16 October 2023

The recently-random bits.

Rebellion appears as ripe at the CdC HQ as it does in the US House of Representatives albeit with less temper tantrums and gavel banging.

Initially, we were to run this installment last Thursday until a particularly mouthy subeditor mentioned that 12 October was a federal holiday in the US as well as “Día de la Hispanidad” in Spain. The mouthy one went to ask that, given this, why were were even in the office as in a post-holiday-holiday world, it was about time for a four-day “bridge” weekend, no?

Thankfully, before everyone scuttled for the extended weekend, one staff member noted that Snoop Dogg's latest wines are coming to the UK. This has in turn inspired what is, the whitest PR copy ever written in the history of white people:

"Cali by Snoop, the wine brand synonymous with Cali Soul, backed by Snoop Dogg himself, is the ideal autumnal partner this year as we head through spookier times, and into festive celebrations."

San Francisco’s Williams-Sonoma called and they'd like their adjectives back.

Via deep research in our Archive of Number One-isms we ask as to how much street cred being the "number one coffee liqueur" holds? It’s kinda like being the "number one guy at a party after the keg has tapped out" or the "number one driver in a single-vehicle accident". Anyways, Kahlúa has a new look!

Thanksgiving is getting near, so it's important to ask, are you a fan of wine and pies? If so, then this is perhaps the recipe for you? Even if it is, it’s impossible not to recall Joey’s classic line on Friends about a pie gone awry, "Custard? Good! Jam? Good! Meat? Good!”

In a bid to make living in Antarctic “safer”, booze has been banned in parts of McMurdo Station, which is run by the US. It's rather shocking to find out that there can be up to 1,500 residents at this base and not all of them are penguins. In fact, about 1/3 are usually women which of course shows the problem and the fact that just slimming the booze pipeline isn't really going to deal with there being far, far too much man in one place.

Do Americans in fact have a booze problem? Even if it’s not as bad now, it was definitely Very Bad in the past and this fine piece digs into just how bad and then smartly ties that into our social media problems of today.

Speaking of American problems er, innovations that taint the rest of the world, Tesla has launched their “CyberBeer” a “celebration” of the never-coming Cybertruck that only a man infatuated with the letter ‘X’ would think is cool. Why? Because charging $150 US for two bottles of beer is a great way to distract from the flaming shitshow formerly known as Twitter.

Well, we’d been a couple of years without anyone dying of asphyxiation from fermenting wine, but apparently it’s time to reset the counter. In Álava, Rioja, one guy fell into a tank and another died trying to save him and yet another was injured trying to save the both of them. Those little CO2 monitors and harnesses may look like total Revenge of the Nerds in the US, but they also save lives.

For anyone who wondered if the Egyptians drank wine, well, you bet your Tutankhamens they did as 5,000 year-old wine “jars” have been found in Egypt. When asked for comment, a random Georgian taxi driver paused in lighting a new cigarette to state, “Is it 8,000 years old? No? That’s what I thought.” and returned to waiting in the Tbilisi airport parking lot for any arriving Russian he could overcharge.

Oh, WSET is doing beer certifications now. And thank god, because we were all worried that the out-of-date wine information was getting lonely.

Newly-in from the That Ain’t Sustainable Newswire we get a release from Coca-Cola (the world’s worst polluter of plastic) and their new greenwashing campaign which should make one recall... ah yes... that they ditched returnable glass bottles in a country that really needed them only to create massive waste that didn't exist before.

Clearly summer isn't over as yes, the ice cubes in wine event of the warmer months lives on! When will people learn that the best way to serve wine is to: stick in in a blender for three minutes, then pour that into a plastic bag, then beat it with a meat tenderizer, wait six hours, then microwave it on “high” for one minute 31 seconds, to then finally pour it through a aerator, twice? Or at least that's what one assumes would be the best method if taking into account everything written on the wine serving subject from a site that may or may not sound like Schmine Dolly.

As further sign of the holidays approaching we get yet another grumpy article about bringing wine to a host's house and the proper etiquette around such practices. Listen people, it’s not that hard. Just bring one of two kinds of wines: something cheap but decent or something weird and unique. In either case, make peace with the fact you're leaving that damned bottle with the host no matter what they do with it.

And from the Desk of I Don’t Feel so Good, a reader asks, "Why do I have a case of the hurts when I drink certain American wines, but when I'm in Europe, I can drink whatever I pretty much want without problems other than the alcohol one?" The answer is that the US is far more permissive in what can be added into wine to bend it into a certain wine-y state.

Hey, did ya ever wonder how Michel Rolland mixes grapes from five countries into one wine in Napa? Cos that's what he does for the $500 a bottle Pangaea!

And lastly a word from our parent company and benign corporate overlords, Hudin.com who ask, how does it feel to taste 25 vintages of the best sparkling wine in Spain?

Until we meet again, up in the cul of the cuvée.