Tag Archives: Hot Sauce

The Dumbest Types of Sommeliers That Actually Exist

“A sumally what?  Oh you mean a wine guy?”

~American Fine Restaurant Diners

sommolier

French people are only good at two things—being snobby, and making wine. They’re also good at being made fun of by Americans, but that’s really us being good at something than anything else.

Sure, the French didn’t invent wine, but you can argue they invented fine wine, which is why even the staunchest of Americans allow themselves to order wine by using French terms such as “Pinot Noir” and “Cabernet Sauvignon” and “Franzia with some ice cubes, please.”

They even created a profession that consists of knowing every kind of wine and telling people what kind of food goes well with what kind of wine. You might call such a person “a wine guy” or “look at this smug Frenchie fuck” but they are actually called sommeliers, and the process of becoming one is surprisingly exhaustive and difficult as far as “jobs about booze” go.

Sommeliers are experts in all things about wine, including food pairings, service, and descriptions. A sommelier might find themselves in charge of developing wine lists, training staff, and pretty much anything that a restaurant might need done to or with their wine, and becoming one takes months of training and thousands of dollars spent on mandatory classes and tests. It is only for the most dedicated wine aficionados.

Or at least it was. Because apparently, people have gone ahead and become sommeliers for…well, some pretty stupid shit. Here are some sommeliers who are absolutely ridicuolous.

The Dumbest Types of Sommeliers That Actually Exist

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15 Bourbon Barrel-Aged Products of America

“This is madness.  Delicious, bourbon-y madness.”

~Bourbon Enthusiasts

 barrels

When an American distillery makes a bourbon, they’re left with two things—many bottles of delicious drunk juice, and a barrel that set them back $120 that can’t be reused but is still saturated with delicious bourbon flavor.  As in, legally, you cannot reuse a bourbon barrel to make another bourbon.  It’s a one-and-done proposition.  So, for decades, bourbon barrels were either discarded or sold to college students,

Then, in 1992, an at-the-time-relatively-unknown Chicago brewery called Goose Island released a beer called the Bourbon County Stout, and this happened.  Before eventually being bought out by Budweiser in an acquisition that was lamented on this very page, the concept of re-using bourbon barrels on products besides other whiskeys began to grow with Bourbon County Stout’s increasing popularity, and in the past several years we’ve not only seen dozens of beers that spend time aging in used bourbon barrels appear on the market, we’ve seen dozens of completely non-beer-related products that spend time in bourbon barrels got up for sale.  Literally dozens.

The wisest and most magnanimous among us know that adding bourbon to anything makes it delicious and American, and we can literally think of nothing that isn’t improved by the introduction of bourbon.  Have an empty glass and the distinct feeling you’ve wasted the last 15 years of your life?  Boom, put some bourbon in there and watch your worries melt away.  It’s 3AM and the last woman left at the bar looks like a goblin who manages a Wal-Mart?  Bam, bourbon yourself up, next thing you know you’ll swear you’re taking home 1998-era Cindy Crawford.  Your new baby from the aforementioned ill-advised union won’t shut up and you’ve got a hangover?  Boo-ya, drunk babies don’t cry, that’s fucking science.  So with that in mind, we’re going to list of fifteen products that, on their own are good, but when aged in bourbon, are incredible.  (Except for a few gross ones).

Fifteen Bourbon Barrel-Aged Products of America

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This Isn’t Poison: Food and Drinks With Skull Designs

“This is the tale of Captain Jack Sparrow.”

~Michael Bolton

michael bolton

Ever since first reading Treasure Island as a child or, more likely, seeing Hook, Americans spend their childhood surrounded by pirates.  While today piracy seems like an ignoble, cowardly profession, we still are drawn to the classic pirates of yore; the Blackbeards and Black Barts we heard wildly exaggerated stories about.  Hand-in-hand with this romanticized image of people who actually were often very brutal murderers is the Jolly Roger, or the skull-and-crossbones flag that they would fly to identify themselves as pirates.

Since that point, the skull-and-crossbones have become an iconic part of our history, and putting a skull on a product has become a widespread way to tell Americans that something is either badass, poisoned, or was purchased at a Hot Topic.

Today, we’re going to go into the products that Americans consume that have incorporated the skull into their packaging.  Because nothing tells you to put something inside your body better than a bleached human skull and the words “DEATH,” right?

This Isn’t Poison: Food and Drinks With Skull Designs

skull french fries

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