In a ruling on December 19, 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court declared former president Donald Trump ineligible to be included on the state’s primary ballot, citing the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause. The ruling prompted a wave of responses, some of which claim that Abraham Lincoln had been “barred from the ballot” or “taken off the ballot” by Democrats in 10 Southern slaveholding states in the 1860 election, which preceded the Civil War.
Unfortunately, thousands of people have “liked” and shared claims like this one:
— (@)
It’s unfortunate because it’s false. While it’s true that no ballots were distributed or cast for Lincoln in those states, it wasn’t because he was barred, banned or taken off the ballot.
Here’s why this claim is inaccurate:
First of all, there was no such thing as “the ballot” in 1860.
Generally speaking, a ballot today is an official piece of paper that lists candidates running for a public office and a place to mark which candidate you are voting for. We also say “the ballot” to refer to the list of candidates on that official piece of paper.
That’s not at all what a ballot was in 1860. And there was no “theballot” the way we think of it today at all.
In Lincoln’s time, a ballot was either 1) a blank paper on which you wrote in the name(s) of who you were voting for or 2) a preprinted piece of paper with the name(s) a specific candidate or candidates handed out by a specific party. There was no ballot that had a list of candidates to choose from like we have today. That kind of “blanket ballot” wasn’t used in U.S. elections until after 1888, when it gradually became adopted.
Lincoln couldn’t be barred or taken off a ballot when there was no list of candidates on a ballot to begin with.
Secondly, state authorities didn’t issue printed ballots. Political parties did.
Today, ballots are non-partisan documents issued by state or local governments. That was not the case in 1860. According to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the only things state election laws in the 19th century typically specified about ballots were the paper size and thickness a ballot should be and the size of type to be used on it. The rest was left to candidates, parties and party operatives to decide.
And they did. Political parties and newspapers that supported specific parties printed and issued ballots with their all of their candidates’ names on them to make partisan voting super simple. As the History Channel reports, “By the mid-19th century, state Republican or Democratic party officials would distribute pre-printed fliers to voters listing only their party’s candidates for office. They were called Republican and Democratic ‘tickets’ because the small rectangles of paper resembled 19th-century train tickets.”
If you wanted to vote for a party’s candidates, all you had to do was take the ticket they gave you to the ballot box and drop it in. Otherwise, you used a blank ballot and wrote in who you wanted to vote for.
Third, voting in the mid-19th century wasn’t exactly safe, and it also wasn’t secret.
Voting wasn’t a confidential thing at this point in history. Preprinted party ballots had distinguishing marks, party symbols and candidate portraits on them and they were often printed on colored paper, making who you were voting for quite conspicuous. (For example, Virginia’s Union party ballots in 1860 were pink, so if you dropped off a pink ballot, everyone at the polling place knew who you voted for.)
Elections in the mid-19th century were particularly contentious among the voting populace as well. Election day rioting and violence was common, claiming the lives of 89 Americans in the mid-1800s. The slaveholding South was already a tinderbox and tensions between the North and South were high—imagine trying to print and issue ballots for the anti-slavery-expansion Republican party when both election violence and violence against abolitionists was commonplace. What newspaper or printer in those Southern states would take that risk?
Fourth, issuing ballots in those states would have been a waste of resources for Lincoln and the Republicans, and they knew it.
Let’s remember that the Republican party—Lincoln’s party—was literally founded to combat the spread of slavery, the institution for which the antebellum South was willing to split the country in two. The official party was only a few years old when Lincoln was nominated. There was no support for Republican politics in the South, much less any party infrastructure in place there.
Since writing on a blank ballot or submitting a preprinted party ballot was how people voted in 1860, there would have been no point for the Republicans to print and issue ballots in the southern slaveholding strongholds. Lincoln knew he was considered persona non grata in those states and had no hope of winning Electoral College votes there against the three other candidates running, so he focused his campaign on the north and west. It simply would have been a huge waste of resources to issue ballots in states he couldn’t possibly win. (As it turned out, Lincoln received no votes in any of the states that would soon form the Confederacy, with the exception of Virginia, where he received a whopping 1% of the vote.)
So to sum up, while it’s true that ballots were not distributed for Lincoln in the 10 slaveholding states mentioned and he didn’t receive any votes there, it’s not true that those states barred or removed Lincoln from the ballot. In 1860, there was no such thing as a ballot with multiple candidates to choose from, candidate-specific ballots were issued by political parties and not state governmental authorities, and Lincoln and the Republicans simply didn’t bother to try to distribute ballots in the states where they knew he didn’t stand a chance.
Social media trends can often put overwhelming attention on a specific subject, turning it into a cultural obsession. There are a lot of examples when it comes to relationships and mental health. Social media is filled with armchair therapists who feel the need to diagnose everything as a psychological or physical disorder.
The problem is that there is often a giant chasm between the way that people who are trained in the world of mental health and psychology use these terms and the way they are bandied about online.
Take the term “gaslighting,” for example.
“Indeed, ‘gaslighting’ can be added to the list of words that have spilled over from clinical psychology into popular nomenclature,” Alia Hoyt writes at HowStuffWorks. “While increased understanding of mental health issues is generally a good thing, it falls decidedly flat when terms like gaslighting, ADHD, OCD, and such are grossly misused. All three have become popular slang terms for feelings and experiences that are nowhere near what the terms mean.”
When every bad partner is elevated to being a narcissist or a gaslighter, personal quirks are symptoms of autism, and bad days become episodes of depression, the world starts to become a lot more frightening.
That’s why a recent post on Reddit by NotABigFanOfDucks was so refreshing. They asked people on the forum, “What isn’t nearly as bad as Reddit would have you believe?” and received nearly 10,000 responses where people tamped down the sensationalist nature of social media.
Here are 11 things that aren’t “nearly as bad” as social media would have us believe.
1. Working through relationship problems
“Yeah, the relationship shouldn’t be a constant struggle that outweighs the good but not always sprinkles and sunshine. We are all human, including you and the people you date.” — LocuraLins
2. Dads are welcomed in parks
“As a father, taking my daughters to the park. Nobody ever thought I was a predator or looked at me suspiciously. If anything, most people gave me positive vibes because they liked seeing a father actively involved. Nor was it strange to see other men.” — BobbyTwoSticksBTS2
“100%. As a man, I get way more credit for doing anything with my child than her mother does from random strangers. The bar is so low for us lol.” — TeddyOne
3. Not all bad partners are abusive
“I mentioned an ex being emotionally immature and someone said he’s a covert narcissist. Not every relationship conflict is a sign that someone is abusing you.” — Xain_the_idiot
“When did we start using ‘narcissist’ to describe someone exhibiting literally ANY undesirable behavior? It gets on my nerves so bad. Not everyone is a narcissist, FFS. Some people are just your everyday, run-of-the-mill di**head.” — NapsAndShinyThings
“This is my big beef. Not everything needs a label to validate it. People can be an a**hole without being a narcissist. Some people are just incorrect sometimes. They’re not trying to gaslight you.” — I_Poop_Sometimes
4. Mental health
“Oh my god, I am so utterly exhausted by the new crop of armchair psychologists we now have to deal with, thanks to TikTok. Everyone has ADHD, on top of severe anxiety and depression, which are, in turn, caused by terrible past traumas. But you’re a badass warrior for simply waking up each morning!” — KryssCom
“My cousin-in-law has OCD and was arrested because she, at the age of 12, took on three officers trying to force her to go to school, but she had to go home because her number of steps wasn’t a multiple of 5, so if she didn’t walk back home and do it she honestly believed her perfectly healthy mom would die. She believed this enough to fight three police officers. At the age of 12. I was recently talking to someone who said they had OCD, and I asked them ‘what their compulsion is’ and they said, ‘I like to keep my room tidy,’ and I said, ‘Is it tidy right now?’ and they said no, and then got upset when I told them that’s not OCD. When I showed them the DSM-V, they told me, ‘It’s a spectrum.’ Not everything is on a spectrum. You’re neurotypical, and that’s OKAY.” — Throwaway_Consoles
5. 9 to 5 jobs are evil
“The ‘9 to 5 cubicle job.’ As someone who thought he’d do manual labor and retail bulls**t their entire life, I love my office job.” — DabbinOnDemGoy
“This is a big one. Office jobs can feel depressing at times and some are worse than others, but I’ve been a line cook and a landscaper for years at a time and I’ll take my current office job. Nothing against line cooks or landscapers, but those are REALLY tough jobs to maintain for decades. Very tolling on the body, brain and soul.” — AfetusnamedJames
6. Wrong ideas about introversion and extraversion
“Introverted and extroverted don’t really mean what most people think they mean. It means people who recharge their energy by either being around others or not. If you’re an introvert, you ‘recharge’ alone, if you’re an extravert, you recharge by being around others. This is why you can see socially adept introverts and socially awkward extroverts. It has nothing to really do with confidence in social settings, but whether or not they energize you.” — LilyHex
7. American life
“Life in America. We absolutely have our problems, but so do all countries. Reddit loves to compare the most awfully designed suburb of a terrible city with, like, downtown Stockholm lol.” — Narcadia
“Thank you for reminding this American who gets sucked into pessimism too often. There are some accelerating trends likely to make us such before anyone in the mainstream sees it coming, but all the hysteria around the little things seems to be pushing people further toward disastrous reactions to overblown problems. We could all use a little more ‘it ain’t that bad.'” — PM_ME_UP_PEWP
8. Upward mobility
“The ability for a person to work hard and improve their quality of life over time.” — TooMuchMapleSyrup
“The ‘I will never succeed because society has set me up to fail and therefore I will no longer try’ attitude is so prevalent and so unhealthy.” — One-Zero-Five
“This might be a selfish and nihilistic way to think but when I see people with that mentality, I think how much easier it will be for me to succeed because I’m willing to work hard and improve over time. It’s like when people are willing to place themselves near the bottom of the ‘pecking order’ (standard deviation, bell curve, however, you see it), it’s easier for me to rise to the top.” — Duhblow7
9. Being a parent is fun
“Being a parent! Raising a whole human from scratch is freaking exhausting, yeah, but kids are also hilarious, sweet, fun, loving, weird, quirky, and awesome—all of which massively and unequivocally outweighs hardship.” — Amoryjm
“I really regret listening to people who talked about how hard it would be. Stressed about it so much leading up to it. Not enough people talk about how much f**king FUN being a parent can be.” — Knvn8
10. May-December romance
“Age gaps in relationships. Not saying they’re all okay but a lot of Reddit seems to believe they are all inherently abusive.” — Hollowdisaster
“Exactly. What’s the point in having an age of consent and then getting upset when two people above that age are both … consenting? People on here love to get upset over things that have nothing to do with them. It’s weird.” — Anonymous_Seaotter
11. Rejection
“Suffer the pain of rejection or the pain of regret. I’ve never regretted approaching a woman, but I still remember regretting not approaching them.” — 65AndSunny
“Also, being sensitive to rejection does not mean you have ADHD.” — Trcomajo
Social media trends can often put overwhelming attention on a specific subject, turning it into a cultural obsession. There are a lot of examples when it comes to relationships and mental health. Social media is filled with armchair therapists who feel the need to diagnose everything as a psychological or physical disorder.
The problem is that there is often a giant chasm between the way that people who are trained in the world of mental health and psychology use these terms and the way they are bandied about online.
Take the term “gaslighting,” for example.
“Indeed, ‘gaslighting’ can be added to the list of words that have spilled over from clinical psychology into popular nomenclature,” Alia Hoyt writes at HowStuffWorks. “While increased understanding of mental health issues is generally a good thing, it falls decidedly flat when terms like gaslighting, ADHD, OCD, and such are grossly misused. All three have become popular slang terms for feelings and experiences that are nowhere near what the terms mean.”
When every bad partner is elevated to being a narcissist or a gaslighter, personal quirks are symptoms of autism, and bad days become episodes of depression, the world starts to become a lot more frightening.
That’s why a recent post on Reddit by NotABigFanOfDucks was so refreshing. They asked people on the forum, “What isn’t nearly as bad as Reddit would have you believe?” and received nearly 10,000 responses where people tamped down the sensationalist nature of social media.
Here are 11 things that aren’t “nearly as bad” as social media would have us believe.
1. Working through relationship problems
“Yeah, the relationship shouldn’t be a constant struggle that outweighs the good but not always sprinkles and sunshine. We are all human, including you and the people you date.” — LocuraLins
2. Dads are welcomed in parks
“As a father, taking my daughters to the park. Nobody ever thought I was a predator or looked at me suspiciously. If anything, most people gave me positive vibes because they liked seeing a father actively involved. Nor was it strange to see other men.” — BobbyTwoSticksBTS2
“100%. As a man, I get way more credit for doing anything with my child than her mother does from random strangers. The bar is so low for us lol.” — TeddyOne
3. Not all bad partners are abusive
“I mentioned an ex being emotionally immature and someone said he’s a covert narcissist. Not every relationship conflict is a sign that someone is abusing you.” — Xain_the_idiot
“When did we start using ‘narcissist’ to describe someone exhibiting literally ANY undesirable behavior? It gets on my nerves so bad. Not everyone is a narcissist, FFS. Some people are just your everyday, run-of-the-mill di**head.” — NapsAndShinyThings
“This is my big beef. Not everything needs a label to validate it. People can be an a**hole without being a narcissist. Some people are just incorrect sometimes. They’re not trying to gaslight you.” — I_Poop_Sometimes
4. Mental health
“Oh my god, I am so utterly exhausted by the new crop of armchair psychologists we now have to deal with, thanks to TikTok. Everyone has ADHD, on top of severe anxiety and depression, which are, in turn, caused by terrible past traumas. But you’re a badass warrior for simply waking up each morning!” — KryssCom
“My cousin-in-law has OCD and was arrested because she, at the age of 12, took on three officers trying to force her to go to school, but she had to go home because her number of steps wasn’t a multiple of 5, so if she didn’t walk back home and do it she honestly believed her perfectly healthy mom would die. She believed this enough to fight three police officers. At the age of 12. I was recently talking to someone who said they had OCD, and I asked them ‘what their compulsion is’ and they said, ‘I like to keep my room tidy,’ and I said, ‘Is it tidy right now?’ and they said no, and then got upset when I told them that’s not OCD. When I showed them the DSM-V, they told me, ‘It’s a spectrum.’ Not everything is on a spectrum. You’re neurotypical, and that’s OKAY.” — Throwaway_Consoles
5. 9 to 5 jobs are evil
“The ‘9 to 5 cubicle job.’ As someone who thought he’d do manual labor and retail bulls**t their entire life, I love my office job.” — DabbinOnDemGoy
“This is a big one. Office jobs can feel depressing at times and some are worse than others, but I’ve been a line cook and a landscaper for years at a time and I’ll take my current office job. Nothing against line cooks or landscapers, but those are REALLY tough jobs to maintain for decades. Very tolling on the body, brain and soul.” — AfetusnamedJames
6. Wrong ideas about introversion and extraversion
“Introverted and extroverted don’t really mean what most people think they mean. It means people who recharge their energy by either being around others or not. If you’re an introvert, you ‘recharge’ alone, if you’re an extravert, you recharge by being around others. This is why you can see socially adept introverts and socially awkward extroverts. It has nothing to really do with confidence in social settings, but whether or not they energize you.” — LilyHex
7. American life
“Life in America. We absolutely have our problems, but so do all countries. Reddit loves to compare the most awfully designed suburb of a terrible city with, like, downtown Stockholm lol.” — Narcadia
“Thank you for reminding this American who gets sucked into pessimism too often. There are some accelerating trends likely to make us such before anyone in the mainstream sees it coming, but all the hysteria around the little things seems to be pushing people further toward disastrous reactions to overblown problems. We could all use a little more ‘it ain’t that bad.'” — PM_ME_UP_PEWP
8. Upward mobility
“The ability for a person to work hard and improve their quality of life over time.” — TooMuchMapleSyrup
“The ‘I will never succeed because society has set me up to fail and therefore I will no longer try’ attitude is so prevalent and so unhealthy.” — One-Zero-Five
“This might be a selfish and nihilistic way to think but when I see people with that mentality, I think how much easier it will be for me to succeed because I’m willing to work hard and improve over time. It’s like when people are willing to place themselves near the bottom of the ‘pecking order’ (standard deviation, bell curve, however, you see it), it’s easier for me to rise to the top.” — Duhblow7
9. Being a parent is fun
“Being a parent! Raising a whole human from scratch is freaking exhausting, yeah, but kids are also hilarious, sweet, fun, loving, weird, quirky, and awesome—all of which massively and unequivocally outweighs hardship.” — Amoryjm
“I really regret listening to people who talked about how hard it would be. Stressed about it so much leading up to it. Not enough people talk about how much f**king FUN being a parent can be.” — Knvn8
10. May-December romance
“Age gaps in relationships. Not saying they’re all okay but a lot of Reddit seems to believe they are all inherently abusive.” — Hollowdisaster
“Exactly. What’s the point in having an age of consent and then getting upset when two people above that age are both … consenting? People on here love to get upset over things that have nothing to do with them. It’s weird.” — Anonymous_Seaotter
11. Rejection
“Suffer the pain of rejection or the pain of regret. I’ve never regretted approaching a woman, but I still remember regretting not approaching them.” — 65AndSunny
“Also, being sensitive to rejection does not mean you have ADHD.” — Trcomajo
It’s cold and flu seasons, folks. During this time of year, we’re all on a mission to avoid the demon viruses that threaten to invade our bodies and wage Armageddon on our immune systems.
But no matter how much vitamin C we consume or how diligently we wash our hands, we still have to rely on others to be smart about exposing people to their sick germs.
And that goes doubly for kids, who inexplicably do things like lick their own palms and rub communal crayons under their noses.
That’s why a mom’s recent Facebook post about keeping kids home when they have a fever has been shared more than 170,000 times. Samantha Moriá Reynolds shared a photo of a thermometer with a temperature of 101.4 with the following message:
This morning, Sam woke up and noticed her son wasn’t feeling well. Sam took her son’s temperature, and wow! A fever. Sam gave her son Tylenol and then… Sam did NOT send her son to school. Even after the fever went down a couple hours later, Sam did NOT send her son to school. Sam missed work knowing that the well-being of her son and the kids who attend his school is more important than work missed.
Sam’s son was invited to THREE birthday parties over the weekend. Sam’s son has been so excited to go, but he will unfortunately also have to miss them because Sam’s son is SICK. Sam knows passing along a sickness would not be a great birthday gift regardless of how bummed her son may be.
Sam knows her son is still contagious until he is fever-free, WITHOUT medication, for 24 hours. If Sam’s son is running a fever at 7am on Sunday, Sam’s son will also not be attending school on Monday.
Be. Like. Sam.
Some parents will give their kids fever-reducing medication, the fever will go down, the kid will feel a bit better, and off they go to school. But fever meds like Tylenol don’t do anything to kill the virus that’s infecting the kid’s body. They just mask the symptoms of the illness and provide some relief to a miserable kiddo. If a fever goes down with medication, the child is still sick and still contagious.
The same goes for adults who try to tough it out by popping a Dayquil before heading off to work. If you want to infect your coworkers and make them hate you, keep doing that.
Granted, some parents may have a hard time finding childcare or taking time off work, and there’s a lot to be said for employers being understanding and granting leave to care for sick children. Our whole society needs to work together on this front to make sure people don’t feel like they have no choice but to send a sick kid to school. But that starts with parents insisting that their feverish kids stay home from school until they are no longer a threat to other people’s health and well-being.
The coronavirus outbreak keeps making headlines and the mounting death numbers from it are making people nervous, but the truth is that the plain old flu already kills thousands of Americans every single year. This season, more than 8,000 people have already died from flu and flu complications, and we’re still in the thick of the season.
The best way to keep illness from spreading is to stay away from other people when you are sick and to keep sick kids home until they are fever-free for 24 hours.
Be like Sam. Keep sick kids home. It takes a village to keep us all healthy.
In Home Alone, the Wet (later Sticky) Bandits don’t try to rob just any house. They try to rob a glorious McMansion. It’s located on a crowded suburban street, but it can fit three kids, each of whom has their own room. Relatives can stay over, comfortably. The people who own it spend the holidays in Paris. At the same time they don’t have infinite disposable income. They can’t just throw money at the predicament they wind up in. At one point, in her mad pursuit to rescue youngest son Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), Mom (Catherine O’Hara) even has to hawk jewelry, some of which might be fake.
So how exactly rich are the McCallisters? A new New York Times study tried to find out.
The new piece crunches some numbers and even speaks to economics at the Federal Reserve, who probably have better things to do than talk about the second biggest moneymaker of 33 years ago. Here are some big takeaways:
1) That house, located in the swanky Chicago suburb of Winnetka, could only be affordable to the 1 percent, though the 1 percent isn’t as small as it sounds. The McCallisters could afford it on about a $300,000 salary in 1990, or about a $665,000 salary today. As Todd Strasser, who wrote the novelization (without that much assistance from the filmmakers), they’re “upper middle class” but not “super rich.”
2) What do Mom and Dad (John Heard) do? Unclear! Strasser had Mom work in fashion; you can see mannequins festooned in the house, which come in handy in the beloved Looney Tunes-violent climax. Dad, meanwhile, is a generic “businessman.” Perhaps he works in Chicago, maybe in the same generic firm as the dad from another John Hughes-penned movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
3) It’s worth noting that at least part of the McCallisters’ grand Parisian vacation was funded by an older, unseen brother of Dad’s, Uncle Rob. He paid for the flights, and they stay in his apartment, which has a dynamite view of the Eiffel Tower. Contrast this with Uncle Frank, who’s a cheapskate, a klepto, and kind of a jerk. (He could still be wealthy, or wealthy-ish. As NYT notes, a study showed that shoplifting was “significantly more common” among those who earn more than $70k.)
4) Does Dad actually work in organized crime? That’s one fan theory:
Under this theory, the McCallister home was specifically targeted as some sort of vendetta, and Kevin’s brutal violence against the burglars is the product of an upbringing exposed to criminal activity.
So there you have it, sort of! The McCallisters are rich but they could be richer. Maybe they’re even crooks, but that doesn’t seem right. The Bandits (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern) seem like low-level crooks, albeit ones that are slightly on top of things, and not dumb enough to mess with anyone connected to the mob.
On a related note, please enjoy Gene Siskel almost losing his mind when Roger Ebert argues that the Culkin-less Home Alone 3 is the best of the trilogy.
Feel like Ebert claiming Home Alone 3 is the best Home Alone almost broke Siskel, like he couldn’t comprehend how this had become his life pic.twitter.com/tYH8GecPeH
While popping a cork on a champagne bottle is a great idea any time of year, we all know we pop a hell of a lot more Champers during the holidays. The best thing about champagne — I’m talking the real deal stuff from Champagne, France, and not American sparkling wine, prosecco, sekt, and so forth — is that it is one of the most versatile pairing wines in the world. Truly.
So I figured it was high time to pair some great champagne with some amazing foods. Below, I’m calling out some of my favorite pairing options with some of my favorite champagnes. And while you may know me mostly as a whiskey critic and judge, champagne is my other deep passion in life. So much so, that I did this exact exercise a week or two ago with two of my close friends (who are Master Sommeliers) and our families. We all brought several bottles of bubbly and every level of food and just hung out all night popping corks and noshing as the conversation flowed.
We even had a fire crackling away on the back deck. It was a glorious time.
Long story short, gather your family or crew with some great champagne and some of these foods. You’ll be in for a treat. And if you can’t find the exact foods or champagnes, use this pairing list as a jumping-off point to do something similar. Let’s dive in!
Also Read: The Top Five Cocktail Recipes of the Last Six Months
This champagne might be the most representative of the region in a single bottle. Nicolas Feuillatte is more of a collective (or union) of 100 individual winemakers and 82 winemaking cooperatives covering over 5,000 vineyards around Champagne, France. That equates to Feuillatte pulling its juice from a swath of vineyards that cover around 7% of the wine grown in the region.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: There’s a sense of dry breadiness next to ripe apricots and peaches that draws you in on the nose before a light flutter of clay dirt sneaks in on the back end.
Palate: The body is effervescent and full of bubbles that burst with orchard-pitted fruits alongside hints of vanilla and musty cellars full of old oak barrels.
Finish: The end gets creamy with that vanilla and a twinge of fresh flowers with apricot and peach skins and pits.
Pringles and Caviar offers a set of various flavored Pringle cans with white sturgeon and smoked trout roe, both from U.S. producers. It’s a great pairing if you’re looking to dip your toe into the world of easygoing caviar flavors combined with very well-known crisp flavors.
The Pringles and Caviar kit includes the following items:
1 oz. Classic White Sturgeon Caviar
1 oz. Smoked Trout Roe
3 2.5 oz. cans of Pringles: Sour Cream & Onion, Original, and BBQ
2 disposable spoons
1 Caviar Tin Key
How It Pairs:
Since Nicolas Feuillatte Brut is a fairly budget/entry-level option in the grand scheme of things champagne-related, it’s fun not to go too extravagant here. A local caviar set with a Pringles pairing feels perfect for that level of champers sipping. Smoked trout roe feels familiar if you’re already into smoked salmon and offers a great pairing with a Sour Cream & Onion Pringle. It’s almost like a fancy tuna melt.
If caviar still feels a little too “premiere” for your palate, then try some tinned seafood from Spain. Mussels in hot oil, white tuna in olive oil, or squid in its ink are great places to start.
Veuve Clicquot Brut Rose Champagne + KFC Original Recipe 8-Piece Bucket
Veuve Clicquot is a great starter champagne when you’re looking to take things up from novice to advanced beginner without getting too deep into the “advanced” stuff. Their Rose offering is made with 50 to 60 different crus that come from largely Pinot Noir grapes supported by Meunier and Chardonnay wines.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Berry tarts with buttery pastry and bright citrus oils pop on the nose next to a flourish of almond and lemon cookies dusted with powdered sugar and a whisper of oak spice.
Palate: Those berry tarts take on a rich strawberry note on the palate that’s fresh and vibrant before that butteriness returns with a moment of vanilla pods and old oak staves soaked in dry brandy.
Finish: A moment of orange oil drives the finish toward dry oak and butter vanilla with a hint of those bright berries lingering the longest.
A bucket of Original Recipe KFC Fried Chicken is a quintessential fried and salty treat. The chicken is juicy and well-spiced while the coating is soft with a hint of crunchiness. This is comfort food turned up to 11.
How It Pairs:
This is a very specific pairing from the backstage aftershow playbook of Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters, and it freaking works. The saltiness of the chicken is perfectly countered by the dry brightness of the champagne. It brings out a sweetness in the chicken that takes it to the next level while the saltiness of the chicken brings out an almost creamy nature to the bubbly.
It’s a match made in Rock-N-Roll heaven.
Ruinart Blanc De Blancs Champagne + Fortnum & Mason Coronation Caledonia Fruit Cake
Ruinart Blanc is a very specific champagne. It’s made from 100% Chardonnay grapes. The ripple here is that 25% of the blend is from reserve wines that have settled in oak for several years before batching. Those wines are primarily Premier Crus (premiere vineyards with the best terroir) from the Montagne de Reims and the Côte des Blancs regions.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: This nose bursts with a fresh fruit basket brimming with pears, sweet and tart apples, freshly plucked red berries, and a big ol’ pineapple in the middle before hints of summer wildflowers and fresh ginger sneak in.
Palate: The palate is lush with a sense of walnut fats and cardamom pods next to fresh peach tossed with pear brandy and orange zest with a whisper of sea salt.
Finish: The orange takes on a chinotto vibe on the finish as the spices kick in from the oak next to this lush sense of vanilla and butter at the very end.
American fruitcake leaves a lot to be desired. But that’s not all fruitcake in the world. Fortnum & Mason in the U.K. makes one of the best fruitcakes I’v e ever tasted. The cake comes from a small Scottish family-run bakery up in Edinburgh. Scottish heather honey is the main sweetener and adds a delectable brightness. Add in the rum-soaked raisins, deep winter spices, and candied orange and you have a dense and delicious slice of Christmas on a plate.
How It Pairs:
This will take all those bright fruits from the champagne and stew them on your palate when paired. It’s a wonderful dimension of depth. The booziness of the cake will also temper slightly as the sharpness from the wine adds in more nutty holiday cake vibes, amping up the whole experience to new heights.
And look, you can do this with any wintry cake really. American fruitcakes tend to be a little too candied fruit forward with too mild of spice (and very dry). But if you can get your hands on an Italian Panettone or a German Stollen, you will also be delighted with this holiday-themed pairing.
Moët & Chandon Nectar Imperial + Katz Deli Pastrami
Moët is a very old-school champagne that goes back to the court of French royalty. The popularity of this wine cannot be understated. They’re one of the biggest producers of champagne in the world. Nectar Impérial is a special blend of reserve wines (old ones) chosen to add a deeper sense of richness and complexity to the bubbly.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The flute pulls you in with a sense of tropical fruits leaning towards mangos and pineapple while stonefruits lurk in the background.
Palate: Those stonefruits take over on the palate with apricots and meaty plums leading toward a white grape touch next to a hint of vanilla.
Finish: Finally, that vanilla takes on a slightly creamy edge (thanks to a touch of Chardonnay in the blend), bringing a well-rounded body to this sip.
Katz Deli Pastrami is iconic. The meat is brined for 30 days before slow smoking, steaming, and resting. The mix of herbs, spices, and botanicals with salt is perfect — yes, I will die on the hill that Katz Deli perfected deli pastrami. The best part is that you can get this delivered to your door anywhere in the U.S. and it’ll still be delightful.
How It Pairs:
Salty spiced meat and Veuve Clicquot Rose go together so well. The salty spiced fattiness of the pastrami offers a great counterpoint to the bright and almost sweet fruitiness of the champagne. You’re creating textures and layers in your mouth when you pair these two things. Also, the bubbly calms down the heftiness of the salt to a point where it feels well-seasoned more than just salty (it’s still pastrami after all), allowing the spices to mingle with the fruits and become clearer and more pronounced.
Naturally, this is in the same vein as the fried chicken above. So do that too! Or if you can’t get a good Jewish deli pastrami, then go for a charcuterie board in general. Spicy salami, cured ham, smoked turkey, local pastrami, and funky cheeses are going to work too.
Bollinger Brut Special Cuvée Champagne + Fresh Hama Hama Oysters
Bollinger has spent centuries becoming the icon it is today. The wine got a huge boost when it became the champagne of Queen Victoria’s court in the late 1800s, which led to it being the official drink of Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Thanks to the guidance of Lily Bollinger post-WWII, the brand became the champagne that the adventurers, jet-setters, and champagne drinkers in the know drink.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: This draws you in with a sense of over-ripe peaches next to tart apples and sweet pears stewed with dark spices, sultanas, and buttery wine before hitting this layer of dry oak with a hint of old cedar flakes.
Palate: That spice and apple/pear bring about an almost apple butter feel as the svelte nature of the sip leads towards a brioche loaded with walnuts with subtle winter spice barks and dry yet sweet oakiness.
Finish: The end leans into the sweet creaminess of the orchard fruit with a vibrant sense of flaked sea salt and dashes of brandied raisins and saffron-stewed apricots.
Fresh oysters on the half-shell shell are the way to go. Hama Hama offers some of the most delicate and refined fresh oysters for shooting with champagne on the market. The extra small oysters are creamy and lush with a hint of sea brine that is, yes, sweet. They’re world-renowned for a reason, folks.
A Hama Hama Oyster Start Pack includes:
3 dozen extra small oysters
Hama Hama shucking gloves (multiple sizes)
Shucking knife
Oyster tasting guide
A bar towel for shucking
Seasonal mignonette
How It Pairs:
This lush and sweet oysters chased with a sip of Bollinger are the perfect pairing duo. The deep sweet and dark stewed fruitiness of the bubbly gives way to the creamy brininess of the oysters perfectly. That hint of oak and cedar from the wine also just makes sense when paired with a fresh oyster in a way that’s damn near preternatural. This is the sort of pairing that’ll make you sit back slowly in your chair and close your eyes in ecstasy as all the flavors wash over you.
Of course, if sourcing oysters from Western Washington State is too costly, any local fresh oysters will also do. Just make sure to get extra smalls.
Perrier Jouët Belle Epoque Brut Champagne + Niederegger Marzipan
Perrier Jouët Belle Epoque is a vintage champagne. That means the absolute best wines (from the top-tier vineyards) from a specific year (2014 in this case) were left alone to mature until ready for release, creating a bit of a time machine to another era of wine-making in France.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Summer wildflowers and white peaches fresh from the tree dominate the nose with a sense of sweet oakiness, soft and very fresh croissant (to the point of almost feeling warm from the oven), and this flutter of almond shell.
Palate: Fresh apple skins and pear stems drive the palate with a whisper of chinotto orange bitterness, soft lemon oils, and more of that nutshell dryness with a hint of soft oak that’s damn near creamy.
Finish: The creaminess amps on the finish as the wildflowers meld with creamed honey, soft stewed pear, and a whisper of winter spice barks.
Niederegger Marzipan is nothing like every other marzipan out there. It’s the top of the top when it comes to the Germanic treat. Let’s start with the coating. The chocolate — either milk or dark — is a superb chocolate by itself and it’s not even the star of the show. The marzipan is made with delicate and very moist almond paste that’s lush and super soft and not overly sweet (like American versions). On a basic level, that almond paste is kissed with rose water as the major key flavor note with hints of other oils added to create different flavors — think espresso, pear brandy, orange, pineapple, and so many more.
All combined, you’re treated to a soft and delectable “candy” unlike anything else in the nutty chocolate sphere of sweets.
How It Pairs:
The brightness of the champagne is perfectly accented by the lushness of the nutty and almost creamy marzipan. A pear brandy-infused Niederegger marzipan morsel with dark chocolate chased with a sip of floral creamy honey pear-influenced wine is spectacular. All of the flavor notes of both pieces of the puzzle rise to new and delicious heights.
Armand De Brignac Ace Of Spade Champagne + Glenfiddich x Thierry Atlan Grand Cru Scotch Whisky-Infused Macarons
This is a premier cuvée (the first cut of wine from a batch) champagne that’s dialed in for 21st-century palates (thanks to partial ownership by Jay-Z). Beyond those facts, the winemakers keep their cards close to the chest with the details of what’s in the bottle.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Soft peach and fresh apricot pop on the nose and are countered by tart red berries and bright orange that’s part oily and part floral before a buttery and sweet brioche arrives.
Palate: Those red berries sweeten toward a brandied cherry on the front of the palate as lemon-kissed sugar cookies with a creamy honey sweetness drive the palate toward soft oakiness and a hint of dry cedar.
Finish: That dry cedar drives the finish toward a whisper of winter spice barks before the creamy honey and brandied cherries return on the end for a lush finish full of sharp bubbles.
The macarons are made by New York’s premiere confectioner Thierry Atlan. Atlan uses Glenfiddich Grand Cru 23-year-old Single Malt Scotch (finished in rare French Cuvée casks) for the creme in the macarons.
They’re delicious.
How It Pairs:
Macarons are a great champagne pairing treat in general. These macarons are the perfect pairing treat. The sweet and soft oaky apple vibes of the Glenfiddich in the creamy and crunchy macaron just sing with a champagne as creamy and fruity as this. It’s like two old friends in a long embrace.
Krug Grande Cuvée is one of the best pours of bubbly out there (and I’m saying that as a “die-on-a-hill” Bollinger acolyte). The wine is hewn from 120 different wines that are 10 different ages, ranging into the double digits. Naturally, the wines selected are from the best vines with impeccable terroir-driven winemaking at the core of each of them.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose is akin to walking through a field of wildflowers with an orange and lemon orchard in full bloom in the near distance next to rich and very good marzipan cut with moist gingerbread houses covered in candied berries, cherries, and citrus rinds.
Palate: Chinotto orange bitterness opens the dry yet creamy palate with a sense of lemon curd and quince jelly before this deep almond oil sense arrives with a hint of petit pains au chocolat aux amandes (very buttery pastries with rich chocolate and almond paste) next to a touch of dried cranberry.
Finish: The end leans into the dried red fruit and almond paste with a nice dry orange bitterness accented by subtle oakiness that’s more like a walk through a wine cellar than holding an oak stave in your hand.
The famed New York restaurant and elite caviar supplier has made some of the most premiere and delicious caviar on the planet available. Go big because you can now and grab some Gold Osetra Caviar. The sustainably farmed German caviar is the prime cut of the roe. There’s a deep sense of the sea that’s somehow one of the most subtle representations of it too.
Each egg feels individual and has an integrity to it that’s second to none — allowing you fully experience a mouthfeel textural sharpness. Then there’s this light creamy sweetness that’s under it all that helps this caviar just explode on your senses with deep sea vibes by way of what feels like creamed nori seared over a driftwood fire. It’s spectacular.
How It Pairs:
Big champagne demands that you go big or go home. This is going pretty much as big as you can when it comes to caviar. This is the best paired with the best. Yes, it’s pricey, but this is a flavor experience that drives your palate toward new heights of understanding. The caviar’s creaminess and clarity play so well with the vibrance of the bubbly that it just works on every level, giving you a fully rounded textural and taste experience.
While popping a cork on a champagne bottle is a great idea any time of year, we all know we pop a hell of a lot more Champers during the holidays. The best thing about champagne — I’m talking the real deal stuff from Champagne, France, and not American sparkling wine, prosecco, sekt, and so forth — is that it is one of the most versatile pairing wines in the world. Truly.
So I figured it was high time to pair some great champagne with some amazing foods. Below, I’m calling out some of my favorite pairing options with some of my favorite champagnes. And while you may know me mostly as a whiskey critic and judge, champagne is my other deep passion in life. So much so, that I did this exact exercise a week or two ago with two of my close friends (who are Master Sommeliers) and our families. We all brought several bottles of bubbly and every level of food and just hung out all night popping corks and noshing as the conversation flowed.
We even had a fire crackling away on the back deck. It was a glorious time.
Long story short, gather your family or crew with some great champagne and some of these foods. You’ll be in for a treat. And if you can’t find the exact foods or champagnes, use this pairing list as a jumping-off point to do something similar. Let’s dive in!
Also Read: The Top Five Cocktail Recipes of the Last Six Months
This champagne might be the most representative of the region in a single bottle. Nicolas Feuillatte is more of a collective (or union) of 100 individual winemakers and 82 winemaking cooperatives covering over 5,000 vineyards around Champagne, France. That equates to Feuillatte pulling its juice from a swath of vineyards that cover around 7% of the wine grown in the region.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: There’s a sense of dry breadiness next to ripe apricots and peaches that draws you in on the nose before a light flutter of clay dirt sneaks in on the back end.
Palate: The body is effervescent and full of bubbles that burst with orchard-pitted fruits alongside hints of vanilla and musty cellars full of old oak barrels.
Finish: The end gets creamy with that vanilla and a twinge of fresh flowers with apricot and peach skins and pits.
Pringles and Caviar offers a set of various flavored Pringle cans with white sturgeon and smoked trout roe, both from U.S. producers. It’s a great pairing if you’re looking to dip your toe into the world of easygoing caviar flavors combined with very well-known crisp flavors.
The Pringles and Caviar kit includes the following items:
1 oz. Classic White Sturgeon Caviar
1 oz. Smoked Trout Roe
3 2.5 oz. cans of Pringles: Sour Cream & Onion, Original, and BBQ
2 disposable spoons
1 Caviar Tin Key
How It Pairs:
Since Nicolas Feuillatte Brut is a fairly budget/entry-level option in the grand scheme of things champagne-related, it’s fun not to go too extravagant here. A local caviar set with a Pringles pairing feels perfect for that level of champers sipping. Smoked trout roe feels familiar if you’re already into smoked salmon and offers a great pairing with a Sour Cream & Onion Pringle. It’s almost like a fancy tuna melt.
If caviar still feels a little too “premiere” for your palate, then try some tinned seafood from Spain. Mussels in hot oil, white tuna in olive oil, or squid in its ink are great places to start.
Veuve Clicquot Brut Rose Champagne + KFC Original Recipe 8-Piece Bucket
Veuve Clicquot is a great starter champagne when you’re looking to take things up from novice to advanced beginner without getting too deep into the “advanced” stuff. Their Rose offering is made with 50 to 60 different crus that come from largely Pinot Noir grapes supported by Meunier and Chardonnay wines.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Berry tarts with buttery pastry and bright citrus oils pop on the nose next to a flourish of almond and lemon cookies dusted with powdered sugar and a whisper of oak spice.
Palate: Those berry tarts take on a rich strawberry note on the palate that’s fresh and vibrant before that butteriness returns with a moment of vanilla pods and old oak staves soaked in dry brandy.
Finish: A moment of orange oil drives the finish toward dry oak and butter vanilla with a hint of those bright berries lingering the longest.
A bucket of Original Recipe KFC Fried Chicken is a quintessential fried and salty treat. The chicken is juicy and well-spiced while the coating is soft with a hint of crunchiness. This is comfort food turned up to 11.
How It Pairs:
This is a very specific pairing from the backstage aftershow playbook of Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters, and it freaking works. The saltiness of the chicken is perfectly countered by the dry brightness of the champagne. It brings out a sweetness in the chicken that takes it to the next level while the saltiness of the chicken brings out an almost creamy nature to the bubbly.
It’s a match made in Rock-N-Roll heaven.
Ruinart Blanc De Blancs Champagne + Fortnum & Mason Coronation Caledonia Fruit Cake
Ruinart Blanc is a very specific champagne. It’s made from 100% Chardonnay grapes. The ripple here is that 25% of the blend is from reserve wines that have settled in oak for several years before batching. Those wines are primarily Premier Crus (premiere vineyards with the best terroir) from the Montagne de Reims and the Côte des Blancs regions.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: This nose bursts with a fresh fruit basket brimming with pears, sweet and tart apples, freshly plucked red berries, and a big ol’ pineapple in the middle before hints of summer wildflowers and fresh ginger sneak in.
Palate: The palate is lush with a sense of walnut fats and cardamom pods next to fresh peach tossed with pear brandy and orange zest with a whisper of sea salt.
Finish: The orange takes on a chinotto vibe on the finish as the spices kick in from the oak next to this lush sense of vanilla and butter at the very end.
American fruitcake leaves a lot to be desired. But that’s not all fruitcake in the world. Fortnum & Mason in the U.K. makes one of the best fruitcakes I’v e ever tasted. The cake comes from a small Scottish family-run bakery up in Edinburgh. Scottish heather honey is the main sweetener and adds a delectable brightness. Add in the rum-soaked raisins, deep winter spices, and candied orange and you have a dense and delicious slice of Christmas on a plate.
How It Pairs:
This will take all those bright fruits from the champagne and stew them on your palate when paired. It’s a wonderful dimension of depth. The booziness of the cake will also temper slightly as the sharpness from the wine adds in more nutty holiday cake vibes, amping up the whole experience to new heights.
And look, you can do this with any wintry cake really. American fruitcakes tend to be a little too candied fruit forward with too mild of spice (and very dry). But if you can get your hands on an Italian Panettone or a German Stollen, you will also be delighted with this holiday-themed pairing.
Moët & Chandon Nectar Imperial + Katz Deli Pastrami
Moët is a very old-school champagne that goes back to the court of French royalty. The popularity of this wine cannot be understated. They’re one of the biggest producers of champagne in the world. Nectar Impérial is a special blend of reserve wines (old ones) chosen to add a deeper sense of richness and complexity to the bubbly.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The flute pulls you in with a sense of tropical fruits leaning towards mangos and pineapple while stonefruits lurk in the background.
Palate: Those stonefruits take over on the palate with apricots and meaty plums leading toward a white grape touch next to a hint of vanilla.
Finish: Finally, that vanilla takes on a slightly creamy edge (thanks to a touch of Chardonnay in the blend), bringing a well-rounded body to this sip.
Katz Deli Pastrami is iconic. The meat is brined for 30 days before slow smoking, steaming, and resting. The mix of herbs, spices, and botanicals with salt is perfect — yes, I will die on the hill that Katz Deli perfected deli pastrami. The best part is that you can get this delivered to your door anywhere in the U.S. and it’ll still be delightful.
How It Pairs:
Salty spiced meat and Veuve Clicquot Rose go together so well. The salty spiced fattiness of the pastrami offers a great counterpoint to the bright and almost sweet fruitiness of the champagne. You’re creating textures and layers in your mouth when you pair these two things. Also, the bubbly calms down the heftiness of the salt to a point where it feels well-seasoned more than just salty (it’s still pastrami after all), allowing the spices to mingle with the fruits and become clearer and more pronounced.
Naturally, this is in the same vein as the fried chicken above. So do that too! Or if you can’t get a good Jewish deli pastrami, then go for a charcuterie board in general. Spicy salami, cured ham, smoked turkey, local pastrami, and funky cheeses are going to work too.
Bollinger Brut Special Cuvée Champagne + Fresh Hama Hama Oysters
Bollinger has spent centuries becoming the icon it is today. The wine got a huge boost when it became the champagne of Queen Victoria’s court in the late 1800s, which led to it being the official drink of Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Thanks to the guidance of Lily Bollinger post-WWII, the brand became the champagne that the adventurers, jet-setters, and champagne drinkers in the know drink.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: This draws you in with a sense of over-ripe peaches next to tart apples and sweet pears stewed with dark spices, sultanas, and buttery wine before hitting this layer of dry oak with a hint of old cedar flakes.
Palate: That spice and apple/pear bring about an almost apple butter feel as the svelte nature of the sip leads towards a brioche loaded with walnuts with subtle winter spice barks and dry yet sweet oakiness.
Finish: The end leans into the sweet creaminess of the orchard fruit with a vibrant sense of flaked sea salt and dashes of brandied raisins and saffron-stewed apricots.
Fresh oysters on the half-shell shell are the way to go. Hama Hama offers some of the most delicate and refined fresh oysters for shooting with champagne on the market. The extra small oysters are creamy and lush with a hint of sea brine that is, yes, sweet. They’re world-renowned for a reason, folks.
A Hama Hama Oyster Start Pack includes:
3 dozen extra small oysters
Hama Hama shucking gloves (multiple sizes)
Shucking knife
Oyster tasting guide
A bar towel for shucking
Seasonal mignonette
How It Pairs:
This lush and sweet oysters chased with a sip of Bollinger are the perfect pairing duo. The deep sweet and dark stewed fruitiness of the bubbly gives way to the creamy brininess of the oysters perfectly. That hint of oak and cedar from the wine also just makes sense when paired with a fresh oyster in a way that’s damn near preternatural. This is the sort of pairing that’ll make you sit back slowly in your chair and close your eyes in ecstasy as all the flavors wash over you.
Of course, if sourcing oysters from Western Washington State is too costly, any local fresh oysters will also do. Just make sure to get extra smalls.
Perrier Jouët Belle Epoque Brut Champagne + Niederegger Marzipan
Perrier Jouët Belle Epoque is a vintage champagne. That means the absolute best wines (from the top-tier vineyards) from a specific year (2014 in this case) were left alone to mature until ready for release, creating a bit of a time machine to another era of wine-making in France.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Summer wildflowers and white peaches fresh from the tree dominate the nose with a sense of sweet oakiness, soft and very fresh croissant (to the point of almost feeling warm from the oven), and this flutter of almond shell.
Palate: Fresh apple skins and pear stems drive the palate with a whisper of chinotto orange bitterness, soft lemon oils, and more of that nutshell dryness with a hint of soft oak that’s damn near creamy.
Finish: The creaminess amps on the finish as the wildflowers meld with creamed honey, soft stewed pear, and a whisper of winter spice barks.
Niederegger Marzipan is nothing like every other marzipan out there. It’s the top of the top when it comes to the Germanic treat. Let’s start with the coating. The chocolate — either milk or dark — is a superb chocolate by itself and it’s not even the star of the show. The marzipan is made with delicate and very moist almond paste that’s lush and super soft and not overly sweet (like American versions). On a basic level, that almond paste is kissed with rose water as the major key flavor note with hints of other oils added to create different flavors — think espresso, pear brandy, orange, pineapple, and so many more.
All combined, you’re treated to a soft and delectable “candy” unlike anything else in the nutty chocolate sphere of sweets.
How It Pairs:
The brightness of the champagne is perfectly accented by the lushness of the nutty and almost creamy marzipan. A pear brandy-infused Niederegger marzipan morsel with dark chocolate chased with a sip of floral creamy honey pear-influenced wine is spectacular. All of the flavor notes of both pieces of the puzzle rise to new and delicious heights.
Armand De Brignac Ace Of Spade Champagne + Glenfiddich x Thierry Atlan Grand Cru Scotch Whisky-Infused Macarons
This is a premier cuvée (the first cut of wine from a batch) champagne that’s dialed in for 21st-century palates (thanks to partial ownership by Jay-Z). Beyond those facts, the winemakers keep their cards close to the chest with the details of what’s in the bottle.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Soft peach and fresh apricot pop on the nose and are countered by tart red berries and bright orange that’s part oily and part floral before a buttery and sweet brioche arrives.
Palate: Those red berries sweeten toward a brandied cherry on the front of the palate as lemon-kissed sugar cookies with a creamy honey sweetness drive the palate toward soft oakiness and a hint of dry cedar.
Finish: That dry cedar drives the finish toward a whisper of winter spice barks before the creamy honey and brandied cherries return on the end for a lush finish full of sharp bubbles.
The macarons are made by New York’s premiere confectioner Thierry Atlan. Atlan uses Glenfiddich Grand Cru 23-year-old Single Malt Scotch (finished in rare French Cuvée casks) for the creme in the macarons.
They’re delicious.
How It Pairs:
Macarons are a great champagne pairing treat in general. These macarons are the perfect pairing treat. The sweet and soft oaky apple vibes of the Glenfiddich in the creamy and crunchy macaron just sing with a champagne as creamy and fruity as this. It’s like two old friends in a long embrace.
Krug Grande Cuvée is one of the best pours of bubbly out there (and I’m saying that as a “die-on-a-hill” Bollinger acolyte). The wine is hewn from 120 different wines that are 10 different ages, ranging into the double digits. Naturally, the wines selected are from the best vines with impeccable terroir-driven winemaking at the core of each of them.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose is akin to walking through a field of wildflowers with an orange and lemon orchard in full bloom in the near distance next to rich and very good marzipan cut with moist gingerbread houses covered in candied berries, cherries, and citrus rinds.
Palate: Chinotto orange bitterness opens the dry yet creamy palate with a sense of lemon curd and quince jelly before this deep almond oil sense arrives with a hint of petit pains au chocolat aux amandes (very buttery pastries with rich chocolate and almond paste) next to a touch of dried cranberry.
Finish: The end leans into the dried red fruit and almond paste with a nice dry orange bitterness accented by subtle oakiness that’s more like a walk through a wine cellar than holding an oak stave in your hand.
The famed New York restaurant and elite caviar supplier has made some of the most premiere and delicious caviar on the planet available. Go big because you can now and grab some Gold Osetra Caviar. The sustainably farmed German caviar is the prime cut of the roe. There’s a deep sense of the sea that’s somehow one of the most subtle representations of it too.
Each egg feels individual and has an integrity to it that’s second to none — allowing you fully experience a mouthfeel textural sharpness. Then there’s this light creamy sweetness that’s under it all that helps this caviar just explode on your senses with deep sea vibes by way of what feels like creamed nori seared over a driftwood fire. It’s spectacular.
How It Pairs:
Big champagne demands that you go big or go home. This is going pretty much as big as you can when it comes to caviar. This is the best paired with the best. Yes, it’s pricey, but this is a flavor experience that drives your palate toward new heights of understanding. The caviar’s creaminess and clarity play so well with the vibrance of the bubbly that it just works on every level, giving you a fully rounded textural and taste experience.
During a recent The Hollywood Reporter profile on Zack Snyder, the director admitted to going through an obsessive Fortnite phase before his wife snapped him out of it and forced him to create something that wasn’t a tower to fire sniper rounds at guys in banana suits.
Well, it looks like ol’ Zack wasn’t ready to go cold turkey.
In a new interview with eTalk, the Rebel Moon creator revealed that “of course” he’d love to take a crack at directing a Fortnite movie, which Hollywood has been trying to get off the ground ever since the online game became a billion dollar phenomenon.
“I really wanted to make some Fortnite skins for the movie [Rebel Moon], first of all, just like, as the most obviously basic involvement,” Snyder said. “But yeah, look, Fortnite is an amazing world, and it is an amazing distraction for me. But it’s really cool, and the alchemy that they’ve created there is really unique. When I started playing it, I thought I knew what it was, and then it was something entirely different.”
Of course, the chances currently look slim for Snyder being handed the keys to one of the biggest video game franchises on the planet. The first installment of his Rebel Moon film series has been getting hammered by brutal reviews. However, after his experience with the DC Extended Universe, Snyder has learned to keep moving forward with eternal optimism.
“You definitely don’t know,” Snyder said about directing a Fortnite movie. “You definitely can never say never – that’s my mantra in this business.”
During a recent The Hollywood Reporter profile on Zack Snyder, the director admitted to going through an obsessive Fortnite phase before his wife snapped him out of it and forced him to create something that wasn’t a tower to fire sniper rounds at guys in banana suits.
Well, it looks like ol’ Zack wasn’t ready to go cold turkey.
In a new interview with eTalk, the Rebel Moon creator revealed that “of course” he’d love to take a crack at directing a Fortnite movie, which Hollywood has been trying to get off the ground ever since the online game became a billion dollar phenomenon.
“I really wanted to make some Fortnite skins for the movie [Rebel Moon], first of all, just like, as the most obviously basic involvement,” Snyder said. “But yeah, look, Fortnite is an amazing world, and it is an amazing distraction for me. But it’s really cool, and the alchemy that they’ve created there is really unique. When I started playing it, I thought I knew what it was, and then it was something entirely different.”
Of course, the chances currently look slim for Snyder being handed the keys to one of the biggest video game franchises on the planet. The first installment of his Rebel Moon film series has been getting hammered by brutal reviews. However, after his experience with the DC Extended Universe, Snyder has learned to keep moving forward with eternal optimism.
“You definitely don’t know,” Snyder said about directing a Fortnite movie. “You definitely can never say never – that’s my mantra in this business.”
There are a lot of tequila brands out there. Too many? It’s possible.
We won’t go as far as to say that but one thing is for certain — the best-selling brands out there don’t even scratch the surface of all the great tequila on the market. We blind taste tested and ranked the 10 best-selling bottles of tequila this year, and while there are some good bottles that the masses love, if we had to name the 20 best tequilas of the year we wouldn’t include a single one of those famed expressions.
That’s not to say that those high-selling brands aren’t any good… just that there are several high-quality agave-forward brands out there that boast big flavors that we’d be quick to recommend before the more popular stuff. So we’re going to do just that — shout out and rank our 15 favorite bottles of tequila we drank this year. These bottles are a mix of options that came on top of our various blind taste tests and rankings published this year, as well as bottles we never got around to highlighting.
Now keep in mind that this is a list of our absolute favs that we tasted this year, so every bottle is great but there are going to be some brands that are noticeably missing, like Fortaleza or Don Julio. Those brands are great, but we didn’t taste new batches from them this year. What separates the top five are small but notable enough differences. That means you can land anywhere on this list — hopefully with a sale price attached — and find a bottle worthy of sipping and savoring.
Here are our 15 favorite bottles of tequila we drank in 2023, ranked!
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Tequila Posts Of The Last Six Months
Nosotros hails from NOM 1438, Destiladora del Valle de Tequila, which produces over 176 other brands. That’s a lot of different tequila brands, and while normally that would immediately raise red flags for us — Nosotros undeniably tastes great. The tequila is made from a mix of lowland and highland agave cooked in stone brick ovens and roller mill extracted.
It’s then loaded into French oak casks and rested for 11 months, resulting in a mellow and smooth repo.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Warm and grassy with a hint of leather and barrel.
Palate: Way fruitier than the smell would suggest with a black pepper bite hovering over rich roasted flavors.
Finish: Lots of oak character with some dark cherry notes.
The Bottom Line:
For its price, this bottle has lots of character. A great option for mixing into a cocktail.
If you’ve been to see the Meets, the Broncos, the Spurs, the Silver Knights or the New Jersey Devils, you’ve probably become acquainted with Hijole! While my instincts led me to assume sports stadium tequila was going to be bad, I was impressed by this bottle.
Hijole comes from NOM 1614, Tequilera Tap, and has scored Double Gold at this year’s San Francisco World Spirits competition. The blanco is made using agave harvested at six years maturity and cooked for 24 hours before being roller mill extracted and fermented in stainless steel tanks.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Roasted agave with gentle hints of vanilla and floral honey. A great aroma on this one.
Palate: You get more of a sense of that vanilla flavor on the palate accented with notes of coconut and tropical fruits.
Finish: An interesting almond and tobacco leaf finish that keeps it from coming across as too sweet.
The Bottom Line:
It has a good sippable flavor but I prefer this one in cocktails. It has a sweet and tropical vibe with just the right amount of earthy bitterness to keep it from coming across too artificial.
La Caza was founded in Austin Texas and is the only brand I can think of that makes a point of fermenting its agave for one hundred hours to the sounds of classical music. Does that make a difference? We doubt it. Hard. But it’s pretty great tequila so we won’t roast the brand too hard for being gimmicky.
The agave here is crafted in Jalisco at NOM 1414 where the agave is cooked in stone brick ovens, roller mill extracted and fermented in open-air stainless steel thanks with champagne yeast.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Roasted agave, dusty citrus characteristics and a hint of crushed black pepper.
Palate: Stron gon the black pepper with a spicy kick to it, a green vegetal body, and a delicate hint of jasmine.
Finish: Buttery smooth with minimal burn.
The Bottom Line:
Bright and peppery. An interesting tequila to sip and a great candidate for cocktails.
On my initial tasting of this bottle, I was a bit harsh on it. That’s because my first exposure to the brand was its excellent XA blend but the more I’ve sat with this bottle over the year, the more I’ve grown to love it for its focused flavor. Even more than the XA.
Volcan’s Reposado is produced at NOM 1523, Agrotequilera de Jalisco, and is made with agave harvested from the volcanic soil of Tequila Valley, cooked in stone and brick ovens, tahona extracted, and fermented in wood tanks with champagne yeast before being roasted for 135 days in oak and cognac casks.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Warm and rich notes of honey with a hint of roasted agave.
Palate: Juicy apricot and plum notes create an interesting fruity character here with a twist of citrus and a strong oakiness.
Finish: A mix of dark berries and vanilla, with a smooth oak finish that is a joy to savor.
The Bottom Line:
A wonderful bouquet of fruity and dessert flavors.
Hands down one of the best tequilas for under $50, Tepozán is a small batch tequila produced at NOM 1584, Tequila El Tepozan, made from estate-grown agave harvested at peak maturity. The tequila is made with filtered volcanic well water, additive-free, and fermented with natural yeast.
The bottle is finished with a thick wax seal and features a pretty minimalist design.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: A strong earthy dustiness dominates with hints of roasted agave.
Palate: You’ll get a nice spicy kick here at first taste offset with cooked agave, minerality, and some black pepper.
Finish: Bright and vegetal. A bit astringent, almost bourbon-like, but not nearly as sweet or oaky.
G4 is one of the best additive-free tequila brands out there right now and while I was going to highlight the brand’s blanco for this list, I opted instead for the rarer 108-proof version, which offers a slap in the face of bright agave forward flavor.
It’s a bit harder to find, but if you can manage, it’s worth it!
The tequila is produced at NOM 1579, Destileria El Pandillo, with agave that is cooked for 22 hours in stone brick ovens. It is then crushed with a metal tahona, finished with natural spring and rainwater, and twice distilled in copper ports.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: A lot of agave and minerality on the nose. There is a spikey quality to the aroma that makes the eyes water with big whiffs.
Palate: An intense agave-forward flavor with a rush of juicy citrus flavors and some rind zest.
Finish: Nutty and dry. It burns the chest but in the best way.
The Bottom Line:
A strong and intense agave-forward tequila. It’s bright, dusty, spikey, additive-free tequila at its finest.
Made from agave harvested from the highlands of Jalisco and toasted in stone brick ovens, El Bandido Yankee is rested in American oak whiskey barrels in small batches. It is another additive-free brand and is produced at NOM 1107, Tequila el Viejito.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: You get a strong sense of the oakiness at the nose with roasted agave, rich cherry and a bit of vanilla.
Palate: A mix of dark fruit and caramel tones with a strong citrus zest and a hint of almond.
Finish: A strong roasted character with some oak char and vanilla.
The Bottom Line:
A nice mix of dark fruit and dessert flavors. Truly a joy to sip.
TCapri is a new brand to me, until this month I haven’t had any experience with this tequila and every time I pour a glass from this bottle, it continues to impress me. Produced at NOM 1584, Tequila El Tepozan, TCapri is certified additive-free by Tequilla Matchmaker. The agave is cooked in stone brick ovens, roller mill extracted, and distilled in stainless steel pots.
The blanco is remarkably clean with a fresh grassy vibe.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: There is a black licorice vibe here lurking underneath layers of roasted agave.
Palate: I’m getting some coconut character, a hint of black pepper, and juicy lemon. That licorice vibe from the nose is slightly present, but it’s leans a bit more minty rather than spicy.
Finish: Warm cinnamon and herbal notes dominate the finish, with a dry mineral quality.
The Bottom Line:
An interesting blanco tequila with natural-tasting herbal and mint qualities.
As soon as I pitched this article I knew Mijenta was going to make the list, the hard part was deciding on which expression would earn the spot. I’m going with Mijenta, which is my favorite of the three.
Produced at NOM 1412, Destiladora de Los Altos, this small batch tequila is aged for six months in American white oak, French oak, and French acacia casks, resulting in a smooth and flavorful tequila that still retains a nice mix of grassy characteristics underneath the mellow flavor.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Vanilla and honey with a floral quality to it that reminds me of fresh flowers.
Palate: More honey on the palate with roasted agave and a hint of banana, followed by bright citrus, green grass, and bell pepper.
Finish: A nice smooth finish with a spicky kick at the back end.
The Bottom Line:
From the way it looks in the glass to the way the flavors bounce off the palate, this tequila is a true joy to sip.
I might be underrating this tequila slightly because I didn’t have access to my own bottle of this stuff, so I’ve only had the pleasure of tasting it a few times, but those handful of pours were enough for me to know this was one of the best tequilas of the year.
The agave used here is harvested from the volcanic soil of the highlands of Jalisco and aged for five years in Scotch, sherry, and brandy barrels. The liquid has a thick whiskey-like vibe to it.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Lots of chocolate and dessert flavors with some dark berry characteristics and some herbal notes.
Palate: There is a lot of sweetness here in this wonderful mix of vanilla and winter spice flavors. Underneath that is a warm roasted agave base with a twist of citrus.
Finish: Savory and deep, you get a lot of the barrel here with a smooth finish that is a joy to sip.
The Bottom Line:
Heavy on the dessert flavors, this is an añejo you’re going to want to savor and sip slowly.
Currently, LALO makes a single expression — tequila blanco, and the brand is damn good at it. It is my favorite blanco tequila on the market, and I’ve been turning friends and family on to the brand since I first tried it this year.
The agave in this bottle is sourced from the Jalisco highlands and cooked in stone steam ovens for 20 to 32 hours before being rested for an additional 18 hours. LALO is a certified additive-free brand and has a bright and agave-forward flavor.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Incredibly bright with notes of warm citrus zest. It almost tickles the nose.
Palate: Roasted agave and warm caramel tones dominate the flavor here before making way for a vegetal body with notes of grass and green bell pepper.
Finish: A bright fruity finish with notes of orange peel ends your flavor journey.
The Bottom Line:
A wonderful complex and agave-forward blanco tequila. Our favorite blanco of the year.
This stuff is no joke! Suerte’s Still Strength Blanco packs a big punch and strong flavors. The tequila is produced at NOM 1520, Tequilero Simbolo, where it is the only brand in production.
The agave is cooked in stone and brick ovens for 52 hours, tahona extracted, fermented in open-air fermentation stainless steel tanks, and twice distilled through a stainless pot with a copper coil. There is no additional water added after distillation, giving this a strong 104 proof.
It’s our favorite way to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit!
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Despite its high proof, there is a lot of gentleness here. The nose is dominated by lush notes of roasted agave with a strong citrus character and a sense of fresh-cut grass.
Palate: Lots of black pepper with a strong vegetal vibe that morphs slowly into a cherry juiciness.
Finish: Wet soil, grass, and tobacco leaves dominate the finish. There is a strong and distinct burn here, but it’s the type that brings you back for more.
The Bottom Line:
For fans of high-proof tequila with big and bold flavors, Suerte is one of this year’s best.
Cierto is probably the most hyped brand in the tequila space right now and while hype is only occasionally justified, Cierto earns every bit of it. Since its release, this tequila has acquired over 800 awards from the likes of the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, New York World Wine and Spirits Competition, LA Invitation, and more.
A certified additive-free tequila, this is one of the best extra añejos you’ll find in the tequila space right now. So if you love slow sipping and savoring, you’re going to find a lot to love here.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: An intoxicating mix of chocolate tones, agave, leather, and oak.
Palate: More chocolate on the palate. It’s rich and deep with a hint of caramel and a nice fruity complexity.
Finish: Spicy and dry with a black pepper vibe.
The Bottom Line:
It’s f*cking pricey, but it’s worth every penny. A truly luxurious tequila with a deep, complex, fantastic flavor.
Valor is another brand I was introduced to fairly recently, I’ve tried both the blanco and reposado expressions, both are great but if I had to suggest one I’m going with the blanco for its bright flavor and character.
Produced at NOM 1599, Familia Landeros, Valor’s blanco tequila is additive-free and made from agave cooked in a low-pressure autoclave that is roller mill extracted, fermented in open-air fermentation tanks and twice distilled in a stainless steel pot.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: A medley of cooked agave, rosemary sage, and citrus, with a tiny hint of rainwater.
Palate: Agave at the forefront with some orange citrus and salt and an earthy dustiness, like fresh crushed black peppercorns.
Finish: Lots of citrus on the backend, with some green pepper, herbs, and a strong minerality.
The Bottom Line:
Lots of natural-tasting character here. You get a real sense of the earth drinking this stuff.
1. El Tesoro — Mundial Knob Creek 2023 Edition Añejo
I hate to list a hard-to-find and pricey bottle at the top of our list, but it is what it is, this is hands down the best tequila I had the pleasure of drinking this year. This tequila was overseen by master distiller Carle Camarena and is aged for 12 months in charred oak whiskey barrels from Knob Creek.
Those barrels provide a palpable whiskey character that is a true pleasure to savor. If you love slow sipping a great pour, this is the tequila for you. Craft at its finest.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Rich cinnamon and dew hover over a roasted agave body.
Palate: Very delicate with a buttery quality, black pepper, citrus zest, more of the cinnamon from the nose, and a floral sweetness.
Finish: Smooth with high minerality, soft oak qualities, and an all-spice aftertaste.
The Bottom Line:
Every sip is slightly different and always pleasing. A tequila truly worth savoring and one that never gets boring for your tastebuds to explore.
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