Of course you have Eggnog, everyone’s favorite thick rich holiday drink. Like many other things out there the FDA has decided it’s safer and better for us to have corn syrup, guar gum, carrageenan or artificial ingredients and thickeners than to have eggs. So I encourage you to make your own at home. You don’t have to use whole raw eggs, you can go the semi cooked route and cook the yolks. My own personal preference is bourbon rather than rum but whatever liquor you are fond of will work just fine.

So everyone knows egg nog, but how about some more non-traditional holiday drinks? Sticking with the egg theme, I’d like to introduce you to a Tom and Jerry. Truly it is an eggnog variant that is served hot. The hot water and milk will slowly cook the egg so it is in the safe zone

You could also go all out for an English Christmas Punch. Nothing gets your party started like a flaming bowl of punch.

 Citrus, red wine and tea come together with fire. Did I mention the fire? Because fire is fun.

So this year break out of your holiday rut and branch out with some different seasonal beverages. You can impress your friends and family and light stuff on fire.

It’s fall, and in many parts of the country that means it’s time for apple harvesting. Apple harvesting means apple pies, apple fritters, apple doughnuts, apple cakes and apple cider. It also marks the beginning of another season of making that beautiful amber liquid into a variety of alcoholic apple beverages.

Growing up I had a friend whose dad made hard cider every year, and every year, some of said cider made its way into our under-aged mouths. We also learned a valuable lesson about the difference between hard cider and Apple Jack but that is another tale. There was no such thing as a commercial hard cider that was readily available. The only way to get a hold of it was to know someone who made it.

Fast forward 20  odd years and there are a wide variety of commercial hard ciders available, both mass produced national and international brands, and smaller regional or local varieties.

Walk into any store that carries beer across the country and you are likely to find Woodchuck, Strongbow, Woodpecker or Hornsbys. Dig a little deeper and you might find Blackthorn or Magners. If you are fortunate to live near any kind of apple producing region I’m sure you can branch out and find a local producer making hard cider or apple wine right in your backyard.

In addition to being a tasty beverage for consumption, hard cider and its cousins, apple jack and apple wine, make stellar replacements for wine or beer in many recipes.   As a braising liquid with your favorite cut of pork it is tough to beat hard cider.

Embrace fall this year and bring a little hard cider into your life. Try a few varieties until you find one that suits your palate.  Do some homework ahead of your purchase. Me I will be visiting the scene of many youthful indiscretions and doing a vertical tasting of my friends fathers cider that he has made over the past 10 years. I can’t wait.

Chick Beer.

Would anyone, man or woman, ever want to be seen drinking this? For some reason I’m totally thinking about THIS right now.

I read about a couple of guys from Austin that recently passed the final test, becoming two of the fewer than 125 masters in North America.  Why so few?  Just look at the four-step process:

1.  Introductory Sommelier Course & Exam over two days
2.  Certified Sommelier Examination, a one-day exam given in three parts: a basic blind tasting of two wines, a written theory exam, and a service exam
3.   Advanced Sommelier Course, taking place over three days, with the exam lasting two days thereafter
4.   Master Sommelier Diploma Exam in three sessions: an oral theory test, a wine service test, and a blind tasting of six wines

This final part of step 4 is the most compelling.  The candidate must verbally identify the following info from six distinct wines: grape varieties, country of origin, district and appellation of origin, and vintages of the wines tasted. Doesn’t this sound completely absurd?

How sensitive does your palate have to be to pick up on such nuance?  I can barely tell the difference between Orange Crush and Sunkist.

Can you imagine trying to cook for someone with that kind of sensitivity?  Not a good idea for someone with questionable skills in the kitchen.

While this process is noble, it is certainly expensive, with classes and tests alone costing $2,500. It is worth it? Does this just reinforce the snooty/elitist culture of wine-folk?  Doesn’t this seem worse than the SAT?

What do you think?

H/t to Addie Broyles for the tip.

After the Boston Bruins won their first Stanley Cup in 39 years, making Boston the definitive titletown of the country (on the heels of the Sox, Pats and Celtics) you knew there was going to be a party. What you didn’t know was that there was going to be a receipt.

On the 18th of the month, right after the duck boat parade through the streets of beantown, the team hit Connecticut’s own Foxwoods Casino for a night of debauchery. The result? How about a bar tab of $156,679 (tip included, to the tune of $25k)?

The highlights:
$100,000: 30 liter, yes 30 liter, bottle of Ace of Spades Brut “Midas” champagne – enough said
$4,000: 4 bottles Moet champagne – pricey, but not as ridiculous
$680: 136 Bud Lights – must have been the Canadians
$525: 36 Jager Bombs – must have been the Euros
$300: 1 bottle Bacardi – there is price gouging, and then there is price gouging
$6: 1 bottle Corona – just so that every bottle of booze in the joint was accounted for

One thing to realize here is that they didn’t throw a party for all of downtown – this was just for the team. With 26 guys on the roster, that comes to about $6k a head… but after 39 years, well worth it.

Do you see anything on the receipt worth calling out?

H/t to The Tony Kornheiser Show for the tip and Busted Coverage for the pic.

Jill VanHeest says she took her 2-year-old son Nikolai to the hospital after his eyes turned red and dilated and he began acting up. She said he was given fluids and released a couple hours later with no lasting effects.

This is interesting timing, because almost a week ago an Applebee’s in Michigan served another toddler a margarita instead of apple juice.

The company’s responses since have been interesting:

Applebee’s president Mike Archer, said, in part:

“We want to express how thankful we are that the child involved in the incident at our restaurant … was not seriously injured as a result of accidentally receiving the wrong beverage. We also want to apologize to his parents, for the stress and worry this caused them. Although our efforts to speak with the child’s parents have been unsuccessful, we extend our personal apologies.”

Further, the company has posted a few times on their Facebook page, as well as website, addressing the issue.

Conversely, Olive Garden spokesman Rich Jeffers, said, in part:

“This was an extremely regrettable accident caused by the failure of an employee to follow our strict operating procedures. We take this situation very seriously, and we are especially grateful that the child involved was not seriously harmed. We have absolutely no tolerance for failure to follow our operating procedures and we took swift, appropriate action to deal with this situation.”

The company’s Facebook page and corporate site fail to mention this issue, the former instead focusing on its sweepstakes and garden fare menu (they were probably too busy waterboarding the offending employee).  Also note that the Olive Garden debacle happened on March 31 – two weeks ago – with very little damage control until recently.  Applebee’s has taken a much more aggressive approach to this six-day-old incident, proactively responding to the issue – even publicizing its new training protocol for employees, without blaming anyone for making the mistake (albeit a doozy).

Both of these chains claim to be family-friendly, but which response leaves a better taste in your mouth?  My answer is the chain that avoided sweeping the problem under the rug and took the issue on.  Do you agree?

I got a tip from a friend of mine who works with the National Geographic Channel about a couple of their upcoming shows that go behind-the-scenes at beverage factories – Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola.  Based on a recent post where I talked about Oprah (partially) pulling back the curtains of a Cargill slaughterhouse, this is right up my alley.  I love to see how efficient these companies are at making the world a fatter and more boozed-up place.

A few eyebrow-raising points found in the above video about Coke:

• 800 million servings per day are consumer around the world
• 99% of the planet could go pick one up if they wanted to
• While the world drinks Coke sweetened by sugar, the U.S. gets HFCS – due to corn subsidies
• 4.5 million servings a day are produced by one factory in Baton Rouge
• Coke is 90% water, and 10% pure evil (the second part is implied)

These shows start coming on the tube in a week – JD on 3/10 and Coke on 3/17.  Details here.

Full disclosure: my friend sent me an airplane bottle of Jack, a 7.5 oz can of coke, and details about the show to fill me in.  Unfortunately, they will suffer the same fate as the ground beef sent from Cargill.

Via Eater.

Virginia wholesalers have been buying back Four Loko from retailers after the wave of bad publicity and criticism from government, health and consumer groups. With Four Loko now disappearing from shelves either voluntarily or by mandate, there’s a lot of surplus Four Loko to get rid of. So what to do with it?

Wholesalers from Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland and other East Coast states started sending cases of the high-alcohol, caffeinated malt beverages to MXI Environmental Services in Virginia after the  Food and Drug Administration cracked down on the sale of such beverages in November.

So what will MXI be doing with all this excess Four Loko?

MXI distills the alcohol from the drinks, then sells the fuel to be blended into gasoline

Excellent. Coming soon to a road near you: a Four Loko powered car. So from now on, when someone tastes a food or beverage and says it tastes “like gasoline”, it may not be hyperbole. It turns out one mans drink is another mans (car) fuel.