The Macallan single malt has been making much of its connection with the fashion biz: designer Tom Ford

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The Macallan single malt has been making much of its connection with the fashion biz: designer Tom Ford served it at his recent shows, as did Pringle at its menswear show in Milan. Appleton V/X rum also boasts of its fashion connections, telling us that Kate Moss drank cocktails made with V/X at the FrostFrench shows.Where will it end? I hate to think. Another ominous vodka development: Jay-Z has appeared in an advert for the Belvedere brand.At the risk of sounding like an old duffer, I can't help remembering that the rock'n'roll heroes of my youth didn't get into branding. If that doesn't deter you, I commend them highly, whatever Jay-Z might say.Top Corks: Three brown beautiesSoberano Solera Reserva 5 £10.99, Safeway and ar-emporia A smooth, well-rounded Spanish brandy from the same company that makes Tio Pepe. In the meantime, I have selected three bottles below which boast no known connection with the worlds of music or fashion. It featured in one of Jay-Z's songs and has since appeared in a video made by another artist in the Roc-a-Fella stable.

These artists may not have inherited taste, but they certainly have money. And they like to spend it on expensive things.Just to show they don't follow a single brand, different rappers have their own favourites. Busta Rhymes likes Courvoisier so much that he wrote a song about it. "Pass the Courvoisier", a paean to the good things in life, says: "Give me the Henny, you can give me the Cris, you can pass me the R?, but pass the Courvoisier." Jay-Z prefers R? Martin, which provides the name of a VIP room at his 40/40 Club in Manhattan; he's especially fond of the company's Louis XIII, which comes in a hand-blown Baccarat decanter and costs around £600. Hennessy has featured in songs by the Ying-Yang Twins and Ja Rule.As the lines from "Pass the Courvoisier" suggest, there's no guarantee of complete brand loyalty here. Roederer Cristal may be the champagne of choice, but Cognac - "yac" or "nac" as it's sometimes called - does not have the spirits field all to itself.

In what must be a worrying development for the Cognac industry, some rappers have taken vodka to their hearts. Damon Dash, the entrepreneurial whiz behind Jay-Z's record company, Roc-a-Fella, who has already launched his own fashion label, has bought US rights to the Scottish Armadale brand. And they're taking their cue from rap artists. I can think of few unlikelier candidates for reviving Cognac's waning fortunes. Why should musicians such as Jay-Z, Dr Dre, Busta Rhymes and P Diddy be placing their seals of approval on a drink that's usually associated with the digestif trolley in plush-carpeted French restaurants and post-prandial cigars at lord so-and-so's Wiltshire pile? Maybe it's the flavour, but I doubt it. It's more likely the image of sophisticated taste and massive wealth. Cohen had his allocation withdrawn for the rest of the season and the RFU are looking into Barkley's case. Neither showed the slightest sign that it had distracted them.Cohen's first try gave England the lead in the fifth minute and his second in the 66th recaptured it after a spellbinding passage by Wales early in the second half.

For Cohen it was his 27th and 28th tries in 39 Tests, a quite magnificent strike rate and for England they could hardly have come at a better time.The 22-year-old Barkley, promoted to after Paul Grayson withdrew with injury, successfully converted his first kick from the touchline and whatever nerves he had were quickly dispelled. He went on to kick six from seven but there was a lot more to his game than slotting penalties and conversions. Brick by brick, England's World Cup team is slowly being dismantled and Barkley, for one, will have a part to play in the new foundations.When Wales, who had conceded a staggering 156 points on their last three visits to Twickenham, last won here, in 1988, Barkley was still eating Rusks. Their perceived weakness was their scrum, England's, their line-out. In the event the Welsh pack won eight scrums out of eight but they lost five line-outs out of 12.