothness and can be cut to fit the lucky recipient up to a size five.
Cost: Estimated at $150,000 to $250,000
Carmen in Their Backyard
Chances are that opera-loving billionaire in your life is already a Golden Horseshoe member of the Metropolitan Opera in New York or has access to the Founders Room in Los Angeles, but what about their friends? Despite how genre-bending, eye-popping, and sexy many modern productions are, opera remains a difficult sell for some.
So make it easier. Visionary Argentine director Valentina Carrasco and scorching Georgian mezzo-soprano Ketevan Kemoklidze will put their provocative Habanera on your billionaire’s doorstep—and all four acts of Georges Bizet’s 1875 classic. This contemporary update of Carmen, set at the Mexico-U.S. border wall with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, addresses feminism and the #MeToo movement; it premiered earlier this year in Rome to astonished audiences and has never been staged in America.
Although it made its debut more than 140 years ago, “Carmen is about today’s conflicts,” says Carrasco, “the power of sensuality, gender violence, and jealousy. But above all, it’s about freedom and the price you are ready to pay for it.”