The Simple Pleasure of Watching Polo and Drinking Bourbon in the Snow
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Chanel. Dior. Gucci. Prada. Stetson. Were it not for the cowboy hats, one look at the retail scene in Aspen, Colorado, and you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d fetched up in St. Moritz by mistake. As Colorado ski towns go, Aspen is certainly the closest the Centennial State gets to the glamour of those moneyed European winter resorts, places where what goes on down the mountain is as much a part of the experience as what goes down, erm, up it … if you follow. Ski hard, party hard.
Unlike St. Moritz, though, style here is a noticeable cocktail of European mega brands and down-home, local-plutocrat outerwear. There’s a deliberately cultivated Western vibe to Aspen’s crowd, with plenty of beading and fringing, turquoise and silver, cowboy boots and big, big hats to contend with the four-figure down jackets. And that’s just the men.
In recent years the Aspen retail scene has skyrocketed, with every blue-chip fashion and watch brand staking a claim on a little pocket of the town’s downtown real estate. And it’s not just shopping, either. Elevated hospitality looms large in a place that boasts more than 50 billionaires as permanent residents, with just as many flying in at key moments in the season.
Case in point: an event that brings a bit more of that St. Moritz vibe to town, Aspen Snow Polo, hosted by snowboard champ Shaun White. The 2024 edition took place just before Christmas last year and featured leading professional riders like polo poster boy and actor Nacho Figueras fighting it out in the saddle on a downtown snow-covered pitch. To spare ponies and riders, the field is shrunk to precisely one-ninth the size of a traditional grass polo field and teams drop from four to three riders.
None of this downscaling, however, kills the drama of the mêlée. If anything, the more intimate proportions of the polo field and the flying snow only increase it, keeping the action close at all times and giving the goings-on the feel of a private club event rather than a major spectacle.
Under a crystal-clear Colorado sky and in subzero temps, central heating was at a premium—the central heating in question being bourbon provided by actors Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder, whose sideline gig making Brother's Bond bourbon is already much more than a sideline. The brand has won multiple industry awards since it was launched in just four years ago in 2021.
Much of the festivities for guests at the polo competition centered around the St. Regis and its Snow Lodge, launched in 2019 by Jayma Cardoso, who also owns and runs its older summer alter-ego, Montauk’s sceney Surf Lodge. In Aspen the Snow Lodge comprises three St. Regis venues: the restaurant (once known as Schlomo’s), a late-night den of a bar called the Jade Room, and the main event, an outdoor après-ski space with a DJ set that makes the windowpanes throb from 5pm to 10pm every night. Servings of the Brother’s Bond hot toddy (made with straight bourbon, coconut water, ginger, cinnamon, honey, and lemon) were just the thing to warm the cockles.
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