Comida

Thank God 2024 is over and we can get back to our hobby of being terrified by the year 2025. I like to slide right into that level of productivity by getting super-buzzed on caffeine, which I did to the tune of drinking 12 espressos in mid-December. Have you ever clocked 12 shots of espresso … Read more

Here are the best new (to me) bourbons to tiptoe over my tastebuds last year. My editor said I can’t include Barrell Foundation’s late 2023 debut (even though some of these other bourbons came out well before or are just their regular, long-running selves), but I spent the year doling out my sample, so enjoy … Read more

I took a skate down memory ice pond this Christmas with the ranking of several peppermint stick/bark ice cream flavors. My heart belongs to Friendly’s, but if we’re talking quality, a few slipped past it to medal. And boy, there really wasn’t a bad one on this list. But the labor of my days now … Read more

Or at least incorporating that bourbon into your grilling methods. I talked to a bundle of chefs about all they ways they incorporate bourbon into grilled foods and the associated cookout drinks, from marinade to glaze and many points in between…as well as how the smoky grilled foods can come back and contribute to the … Read more

My new Halloween tradition is ranking every Goose Island BCS Stout, but my new Election Day follow-up (and boy did the nation need a collective drink from that one) is getting to be reviewing the Buffalo Trace Antique collection. This year isn’t my favorite of the three that I’ve tried, but that’s not to say … Read more

As I did in 2022 and again in 2023, I applied my liver to consuming the entire Goose Island Bourbon County Stout LTO release at Tasting Table. Now, don’t think I finished every bottle. They got capped and used up over days to follow. But even a shot of each beer is a long walk; … Read more

Yours truly found himself at the Macallan 200th anniversary party–and I have been to some big to-do whiskey releases, but this was the first one that ever felt like a movie premiere. I got to sample the junior half of the Time: Space confusingly doubly named release (and the truly luxe edition itself containing two … Read more

Tasting Table tasked me with sampling and ranking every national chain’s wings in anticipation of football Sundays, and I learned two things. The first is often it’s easier to get actual wings at pizza joints than fried chicken specialty chains. The second was that those pizza joints, by and large, don’t know a darn thing … Read more

I’m aware of what I’m saying, and what I’m saying is that the 2024 Coy Hill release knocks me back in a way that no expression of Pappy to yet cross my lips has done. Yes, it’s great bourbon, but this Tennessee whiskey stays with my memory in ways that the venerable Van Winkle simply … Read more

Let’s take a trip to Kentucky! I did, and there I got a full tour of the grounds of the Maker’s Mark distillery, including their very cool mushroom farm, apiary, and solar fields mowed by free-range sheep. It’s my second distillery tour in the Bluegrass State, and both times I have been so impressed by … Read more

Two fried chicken houses, both alike in dignity and respect, doth release new flavors of wing with a smoky and sweet element. If ever they disturb our eats again, my life shall pay for the forfeit. Tasting Table sent me on a quest to answer the question man has been asking since the discovery of … Read more

I did not have a good time drinking the Hogsworth bourbon/brandy mixture, but I had an even WORSE time with an editor misunderstanding my writing to think that Raj Bhakta was still with Whistlepig, sending it to print with that in the URL, and then pushing it out to MSN.com and the correction misspelling Bhakta … Read more

I reviewed Old Forester’s (a brand I like) Birthday Bourbon (a label I’ve always wanted to try) release for 2024 and hooooo boy. It wasn’t bad, but lord, it wasn’t great. I think the regular stuff is better. I felt bad, but I’ve gotta be honest, and the other early reviews I’ve read look like … Read more

Tasting Table tasked me with trying two new twists on classic Kraft mac and cheese. I found both enjoyable, but less of an upgrade and more of a reskin with minor variations: Ken to Ryu. Which means it’s good, but don’t go expecting a totally different taste. It’s still pretty much the mac and cheese … Read more

Tasting Table asked me to review the latest installment of Jack Daniel’s Distillery Selection Series, and I found #13 to be commendable for the price. If you hesitate on rye and can get this near label price, it might just weave around your usual apprehensions on the normally peppery whiskey.

Previously on my adventures with Vox Media, I wrote up the 10 Bars That Will Rock Around Your Christmas Tree. Prior to, we checked in with Bombay about bars that are doing their best to protect the planet as we get responsibly blotto, possibly to tune out all that we’re doing to the planet in … Read more

I’ve loved Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor whiskey since it was cheap and I was a whiskey idiot. Now it’s expensive and I’m a whiskey idiot, but I can still summon some great reasons why you should get your hands on a bottle of Buffalo Trace’s newest addition to the Taylor family, the Barrel Proof Rye. … Read more

Starbucks released a new menu today, and Tasting Table dispatched me to taste its new summer menu items that are, actually, wait, hold up, permanent additions to the Starbucks menu. And while it’s all pretty good, I’ve got the two in hand that you will actually want to order when you’re getting breakfast at 3 … Read more

Are you a fan of me getting paid to eat breakfast? Sure, we all are. That’s why I took this Tasting Table assignment to review the two new flavors of…let me just take a deep breath before I try to say all this, even though we’re in the medium of print…Costco’s Kirkland Signature Sous Vide … Read more

You’ve got questions about the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection, ranging from “What is it?” to “Where do I get some?” I can only help you with the first one and many of the questions in between, unless I really, really like you and share some of my limited press taster samples. But until that glorious … Read more

I love me some Weller, but I can’t recommend this new Weller Millennium release–certainly not at this price point, at any rate. That said, I did have a wonderful time sampling it in the company of superior whiskey reviewers. My thoughts on where Weller Millennium fails (but also succeeds) are up on Tasting Table.

I originally reviewed this for Tasting Table, but it was such a long walk from speaking with Beyond about a taste test and getting into an office to do so that I did my taxes, and realized that I, in fact, had tossed a hundred bucks at Beyond stock a few years ago (at present, … Read more

What exactly tastes like spring in brown sugar & cinnamon or toasted coconut, I ask you? Other than getting a winter release out the door late and then averaging the calendar with a clear summer flavor? I’m going to save you a click and tell you to skip the flavored coffees in the 2024 Starbucks … Read more

New Tasting Table piece! Everything you should try to make your beef ribs (not just barbecue, but plenty of that) taste better, according to professional chefs and beef experts. We might not have come to a solid conclusion about dry rub and removing the silverskin membrane, but we definitely established the cases for either side … Read more

Spicy Refresher might not be a contradiction, but it’s definitely stalking around the perimeter of one. Nevertheless, your intrepid-stomached reporter went downtown to Starbucks to try the new fruity and piquant Spicy Refreshers that will come and go like spring blossoms. Hot honey and lemonade? I’m listening. And tasting. And talking about it at the … Read more