Nonalcoholic Drinks Go Their Own Way

The Mexican-born, Ridgewood, Queens-based sculptor Raul De Lara is aware of the irony of his choice of medium: wood. The most rooted of materials is a contrast to the precarity of his upbringing — he came to Texas at 12 with his parents, and remains here under DACA.

A meticulous carver who often uses traditional American and Mexican techniques, De Lara, 33, reimagines banal household items — snow shovels, chairs and spades, as well the Monstera deliciosa plant, a south Mexican native that has become an American houseplant cliché — as commentaries on labor and immigration.

His series “Tired Tools” evokes the exhaustion of invisible workers: A broom slouches against a wall; a pitchfork’s shaft hangs on a hook like a discarded garment. For “Soft Chair” (2022), a live-edge slab of Siberian elm is fashioned into what appears to be a cushy upholstered seat; “The Wait” (2021) and “The Wait (Again)” (2022) are round-backed rockers covered with spikes mimicking cactus spines. (In 2023, Hermès commissioned a version of the chairs shaped like a child’s rocking horse, outfitting it with one of its lavish saddles for the window of its Aspen, Colo., store.)

The artist, who graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and has an M.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University, likes to source wood from places in his past: Texas; Chicago; Provincetown, Mass., where he had a fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center; and Mexico. Like Martin Puryear and Wendell Castle, whom he counts among his influences, De Lara — whose second solo museum exhibition opens on Sept. 12 at the Contemporary Austin — works with kiln-dried lumber (he prefers oak, walnut and ash) but also sometimes employs green wood, whose internal mysteries reveal themselves only during carving. “With wood,” he says, “you can see the passing of time on its skin. No other material shows you time.” — Petala Ironcloud

For nonalcoholic wine and spirits makers, creating complex flavors has always been the primary challenge. “You’re trying to mimic that alcoholic bite,” says Jens Christophersen, 45, the Brooklyn-based founder of Less Than 0.5%, a nonalcoholic beverage consulting firm and importer. Often, vintners start by removing alcohol from high-proof drinks using vacuum distillation or enzymes and then add water or grape juice to rebalance the taste — a complicated process with mixed results. Now, however, a growing number of makers are employing a different strategy, turning instead to the green, woodsy, often bracing notes of wild ingredients to give their products an edge. The Norwegian company Villbrygg, for example, uses mostly foraged plants in blends like Eng — the name is Norwegian for “meadow” — which includes vanilla-scented meadowsweet leaves and flowers, as well as tannic, black tea-like fireweed blossoms and foliage. Including multiple parts of a single plant delivers “different layers of flavor, which creates structure,” says the co-owner Vanessa Krogh, 34. The Minneapolis-based label Dry Wit takes a similar approach with its Pippi blend, steeping white pine needles and branches in water and then blending the infusion with verjus, rice vinegar and salt. “The needles are bright and citrusy, and the sap [from the twigs] adds depth and nuance,” says Peder Schweigert, 42, one of the brand’s co-founders. The Copenhagen-based label Muri also uses evergreens, foraging Douglas fir shoots from woodlands around the city for its Sherbet Daydream. Its top-selling blend, Passing Clouds, features dried woodruff, a ground cover herb that “provides a slightly marzipany flavor,” according to the founder Murray Paterson, 45. “I really believe that the future of non-alc isn’t copying or making de-alcoholized versions of existing drinks,” he says. “We’ve got to create something new.” — Ella Riley-Adams

Mosaic, an early form of decorative art, emerged around the eighth century B.C. in Anatolia in the form of floors set with smooth multicolored stones. Several hundred years later, the Romans realized that mosaics could run up walls in delicate bursts of color made from tiny pieces of glass called tesserae (the term is Latin for “cubes” or “dice”). But it was the Byzantines who perfected the use of gold and silver leaf in mosaics starting in the fourth century A.D., adorning almost everything with brilliant mirrored shards. Buccellati, the century-old Milan-based jeweler known for scoring and etching precious metals in a tulle-like web, celebrates the craft in this latest incarnation of its Eternelle ring. In 18-karat yellow and white gold, set with 10 carré-cut rubies, 20 faceted tsavorites and more than 200 round brilliant diamonds, it’s a luminescent homage to the wild embellishment of Byzantine style. Buccellati Mosaico Eternelle ring, price on request, buccellati.com. — Nancy Hass

Photo assistant: Pietro Dipace

A Grand Yet Intimate Hotel in Milan

One of the grandest new hotels in Milan, the nine-story Maison Senato, designed by the architect Massimiliano Locatelli, offers just a handful of rooms. Opened earlier this month in a postwar building at the northern edge of Milan’s fashion boutique-heavy Quadrilatero della Moda, it comprises five 1,800-square-foot, two-bedroom full-floor apartments and a two-story, 3,600-square-foot penthouse with a rooftop terrace and a plunge pool. The furnishings are by notable Italian designers: Gabriella Crespi’s bamboo armchairs, Gae Aulenti’s balloon-shaped lamps and several pieces from Locatelli’s own line, including solid cast-aluminum dining chairs, feather-stuffed sofas and wool rugs dyed in soft washes of color meant to evoke 17th-century watercolor paintings. A subterranean floor holds a spa and gym, and just off the lobby is a guests-only cafe, as well as a spacious patio concealed from the neighbors by trellises covered in English ivy and jasmine. “The idea was to create the feeling that you’re stepping into a space that’s been here for a long time,” says Locatelli, 58, “like a local Milanese has opened their own space to you.” From about $4,200 a night; maisonsenato.com. — Laura May Todd

Casey McCafferty’s life has followed a picaresque trajectory, so it’s unsurprising that the 35-year-old’s furniture and objects are wildly imaginative. Despite developing an early interest in sculpture — he started out making peculiar car speaker enclosures out of fiberglass — the Staten Island native studied finance in college. In his mid-20s, having grown tired of the banker’s life, he quit to do custom woodworking for architects in Los Angeles, experimenting on the side with the anthropomorphic pieces that are now his signature. These days, he works and lives in Fair Lawn, N.J., letting his subconscious guide him as he carves. On this chest, abstract facial features and geometric shapes seem to dreamily emerge from the undulating cherry surface. “I let it take me places,” he says of the piece. “For me, that’s always been the best way to go about things.” Gaeta Cabinet Low, $24,000, casey-mccafferty.com. — Nancy Hass

Photo assistant: Timothy Mulcare. Set designer’s assistant: Checka Lapierre

Belted Bags on the Runway