Cognac, Caviar, Country

The Louis XIII × Shin'Labo experience was not a pairing in the conventional sense. It was a two-year design exercise. With T'lur — Malaysia's first tropical caviar farm, located in Tanjung Malim, Perak — I bred, monitored, and cured a custom caviar to a specific salinity profile, calibrated to bring forward the complex aromatic layers of a Louis XIII decanter built on eau-de-vie aged for up to a century. The caviar carried my name. The pairing was hosted exclusively at Shin'Labo. It is the closest piece of work I have done to a true laboratory of luxury.

What I asked Louis XIII to consider

A house like Louis XIII does not change easily. The decanter is unchanged. The blend — eau-de-vie aged for up to a century, drawn from over a thousand vineyards in the Grande Champagne — is unchanged. The pairing partners chosen for each global activation are chosen, not improvised.

When the maison brought Les Voyages du Caviar to Malaysia in early 2022, the protocol called for caviar from a French house. I asked the maison to consider something different — a Malaysian caviar, custom-cured to the specific salinity profile that would bring forward the cognac’s floral and spicy notes rather than overpower them. The maison’s reply was that if I had the confidence in the producer, the maison would have the confidence in me.

The activation went out as proposed. It was the first Louis XIII activation, anywhere in the world, to use a Malaysian caviar — and not an off-the-shelf Malaysian caviar. A caviar made for the cognac, developed over two years, bearing my name.

The James Won Custom Caviar — two years with T’lur

T’lur is Malaysia’s first tropical caviar farm, based at Tanjung Malim in Perak. The producer raises sturgeon to international standard at a tropical aquaculture site that European caviar houses had long considered impossible. What T’lur and I built together was not a sourcing arrangement; it was a two-year custom-development programme.

Species selection. A hybrid of Kaluga and Amur sturgeons — both prized in the global market for the size, firmness, and creaminess of their pearls, both rare in Southeast Asian production. Kaluga gives weight and umami; Amur gives the cleaner, brighter finish that cognac at this level asks for. The hybrid carries both at once.

Chef-led curing. I monitored the sturgeons’ growth at Tanjung Malim across the development period and worked alongside the farm to craft and cure the caviar to exact specification. The cure’s salinity was engineered down — well below the level standard caviar would carry — to complement the cognac’s subtle floral and spicy notes rather than overpower them. The pearls were given the firmness the cure could carry without the brine the cognac could not.

Freshness profile. Because the caviar is produced locally in Perak, it could be served exceptionally fresh, without the heavy preservatives that imported Russian or Iranian caviar must carry to survive the journey. Freshness speaks for itself; against a hundred-year-old cognac, it is the contrast that makes the pairing legible.

The result was the James Won Custom Caviar — a caviar that did not exist before this work, and that exists now as the bridge between Malaysian aquaculture and the global luxury-spirits conversation.

The pairings at Shin’Labo

The custom caviar became the recurring bridge between the food and the cognac across the Caviar Sensation Experience at Shin’Labo. Three dishes carried it most clearly.

Signature Caviar & Uni Tart. A “sunflower” — a heart of the custom caviar at the centre, surrounded by petals of creamy Hokkaido uni. The primary pairing for the Louis XIII; the cognac is intended to be chewed like meat against the fat of the roe, drawing the spicy finish forward as the brine pulls the floral notes out.

Imperial Cha-Don with caviar. A rice bowl built at fine-dining standard, where the custom caviar provides a salty, briny note that balances the earthy richness of the rice and steadies the cognac’s complexity for the first sip.

Hokkaido Scallop with caviar. A multi-course highlight that lets the freshness of the local cure stand. Where imported caviar would have read as preserved against the scallop, the custom cure reads as alive — and the cognac, in that company, reads as the older voice in the room making space for the younger.

The pairings were offered as a full Caviar Sensation Experience, which could be taken with a full decanter of Louis XIII for group bookings or as individual tasting sets.

What the chapter shows

Shin’Labo, for the duration of this work, became something close to a laboratory for luxury. A Malaysian aquaculture producer at Tanjung Malim, a hundred-year-old French cognac, a Japanese-Malaysian yōshoku room at Lalaport KL, and a custom design carried over two years to make all three converge in a single tart. It is one of the clearest examples in my work of what brand collaboration becomes when both sides are willing to commit to the development time the work itself requires.

The principle the chapter held to is simple. When a maison comes to Malaysia, the maison should leave knowing more about Malaysia than it knew on arrival. Louis XIII left knowing about T’lur — and about a kind of caviar the maison had not encountered before, made for a cognac it had spent a century maturing.

What stayed

After the closure of Shin’Labo in 2024, the active James Won Custom Caviar pairing programme passed into the historical record. The relationship with T’lur — and the conservation thinking it prefigured — carried forward into the Serumpun Sarawak work that began the same year. The custom caviar was, in retrospect, the moment my brand work and my conservation work began to converge.

The Archive — alternative frames

A few more frames from the Caviar Sensation shoot at Shin’Labo — kept here for the record, for any guest who wants to look a little longer before leaving the page.