December 20, 2025 • 40 mins
Tanner and Jerry ring in the new year with an episode dedicated to Champagne and the traditions that surround it. They trace the history of Champagne and how it came to be, including the irony of Dom Pérignon—who famously tried to prevent bubbles, not celebrate them. Then they walk through the right (and wrong) ways to open a bottle, from the classic cork to the dramatic saber, including a story of a celebration that didn’t go as planned.Next, it’s time for a “pop” quiz, testing what we’ve learned so far this year on Flavorphiles. The episode closes with a look at New Year’s traditions from around the world and the foods and drinks that help usher in good luck for the year ahead.
Amuse Booze: The Champagne Cocktail
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Amuse Booze: The Champagne Cocktail
Thank you for listening! Join us again every weekend for more food inspired fun. Have questions you want answered, comments to make the show better, do you want to join our growing list of radio stations partners, or just keep in touch? Let us know at Flavorphiles.com.
Follow on Instagram:
Flavorphiles: https://www.instagram.com/flavorphilespod/
Tanner: https://www.instagram.com/tagaragar/
Follow on Tik Tok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@flavorphiles
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to Flavor Files. I am Tanner Agar, Michelin
and James Beard, chef and restaurant tour. Of course, I'm
here with my father, Jerry Agar, and I know it
feels a little early, but New Year's Eve is coming up,
and this is going to be our New Year's Eve episode,
which is mostly going to be just about champagne, which
(00:21):
is what I think New Year's Eve should be. Anyways,
So to get us started off, I'm going to get
us started with a cocktail. It has an incredibly clever name,
the Champagne Cocktail. One could argue any cocktail made with
champagne is a champagne cocktail. If you listen to our
episode What's in a Name, we talked about the French
seventy five, which is made with champagne. If you listen
(00:43):
to our Halloween episode, we talked about Death in the Afternoon,
which is another cocktail made with champagne. Maybe there's a
trend here, maybe I drink a lot more champagne than
I thought. But this cocktail is called the Champagne cocktail.
I'm going to walk you through it really quickly, super easily.
You are gonna take a flute, which is not considered
(01:04):
the best glass for champagne, but we can get into
that later. We've got the flute here. Then, if you
have a sugar cube, you just put a sugar cube
in the bottom. I don't really keep sugar cubes around
my house, so I just use a table soon of sugar.
Then you're gonna take a bottle of bitters. Any bitters
is fine. Anguster is sort of the classic. And you
basically want to put so many in there that all
(01:26):
of your sugar starts to turn purple. Can you see
that there, dad, where it's like bright purple?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Now, yeah, you didn't really just in many drinks like
an old fashion for instance. You just put in little
drops of bitters. You just poured some bitters in there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I just soaked that little guy.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah you did. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I might have gone too heavy, But as I've said before,
when you bartend at home, you measure with the heart.
Plus we record these on my days off, so this
is fine. Then you grab your trusty bottle of champagne
and you just pour that right on the top. You're
just gonna fill up that glass. Oh no, oh, I'm
a highly trained beverage professional, and I just poured champagne
(02:04):
all over myself.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
You've got apparently anything in the bottom of the glass.
All you've got is a glass full of bubbles.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
This is super embarrassing. Can we get a recut? Where's
our producer?
Speaker 2 (02:15):
No, we're not. We're charging forward here. And is there
anything else? Is there any garnish or anything else that
you do with that?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, you can put like a lemon peel on top
of it. I didn't leave any room. There's so much
foam in this glass. I guess my bottle got a
little warm while I was getting everything set up. But basically,
you just pour the champagne in there and then you'll
notice you actually end up with this sort of beautiful,
almost rose color. This is a bad example if you're
looking at it on TikTok because of all the foam.
(02:44):
But when it settles down for a second, I will
finish it off and it tastes great. It adds a
really wonderful spice character. So I love it for the
winter because I love the clove, the allspice, those sort
of roots and barks flavors that come out and really
add to the champagne. But we are talking all about
champagne today, and where better to start than the history
of Champagne. Dad, are you ready for my ted talk.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Let's not make it sound like some sort of PowerPoint
presentation here, but how far back do we go? I mean,
I have to assume there was wine and then there
was bubbly.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
So Champagne is a region and apparently the ancient Romans
they have a place in Italy called Campagna, and apparently
when they showed up to what we now call Champagne,
they said, this kind of looks like what we know,
so they called it Campagna and that eventually turned into
Champagne after several hundred years. But the original planters of
(03:39):
great varieties in Champagne were the ancient Romans, and then
they started making wine there and the area ended up growing.
It's kind of funny if you actually pull out a
map of France and you look at Champagne, you'll notice
a lot of important freeways that still go through that
area because from east to west it connects Paris over
(04:00):
to Germany. So I mean literally like when the Nazis
were invading Paris, they were going through Champagne. Okay, but
it also is really important north to south in that
part of Europe and so it became really important. So
they were making all of this wine and it was trading,
and that's sort of how it got started as a
(04:20):
wine region.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Okay, but my question was wine is flat and champagne
is bubbly. I have to assume when people first figured
out they could make this drink out of grapes, that
they were making wine and not the bubbly variety exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Bubbling was actually an accident. They didn't want this. This
wasn't their intention. One of the things that's interesting about
Champagne is it's one of the coldest places that you
can still reliably get red grapes to grow. So a
lot of people don't realize this because you drink champagne
and it's white. Champagn's made out of red grapes. It
(04:56):
is made out of chardonnay, which is a white grape,
but it also has pino mune and pino noir. So
if you drink pino noir wine, we're very red wine.
That's actually the same grape that's going into champagne. And
how you get it to be white was actually one
of the things that Don Perignon, a very important monk
who helped develop Champagne. That's one of the things he
(05:17):
helped them perfect. But one thing that he hated was
sparkling wine. So because Champagne is cold, the problem is
you make the wine, you ferment the wine, you put
the wine in bottles, And the issue was once you
fill up the wine in the bottles, it's so cold
in Champagne that the fermentation has actually stopped when they're
bottling the wine. Then in spring the weather warms up,
(05:41):
the yeast comes back to life. It starts eating the
sugars that are still in the wine. Naturally, when yeast
ferment sugar, it creates alcohol and it creates carbon dioxide. Well,
if it's doing it in a big barrel, that's not
a problem, but if it's doing it in a bottle,
it carbonates it. And this was considered a problem for
two really big reasons. One, they didn't like the taste
(06:02):
of it. So that Don Perignon quote that you might
have seen, I'm tasting the stars, that was a marketing
thing that was made up. That's not real. He never
said that. And he didn't like sparkling wine. And one
of the reasons he didn't like sparkling wine was because
up to fifty percent of the bottles produced in Champagne
would explode because the glass couldn't handle all of that
(06:24):
pressure build up. So it's actually called the Sparkling or
the Devil's Wine. And I like to think of it
as almost little land mines filling these caves, just exploding
and like a Michael Bay movie with monks in their
robes running through the caves trying not to get killed.
I'm sure it wasn't that dramatic, but I like to
think of it that way.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
But then along the way, somewhere someone figured out, wait
a minute, this is a product we can market. So
there were some people who liked it.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Really Notably, there were two kind of important well people
slash groups that decided they liked it. One there's this
guy Philippe the second, and he was really important. He
I don't think he was technically the king, but he
was like the region to France or something, and going
back hundreds of years, for like eight hundred years, every
king of France was actually crowned in the Champagne region,
(07:14):
in the towns of ron or at Penne. And so
he starts to get some of this bubbly stuff. He
likes it. Because the King, the Regent likes it, other
restaurants in France started wanting to have it. But the
reason it kind of got popular is actually the British
and the French would never want to admit that the
British helped make Champagne a thing, but they absolutely did.
(07:36):
Because the British can't grow grapes, so they can't make
their own wine, so they would bring in a lot
of wine. Bring in from Champagne was cheaper than a
lot of other regions. Well, what they would do is
they would bring it in in a barrel and then
the bars would bottle it out of the barrel. So
they would have this same problem where the wine gets
(07:59):
in the bar bottle, it stops fermenting, and it referments
early the next year when you're ready to drink the wines.
So why didn't explode? Well, the French were using wood
powered ovens to make glass bottles, but the British had
figured out how to have coal, how to make it
burn hotter, and how to make stronger, thicker glass, so
(08:24):
they had stronger bottles. They didn't explode. They opened them
up and they were sparkling and they drank it and
when this is so weird, this is so funny, we
love this. They then commission a scientific study about how
to force wine to be sparkling, and they then give
that information back to the French. And this sort of
combination of the British developing a taste, developing better glass,
(08:48):
and the region to France deciding he really liked it
is how you got the very first champagne houses to
start in the seventeen hundreds to produce specifically sparkling champagne,
because previously it was all still wine.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Okay, so it's really only since the seventeen hundreds. I mean,
wine goes back probably to the beginnings of human civilization.
It's in the earliest writings that you read. But Champagne,
that's not that long ago.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Really, No, that's not that long ago. I mean Champagne
is there were people in North America colonizing North America
before there was champagne, and those poor people they never
even got to taste champagne. No wonder there was so
much conflict over here.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
It's not like we're sort of conflict now. You'd think
that there would have been some way for the French
and the British to kind of hold hands and say,
look what we did. But that never happens.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
No, that doesn't happen too often. It's such a really
fun history of Champagne. I think that it came across
so quickly. Now those same techniques that people were using,
those techniques exist across other countries. So the same ale
of adding a bit of sugar and a bit of
yeast to the wine, they now do this in the US,
(10:07):
they do this in Canada, they do this in Spain,
they do it in Italy. So the techniques that Champagne
helped develop are really the same way that sparkling wine
is made all across the world. And so you can
see these techniques anytime you crack open a bottle.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Okay, the only thing, really, the only difference is you
can't call it champagne. And we talked about this in
an earlier episode of Flavor Files. You can't call it
champagne unless it's produced in Champagne. There are laws around
that where countries cooperate with one another, same as you
can't You can make a whiskey in Canada, which you
can't call it bourbon, and there are fine whiskeys made
(10:43):
in Canada they just can't be called bourbon. There are
fine whiskeys obviously made in Scotland and Ireland and they're
Iris whiskey and Scotch whiskey and you can't call it
bourbon and vice versa. But those are kind of marketing things.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
It is a marketing thing. One of the things Champagne
did really well was create the label Champagne. They were
actually really competitive with Burgundy. Burgundy was known for making
great wines. The wines in Champagne weren't as good. So
once they sort of cracked this sparkling thing open, they
then marketed it heavy. They made Champagne a valuable brand,
(11:20):
and funny enough, a people in Burgundy started ripping off
the techniques to make cremat or Borgonne because they wanted
in on how great Champagne was. That's about going to
wrap it up for the history lesson, so don't worry
if you didn't want anymore. In our next segment, I
want to talk all about how to enjoy champagne, starting
with how to get the bottle open. But a little
quick tip if you are looking for a fun thing
(11:42):
to do this New Year's Eve.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I read a.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Story about Marilyn Monroe once taking a bath in three
hundred and fifty bottles of champagne. So why don't you
fill up your bathtub with some champagne. For those of
you who have been loving our champagne ted talk, I
do have bad news. We're done with that now. For
those of you that are ready for something different, let's
talk about enjoying champagne. How to enjoy it, when to
(12:07):
enjoy it, what the best way to do it is.
And there's a really great quote Lily Bollinger. She's one
of the people who really helped make that Champagne brand exist.
She has a great quote about when to drink champagne,
and it's I drink champagne when I'm happy and when
I'm sad. I drink it when I'm alone, when I
have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it
(12:30):
if I'm not hungry, and I drink it when i
am Otherwise, I never touch it unless I'm thirsty. Okay,
I think that's a really great quote. I'm sure Grace
feels the same. For those of you who might remember,
Grace is my partner. She also works at a venue
here in Dallas, where she's one of the top selling
(12:52):
champagne people in the entire city. One of the best
ways to go over how do you open champagne is
I'm going to have Grace come in. She's going to
walk you through how to properly open a bottle of
champagne and we can see who does it better.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Are you ready? Yeah? What who does it better? Grace
or me? Yeah? Exactly. This is the setup, isn't it all? Right?
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Well, best of luck, everybody. Welcome Grace. Okay, thanks Tanner him, Harry, Hi, Grace.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Okay, So to start, you'll always want to present the
bottle to the person that ordered it with the label
facing out. You're going to find a tab that's on
the foil.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
In this case, it just.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Usually it has like a little marker on it. You
want to just put your nail under that that is
the top part of the foil off.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Okay. Keep in mind that I'm in Toronto and she's
in Dallas, and so she's teaching me this literally online.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Next step is going to be taking off the cage.
So you'll want to just bend down the.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Wire where it's twisted.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Then want to untwist six times with one hand.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah, you should keep in mind.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I would recommend that you have your thumb on top
of the cork for this, because if it explodes and
puts your eye out, You're going to be very, very mad.
We did this segment.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
I'll be upset if it gets all over my equipment,
That's what I'll be upset about.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
So after it's untwisted six times, I usually keep the
cage on when I do this, But.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Oh, thanks for telling.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Me that, now, sorry, Really, then you're just going to
want to twist the bottom of the bottle with one
hand and keep pressure on the cork.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
You'll start to hear it moving. Oh that was yours,
that was mine, that was loud.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yours.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
What's better, Jerry?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Okay? And now then all it remains is support it
into the last Yeah, exactly, Okay, So you don't want
that whole thing where you pop the thing and it
shoots across the room and there's wine every like? Is
that just for TV shows and movies and stuff?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
For photographs and when baseball teams win championships or you know,
that's well, and if.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Grace sells you a thirty five hundred dollars bottle of champagne,
I don't think you'd be very happy if she sprayed you. All.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Okay, it's thirty five hundred up front. Now put on
the rubber suit, right, No, no, if you're having to
wear a rubber suit, Grace charges more than that. What
kind of a club is this? Where you.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Said you had a better open than her, So despite
the setup, I guess you did win the contest. Yay, awesome, Oh,
thank you Grace. We appreciate you being here.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Thanks guys.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Wait a minute, bring her back. I got a big
knife here. Isn't it possible to open the wine with that?
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Yeah, if you're brave enough to.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
It is okay.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Sabering a bottle yeah, legal wouldn't allow us to technically
show you how to do this, but since you're asking anyway,
I will give you a couple tips. One, when you
find the bottle, there's a ridge in the end of
every bottle. That's where the glass comes together, That's where
it's fused. Yes, so that's the weakest point of the bottle.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Okay. So if you don't have a.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Saber on hand, which, first of all, are you even
really serious about cooking?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
If you don't have a saber, well, how long does
the blade have to be to be a saber as
opposed to cook the knives.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
I think saber it's all about confidence. If it's big
enough and it's confident enough, it counts as a saber.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Right.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
But make sure you use the back of the knife,
so not like the back, like the handle.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
But don't use the sharp edge because you'll wreck it.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Oh I see, Yeah, you want to use that heavy edge.
So what you would do is you would take the bottle.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, and if you.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Want to make sure that the bottle's cold, so it's
a little bit more fragile, especially on the edge. And
then what you want to do is you want to
take the bottle. You're going to take the cork end.
You're going to point it away from you because again
it's about to explode. But you can't saber it now
that you've already taken the all. No, well you would
(17:10):
just fill champagne everywhere.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Well what would happen? I just I saw a thing
on TV. You have to keep the knife connected to
the bottle right like it has.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Right, So you want to have the knife on the bottle.
But here's the reason, here's the reason. You can't do it.
Now that you've done it. You're taking the bottle, you're
pointing it away from yourself, and then taking the knife
in one smooth motion. You're trying to knock the top
off of the bottle with the knife.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yes, but the.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Reason it's considered safe is because any tiny little fragments
of fragments of glass that might break you are shooting
off with the pressure of the champagne. It takes the
champagne away with it, or it takes the glass away
with it. So that's what makes it safe. Whereas if
you did it now, you just be breaking glass into
your champagne, which I don't recommend.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Well, have you ever seen this go wrong?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
I've seen it go wrong in my restaurant.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
No.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yeah, So our old general manager, who he knows who
he is, let's just call him Greg, not that that
was his real name or anything. We'll call him Greg.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
And so we get to like eleven forty and I'm
thinking Near's Eve has gone great, got away with it
for one more year. I can finally relax. And twenty
minutes later, I hear my staff come running to the back,
going Tanner Tanner come. Greg has decided he's going to
saber the bottle. He's messed up, a piece of the
(18:31):
glass is gone backwards, and he got a scar under
his eye that he still has from shamp from sabring
at the restaurant.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Well, there's one good thing. At least he got the
scar and not one of your guests.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That's true. And you know what, Greg doesn't even work
here anymore.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
So, not that that's his name, No, not that that's
his name.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
The guy that we call Greg hypothetically, he.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Doesn't work here anymore. Okay, well, you know, it was
sort of satisfying to hear that little pop. There is
something to be said though about champagne spraying all over
the place. I'm sure. Look, it's fun.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
It's celebratory for everyone who doesn't have to clean it up,
which is normally restaurant people. I mean, the number of
times Grace comes home and goes there was so much
champagne all over the sofas. It was a mess.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah. Well but people pay big money for it, so
it is what it is. I guess.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Yeah, you kind of just have to let them. I suppose,
is that right? You just have to let them. Yeah,
I guess after it's open, what they do with it's
their own business. If they want to poort tequila all
over themselves, they suppose they can do that too.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Well, Okay, one quick question then, for Grace, if you're
in a club, as opposed to going to the liquor store.
If you're in a club, what's a reasonable price to
pay to get a reasonable champagne on something like New
Year's Eve?
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Reasonable? I mean, honestly, I would say most bottles of
champagne would start around five hundred dollars, maybe.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Four hundred at certain places in a club on New
Year's Eve. Yeah, you might see people just spending more.
That's definitely like a safe range. But it only goes
up from there.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
And usually if.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
You see bottles that are priced at that, you know,
five hundred dollars price.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Point, the people that want to come in and do
New Year's Eve big will just buy more of those
and end up just having a ton of Champion on
the table.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
It looks a lot better than that way too.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
I see I paid five hundred dollars for this bottle.
I'm gonna sprain around if I want to.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, that's exactly great.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Hey, Grace, thanks a lot, Yeah, thank you, guys. This
is flavor files that we're doing our New Years show.
We do these things ahead of time so that hopefully
some of the things we pass on, like you know,
what we've said about champagne is useful for you when
we get to the actual holiday. Now, you can find
this show Flavor Files p h i l e. S.
As in We're in Love with Flavor at flavorfiles dot com.
(20:55):
You can get the podcast of this show anywhere you
get your podcast, just flavor Files. And coming up next,
we're going to dig into a little bit of a
pop quiz on what we've done this season. We're going
to do a segment here on because we're talking about champagne,
a pop quiz, and we'll start with a couple of questions. Actually,
(21:17):
I have one now that I've opened this bottle of
champagne in the middle of the day as we're recording
this Tanner, how long if I put the cork back
in kind of stuff it back in there? And how
long is the champagne any good? After that?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Well, you're going to find out that you can't put
the cork back in.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Oh that's what I was wondering.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah, so you'll be really disappointed by that. Unfortunately, So
what you need is they have champagne stoppers. So you
put it in like sort of on the top, and
then it has these little silver wings. You kind of
press them down and then they lock under the edges
of the bottle where the champagne cage used to be.
I see, And so you need one of those. But
(21:58):
I find if you don't have one of those, and
if you did, you could probably keep it for a
couple of days. But since you don't, you'll just have
to commit to finishing the bottle.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Okay, thanks a lot. Remember we got in trouble with
a listener because you said something about buying cheap prosecco,
and he took it to me that you think that
all prosecco is cheap and you hate Italians, and we
addressed that on a previous episode. But champagne or prosecco,
is there really a difference.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
So the biggest difference is going to be where they're made. Right.
Champagne we talked all about at the beginning about the
region of Champagne and how that region became popular. Champagne
has to come from that region has to come from Champagne.
Prosecco comes from Italy, Cava comes from Spain, and so
the biggest difference is where they're made. They'll have different
(22:47):
processes that winemakers will use in those areas, but those
are really the biggest the regional difference, and then how
they regionally make them is different. So if you drink
prosecco versus drinking champagne, you'll notice differences. But the one
that most people can remember is it's just from different countries.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
All right. So beyond that, then you want to ask
me some questions. See if I've been paying attention this.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Year exactly, we want to know were you really listening
or were you just nodding your head and saying uh huh.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
So first question on your.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Pop quiz, we had a guest on and he ate
chilies that are between one million and one point six
million scoville units. What chili pepper is this?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Oh? I know this one. I get off to a
good start. The Carolina Reaper.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Yes, the Carolina Reaper pepper one of the hottest chilies
in the world. For reference, a jalapago is about one
to five thousand scoville units and he has the record
freaing one hundred Carolina Reapers in thirty six minutes. Okay,
next we had a guest. She is the only person
ever to have been a contestant on Master Chef Canada
(23:58):
and then become a judge who was that well.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I couldn't possibly get this wrong. I cheered for her
from episode one when she was a contestant, and then
she became an employee of the television network that is
affiliated with the radio station where I work, and so
I not only meet her in the hall once in
a while, she's been on my radio show. It's Mary
Berg and she's fabulous.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Exactly right now. If you're playing along as you listen
to this, just know the next one's controversial, but there
is a right answer, and hopefully you get it. Dad,
What is the best tasting shape of Reese's cup?
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Now, wait a second, the question should not have ended.
There should have been co According to Tanner and some
of the people in his restaurant, you ate a bunch
of the different shapes. They have the Christmas tree, they
have the pumpkin, they have the various shapes, and I
think that what you all came up with was the pumpkin.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Pumpkin is the best shape. It doesn't matter who it's
According to I'm an expert. I have my own radio show.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah, so do I. But I'm not an expert on that.
But you said it's because you don't like the ridges
on the original Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Don't like the ridges on the original cup. I think
it's the worst part of the cup, which is I mean,
there's a lot of there's a lot to love about
the cup, so it's it's a minute complaint. But they
once they created Pumpkin, they really perfected it and they
should stick with it.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
This episode of Flavor Files is brought to you by
forty four Magnum, the most powerful champagne in the world.
At forty four percent alcohol, it's the strongest champagne on
the market, stronger than whiskey, and because power demands presence,
forty four Magnum only comes in Magnum bottles, twice the size,
(25:45):
twice the attitude, and absolutely not TSA approved crafted with
a bold, straight liquor flavor profile that will make your
day and a finish that asks you one simple question.
Do you feel lucky? Well? Do you celebrating and intimidating
or simply try to forget the last year? Pop the cork,
(26:07):
let the bubbles fly, and make your own rules. Do
it with the heavy kick of a forty four forty
four magnum. Make your toast a warning shot.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
There's a game called plane plane shot Roulette that I
taught our listeners. What is that game?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
What Tanner does is he goes to the liquor store
and he buys those little airplane size bottles of liquor,
puts them in a bag, somehow gets them onto the airplane,
and then the people that he's with they order ginger
ale and then you have to reach blind into the
bag and take out one of those bottles and that's
your drink. And there's no arguing. And sometimes you put
in some horrible bottles.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Absolutely, the horrible ones are the best bottles, like Fireball
or something like that. Fireball Banana Liqueur is also a
good one. I can't believe that they make it in
little tiny bottles. What's more fun than somebody realizing they
have to do a shot lot of peppermint vodka or
peach snops it really And the best thing about this game,
if you're going to play it as you're traveling for
(27:08):
New Year's is the worst tasting things also cost the least,
so you're saving money, and you're creating memories.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Okay, but it's hard to get a group all grouped
together in seats in an airplane.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Well right, but you can play this as soon as
you get through security. You know, you'll probably have a
delay because that's how things are going this year, so
you'll have plenty of time. So you should bring lots
of bottles. Okay, yeah, I mean this is really important
work that we're doing here. Okay. Next back to the
chili episode. Sri Rocha sauce is being ripped off all
(27:42):
across the world, and that reason is because of why.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Because the person who invented it, did all that hard work,
came up with sarroches sauce, got people excited about it,
and failed to trademark thauce exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
He trademarked the name of his company, and he trademarked
his logo, and he didn't trademark the style of sauce
he was making. And now everyone is ripping him off.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Abrasco has a Sirocha sauce and they wouldn't be able
to do that had he been. Had he or they'd
have to pay him either way.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Right, or they have to pay him or at least
if he owned the three rochet pepper, right, if he
had trademarked that and like owned the seeds or whatever,
then people would have to at least buy the peppers
from him. But instead he's just unfortunately this is he's
not really a good story. Maybe make a resolution. If
you're inventing a new hot sauce that's going to change
(28:37):
the world, trademark it. That's a good little resolution for
you as we wrap up the year here. Okay, next
talking about Thanksgiving, What is sort of the number one
piece of advice that I gave if you're going to
be a Thanksgiving guest or a Christmas guest or a
New Year's guest.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Oh, this is very important, and that is if you
are told don't bring an don't bring anything, be sure
the host or hostess, and it's probably most often the
hostess wants you to bring something because there's nothing worse
for somebody who has spent perhaps days preparing for this party,
this meal, and you walk in, Oh, look what I
(29:16):
brought for everybody to eat, and it doesn't fit in
at all with their plans. It's not good.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Exactly if you want to bring something, bring something that's
not food related. Or bring them something that's food related
they can enjoy after their party and everybody has left.
Next question, what are some signs that when you go
to a wood fired restaurant? What are some signs that
they're doing a good job, that the food is good,
(29:41):
that they're properly cooking over an open fire.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Well, now you got me. Now, I don't know what
the answer is to this. Well you can see them,
I suppose.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Yeah, I mean, I guess if you can see them
not dropping the food on the floor and then picking
it back up, yeah, that would be a sign they're
doing a good job. But what I was looking for
is that smoke is a flavor. It's not the dominating flavor.
That the smoke and the char and the grill compliments
everything else that they're doing. All of us have had food,
(30:14):
maybe you cooked it over a campfire, or a little
kid made a s'more and they.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Just burnt it.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
If your food's just burned, that doesn't mean it was
clearly cooked over a live fire, But that doesn't mean
it was done effectively. That's not how food should taste
when you have it off of a wood grill. It
should compliment the natural flavor of the ingredients as all
dishes should.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
I'm Jerry Aggar, He's Tanner Eggar. He's a bartender recognized
by various authorities, including a Micheline Award for his cocktails.
And you couldn't make your cocktail at the beginning of
the episode here because it was did you let your
champagne get too warm? Before the episode started.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
I let it get too warm. I could try to
pass off the mistake and say something happened to the bottle.
Nothing happened to the bottle. I just messed it up. Now,
now my cocktail's fine. Now my cocktail tastes great. I
still have champagne all over me. But of all the
things to spill on yourself, champagne's one of the better ones.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Okay. The other thing is you said at the very
beginning that you don't necessarily have to pour champagne into
a flute, that it isn't necessarily the best. And I
had prepared for this by getting a flute out and
having it ready, and that's what I have my champagne
in now that I've opened the bottle. So what's the
deal with that.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Champagne flutes are really common, one of the most common
actually before the flute, so it's the most popular glass
before the Flute took over. Was called the Coop. You've
seen coops before. It's the sort of whatever you think
of as a cocktail glass, sort of a stem, kind
of has that little bowl you've had Manhattan's in it,
Dakeries in it, sort of classic cocktail glass. Apparently the
(31:54):
cocktail glass is actually modeled after Marie Antoinette's breast. The
size of the original coop apparently perfect cup for her.
And so that is one thing that a lot of
people drink champagne out of. They love to tell the story.
I am disheartened to let you know. I did fact
(32:14):
check that while we were working on this episode, and
it's not true at all. The Coop existed before Marie
Antoinette was drinking before she was even born. So it's
very disappointing, but it is a cute story. You can
tell this New Year's Eve if you would like to.
The glass that is sort of now considered the best
it's a glass that it comes up, it's got a stem,
(32:37):
it comes up like a flute, and then it sort
of tapers in a little bit. So this glass is
called a tulip, so it kind of comes out and
it tapers in. The idea being that it allows you
to get the aromas of the champagne, to really smell them,
to appreciate them. But since it's not so wide open
like a coop is wide open, it allows you to
(33:00):
maintain more of the bubble in the glass for longer,
so you can enjoy the champagne better.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
All right, let's talk about some traditions for New Year's
around the world, and maybe something that you could incorporate
into your celebrations this year, just to change it up.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
A big one that I was unaware of till I
moved down here. Have you ever had black eyed peas
and collared greens for New Year's Eve?
Speaker 2 (33:25):
I've had black eyed peas and I've had collared greens,
not together and not for New Year's Eve.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
I didn't know this was a Southern US tradition, but
I literally worked at a bar one year where we
had two crock pots on the back of the bar,
one full of peas and one full of greens, and
it was very important to the owner that I give
a scoop of each to everyone that came. And I'll
tell you I thought it was weird, but when the
(33:52):
guests were looking at me as I went, here's your
cocktail and here are your peas. That was not a
tradition I got, but some people really appreciated it, and
eating the two together is a New Year's tradition down here.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
All right? How about Europe? What kinds of things do
they have?
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Spain has a fun one. You're supposed to eat twelve
grapes at midnight for luck. I've heard about this spreading
down to South America, Central America. So you eat twelve
grapes at the stroke of twelve, and that helps set
you up for good luck. Of course, there's more than
twelve grapes in your champagne, so if you don't quite
(34:28):
get to it, you can still feel like you did
a Spanish tradition this year and tried something new. In Italy,
apparently people eat lentils. I'm not sure why. I like lentils,
but I don't necessarily think of them as a special
or lucky food. I guess none of these really are, right.
They probably became traditions because they were things people had
(34:49):
a lot of that they could enjoy, right, grapes, lentils,
black eyed peas, collared greens. They're not fancy things per se.
There's something that everybody has access.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
To, Okay, but the ideas often are locked and prosperity
and that kind of thing, because what else would you
want to say as a new year starts.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
I think that is what you're saying. That's the whole hope,
is that next year is going to be such a
great year because either I've had a really great year
and man, next year, I'm just keeping this train running,
or praise God, this year is over. I can't wait
for next year to come bring me new things. That
brings up a couple other traditions. You know, money is
(35:29):
a big one. Wealth is something. In the Philippines, I
read that people like to eat round fruits or they'll
give away coins kind of try to cut them into
coin shape, and that's an idea of financial prosperity. In Japan,
they do soba noodles, and soba is a noodle that's
actually gluten free. It's made out of buck wheat, so
(35:50):
even though it's called wheat, it is gluten free. And
so my understanding is the length of the noodle symbolizes
your long life and that you're only kind of part
way through it, and may you have a long, prosperous life. Also,
New Year's Eve is generally pretty cold, so something like
sober noodles sounds really great. Also, if I was kind
(36:10):
of drunk, as I tend to be on New Year's Eve,
a nice hot bowl of really rich soup does sound
like a pretty great tradition to me. One of your
favorite traditions at New Year's is New Year's Eve you
make a giant pot of chili and then on New
Year's Day you watch all the Lord of the Rings
movies back to back to back.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Yeah, well not just by myself, with your brother and
everybody else plans something else and they leave. You'll watch
some of it, but.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Before I've you sleep during it before, and I'm a
big fan.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
You've got to be dedicated. Though. These are the director's cuts,
the long ones, so it's basically a twelve hour adventure
to watch it all the way through.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
I know. The problem is it always comes after New
Year's Eve, which is a day I generally have to
work really late. I have to work till two three
o'clock in the morning. I'm not really up at eight
am for movie watching. It's sort of if we could
do it on the second maybe this year we could
try to push it.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Before we run out of time. Here, we've talked food here,
what about traditions for everybody around the world must not
be drinking champagne on New Year's Eve? Well, they should be, no,
but but they're not.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
No, they're not.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
They're not.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Of course in other countries you mentioned before, lots of
people drink sparkling wines that come from other countries. In fact,
I actually had British sparkling wine earlier this year on
my trip to London, so that would be something to
watch out for. I was surprised that it was actually good,
but I guess as conditions kind of get a little
(37:41):
bit warmer along the coast of Britain and as technology advances,
they can grow grapes there. But plenty of people love
to start it off with a kiss, with some with
a shot. We've gone through so many cocktails. I don't
think there's a bad thing to ring in the New
year with. It should be something that you like, something
that you're excited to serve to your guests, something you're
(38:03):
excited to share with your loved ones, and sort of
toast that way. I'm sure in Japan it'd be sake,
or if it was Korea, be showed you or sort
of these national drinks. I'm sure in Mexico it's plenty
of tequila, and I will also shoot tequila on New
Year's Eve. I'm a mess on New Year's Day. That's
why the restaurants have to be closed.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Okay, but there's there have been times when I've been
at New Year's Eve parties and somebody hosts a New
Year's party, and invariably they'll have a bunch of little
plastic glasses and they'll have some glasses of some bottles
of champagne. But there are a tremendous number of people
don't really like champagne. Do you have something else as well?
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yeah, if you're having a party, you could definitely have
something else. Of course, you know, non alcoholic sparkling cier
is a great option if it's an alcohol reason. Just
having anything that people can enjoy that feel celebratory to you.
What is a high life? High life is the champagne
of beers. Maybe, yeah, have some champagne of beers on
hand for you this year, for any of other guests
(39:05):
you've got coming by.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah, well, there's nothing wrong with the glass of ginger ale.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
It's sparkly ginger ale, sparkly. Sure you could do root beer.
I mean it might be a little bit sad to
just sit there with a can of club soda, but
I suppose you could do that as well. Maybe put
some bitterers in it, because bitterers plus soda plus line,
that's a bartender trick. It's great when you're hungover. It's
a great way to remind yourself to hydrate. Maybe we
(39:29):
should do that as in a Mouze booze for our
no alcohol episode coming up next year.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yeah, well, we will be talking in an episode next year,
early next year about how alcohol sales are down, young
people aren't drinking and how that might affect the business
that you're in. But we're out of time here. Have
a very very good holiday. Tanner does this from Dallas, Texas.
I do it from Toronto, Ontario. So but we're going
to get together for Christmas, and I'll look forward to
(39:56):
seeing you and actually getting together.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
It'll be great, it'll be fun. Maybe we could record
live from the.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Beach just to rub it in.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Happy New Year's everybody,
Welcome back to Flavor Files. I am Tanner Agar, Michelin
and James Beard, chef and restaurant tour. Of course, I'm
here with my father, Jerry Agar, and I know it
feels a little early, but New Year's Eve is coming up,
and this is going to be our New Year's Eve episode,
which is mostly going to be just about champagne, which
(00:21):
is what I think New Year's Eve should be. Anyways,
So to get us started off, I'm going to get
us started with a cocktail. It has an incredibly clever name,
the Champagne Cocktail. One could argue any cocktail made with
champagne is a champagne cocktail. If you listen to our
episode What's in a Name, we talked about the French
seventy five, which is made with champagne. If you listen
(00:43):
to our Halloween episode, we talked about Death in the Afternoon,
which is another cocktail made with champagne. Maybe there's a
trend here, maybe I drink a lot more champagne than
I thought. But this cocktail is called the Champagne cocktail.
I'm going to walk you through it really quickly, super easily.
You are gonna take a flute, which is not considered
(01:04):
the best glass for champagne, but we can get into
that later. We've got the flute here. Then, if you
have a sugar cube, you just put a sugar cube
in the bottom. I don't really keep sugar cubes around
my house, so I just use a table soon of sugar.
Then you're gonna take a bottle of bitters. Any bitters
is fine. Anguster is sort of the classic. And you
basically want to put so many in there that all
(01:26):
of your sugar starts to turn purple. Can you see
that there, dad, where it's like bright purple?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Now, yeah, you didn't really just in many drinks like
an old fashion for instance. You just put in little
drops of bitters. You just poured some bitters in there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I just soaked that little guy.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah you did. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I might have gone too heavy, But as I've said before,
when you bartend at home, you measure with the heart.
Plus we record these on my days off, so this
is fine. Then you grab your trusty bottle of champagne
and you just pour that right on the top. You're
just gonna fill up that glass. Oh no, oh, I'm
a highly trained beverage professional, and I just poured champagne
(02:04):
all over myself.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
You've got apparently anything in the bottom of the glass.
All you've got is a glass full of bubbles.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
This is super embarrassing. Can we get a recut? Where's
our producer?
Speaker 2 (02:15):
No, we're not. We're charging forward here. And is there
anything else? Is there any garnish or anything else that
you do with that?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, you can put like a lemon peel on top
of it. I didn't leave any room. There's so much
foam in this glass. I guess my bottle got a
little warm while I was getting everything set up. But basically,
you just pour the champagne in there and then you'll
notice you actually end up with this sort of beautiful,
almost rose color. This is a bad example if you're
looking at it on TikTok because of all the foam.
(02:44):
But when it settles down for a second, I will
finish it off and it tastes great. It adds a
really wonderful spice character. So I love it for the
winter because I love the clove, the allspice, those sort
of roots and barks flavors that come out and really
add to the champagne. But we are talking all about
champagne today, and where better to start than the history
of Champagne. Dad, are you ready for my ted talk.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Let's not make it sound like some sort of PowerPoint
presentation here, but how far back do we go? I mean,
I have to assume there was wine and then there
was bubbly.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
So Champagne is a region and apparently the ancient Romans
they have a place in Italy called Campagna, and apparently
when they showed up to what we now call Champagne,
they said, this kind of looks like what we know,
so they called it Campagna and that eventually turned into
Champagne after several hundred years. But the original planters of
(03:39):
great varieties in Champagne were the ancient Romans, and then
they started making wine there and the area ended up growing.
It's kind of funny if you actually pull out a
map of France and you look at Champagne, you'll notice
a lot of important freeways that still go through that
area because from east to west it connects Paris over
(04:00):
to Germany. So I mean literally like when the Nazis
were invading Paris, they were going through Champagne. Okay, but
it also is really important north to south in that
part of Europe and so it became really important. So
they were making all of this wine and it was trading,
and that's sort of how it got started as a
(04:20):
wine region.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Okay, but my question was wine is flat and champagne
is bubbly. I have to assume when people first figured
out they could make this drink out of grapes, that
they were making wine and not the bubbly variety exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Bubbling was actually an accident. They didn't want this. This
wasn't their intention. One of the things that's interesting about
Champagne is it's one of the coldest places that you
can still reliably get red grapes to grow. So a
lot of people don't realize this because you drink champagne
and it's white. Champagn's made out of red grapes. It
(04:56):
is made out of chardonnay, which is a white grape,
but it also has pino mune and pino noir. So
if you drink pino noir wine, we're very red wine.
That's actually the same grape that's going into champagne. And
how you get it to be white was actually one
of the things that Don Perignon, a very important monk
who helped develop Champagne. That's one of the things he
(05:17):
helped them perfect. But one thing that he hated was
sparkling wine. So because Champagne is cold, the problem is
you make the wine, you ferment the wine, you put
the wine in bottles, And the issue was once you
fill up the wine in the bottles, it's so cold
in Champagne that the fermentation has actually stopped when they're
bottling the wine. Then in spring the weather warms up,
(05:41):
the yeast comes back to life. It starts eating the
sugars that are still in the wine. Naturally, when yeast
ferment sugar, it creates alcohol and it creates carbon dioxide. Well,
if it's doing it in a big barrel, that's not
a problem, but if it's doing it in a bottle,
it carbonates it. And this was considered a problem for
two really big reasons. One, they didn't like the taste
(06:02):
of it. So that Don Perignon quote that you might
have seen, I'm tasting the stars, that was a marketing
thing that was made up. That's not real. He never
said that. And he didn't like sparkling wine. And one
of the reasons he didn't like sparkling wine was because
up to fifty percent of the bottles produced in Champagne
would explode because the glass couldn't handle all of that
(06:24):
pressure build up. So it's actually called the Sparkling or
the Devil's Wine. And I like to think of it
as almost little land mines filling these caves, just exploding
and like a Michael Bay movie with monks in their
robes running through the caves trying not to get killed.
I'm sure it wasn't that dramatic, but I like to
think of it that way.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
But then along the way, somewhere someone figured out, wait
a minute, this is a product we can market. So
there were some people who liked it.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Really Notably, there were two kind of important well people
slash groups that decided they liked it. One there's this
guy Philippe the second, and he was really important. He
I don't think he was technically the king, but he
was like the region to France or something, and going
back hundreds of years, for like eight hundred years, every
king of France was actually crowned in the Champagne region,
(07:14):
in the towns of ron or at Penne. And so
he starts to get some of this bubbly stuff. He
likes it. Because the King, the Regent likes it, other
restaurants in France started wanting to have it. But the
reason it kind of got popular is actually the British
and the French would never want to admit that the
British helped make Champagne a thing, but they absolutely did.
(07:36):
Because the British can't grow grapes, so they can't make
their own wine, so they would bring in a lot
of wine. Bring in from Champagne was cheaper than a
lot of other regions. Well, what they would do is
they would bring it in in a barrel and then
the bars would bottle it out of the barrel. So
they would have this same problem where the wine gets
(07:59):
in the bar bottle, it stops fermenting, and it referments
early the next year when you're ready to drink the wines.
So why didn't explode? Well, the French were using wood
powered ovens to make glass bottles, but the British had
figured out how to have coal, how to make it
burn hotter, and how to make stronger, thicker glass, so
(08:24):
they had stronger bottles. They didn't explode. They opened them
up and they were sparkling and they drank it and
when this is so weird, this is so funny, we
love this. They then commission a scientific study about how
to force wine to be sparkling, and they then give
that information back to the French. And this sort of
combination of the British developing a taste, developing better glass,
(08:48):
and the region to France deciding he really liked it
is how you got the very first champagne houses to
start in the seventeen hundreds to produce specifically sparkling champagne,
because previously it was all still wine.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Okay, so it's really only since the seventeen hundreds. I mean,
wine goes back probably to the beginnings of human civilization.
It's in the earliest writings that you read. But Champagne,
that's not that long ago.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Really, No, that's not that long ago. I mean Champagne
is there were people in North America colonizing North America
before there was champagne, and those poor people they never
even got to taste champagne. No wonder there was so
much conflict over here.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
It's not like we're sort of conflict now. You'd think
that there would have been some way for the French
and the British to kind of hold hands and say,
look what we did. But that never happens.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
No, that doesn't happen too often. It's such a really
fun history of Champagne. I think that it came across
so quickly. Now those same techniques that people were using,
those techniques exist across other countries. So the same ale
of adding a bit of sugar and a bit of
yeast to the wine, they now do this in the US,
(10:07):
they do this in Canada, they do this in Spain,
they do it in Italy. So the techniques that Champagne
helped develop are really the same way that sparkling wine
is made all across the world. And so you can
see these techniques anytime you crack open a bottle.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Okay, the only thing, really, the only difference is you
can't call it champagne. And we talked about this in
an earlier episode of Flavor Files. You can't call it
champagne unless it's produced in Champagne. There are laws around
that where countries cooperate with one another, same as you
can't You can make a whiskey in Canada, which you
can't call it bourbon, and there are fine whiskeys made
(10:43):
in Canada they just can't be called bourbon. There are
fine whiskeys obviously made in Scotland and Ireland and they're
Iris whiskey and Scotch whiskey and you can't call it
bourbon and vice versa. But those are kind of marketing things.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
It is a marketing thing. One of the things Champagne
did really well was create the label Champagne. They were
actually really competitive with Burgundy. Burgundy was known for making
great wines. The wines in Champagne weren't as good. So
once they sort of cracked this sparkling thing open, they
then marketed it heavy. They made Champagne a valuable brand,
(11:20):
and funny enough, a people in Burgundy started ripping off
the techniques to make cremat or Borgonne because they wanted
in on how great Champagne was. That's about going to
wrap it up for the history lesson, so don't worry
if you didn't want anymore. In our next segment, I
want to talk all about how to enjoy champagne, starting
with how to get the bottle open. But a little
quick tip if you are looking for a fun thing
(11:42):
to do this New Year's Eve.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I read a.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Story about Marilyn Monroe once taking a bath in three
hundred and fifty bottles of champagne. So why don't you
fill up your bathtub with some champagne. For those of
you who have been loving our champagne ted talk, I
do have bad news. We're done with that now. For
those of you that are ready for something different, let's
talk about enjoying champagne. How to enjoy it, when to
(12:07):
enjoy it, what the best way to do it is.
And there's a really great quote Lily Bollinger. She's one
of the people who really helped make that Champagne brand exist.
She has a great quote about when to drink champagne,
and it's I drink champagne when I'm happy and when
I'm sad. I drink it when I'm alone, when I
have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it
(12:30):
if I'm not hungry, and I drink it when i
am Otherwise, I never touch it unless I'm thirsty. Okay,
I think that's a really great quote. I'm sure Grace
feels the same. For those of you who might remember,
Grace is my partner. She also works at a venue
here in Dallas, where she's one of the top selling
(12:52):
champagne people in the entire city. One of the best
ways to go over how do you open champagne is
I'm going to have Grace come in. She's going to
walk you through how to properly open a bottle of
champagne and we can see who does it better.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Are you ready? Yeah? What who does it better? Grace
or me? Yeah? Exactly. This is the setup, isn't it all? Right?
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Well, best of luck, everybody. Welcome Grace. Okay, thanks Tanner him, Harry, Hi, Grace.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Okay, So to start, you'll always want to present the
bottle to the person that ordered it with the label
facing out. You're going to find a tab that's on
the foil.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
In this case, it just.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Usually it has like a little marker on it. You
want to just put your nail under that that is
the top part of the foil off.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Okay. Keep in mind that I'm in Toronto and she's
in Dallas, and so she's teaching me this literally online.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Next step is going to be taking off the cage.
So you'll want to just bend down the.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Wire where it's twisted.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Then want to untwist six times with one hand.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah, you should keep in mind.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I would recommend that you have your thumb on top
of the cork for this, because if it explodes and
puts your eye out, You're going to be very, very mad.
We did this segment.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
I'll be upset if it gets all over my equipment,
That's what I'll be upset about.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
So after it's untwisted six times, I usually keep the
cage on when I do this, But.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Oh, thanks for telling.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Me that, now, sorry, Really, then you're just going to
want to twist the bottom of the bottle with one
hand and keep pressure on the cork.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
You'll start to hear it moving. Oh that was yours,
that was mine, that was loud.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yours.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
What's better, Jerry?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Okay? And now then all it remains is support it
into the last Yeah, exactly, Okay, So you don't want
that whole thing where you pop the thing and it
shoots across the room and there's wine every like? Is
that just for TV shows and movies and stuff?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
For photographs and when baseball teams win championships or you know,
that's well, and if.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Grace sells you a thirty five hundred dollars bottle of champagne,
I don't think you'd be very happy if she sprayed you. All.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Okay, it's thirty five hundred up front. Now put on
the rubber suit, right, No, no, if you're having to
wear a rubber suit, Grace charges more than that. What
kind of a club is this? Where you.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Said you had a better open than her, So despite
the setup, I guess you did win the contest. Yay, awesome, Oh,
thank you Grace. We appreciate you being here.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Thanks guys.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Wait a minute, bring her back. I got a big
knife here. Isn't it possible to open the wine with that?
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Yeah, if you're brave enough to.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
It is okay.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Sabering a bottle yeah, legal wouldn't allow us to technically
show you how to do this, but since you're asking anyway,
I will give you a couple tips. One, when you
find the bottle, there's a ridge in the end of
every bottle. That's where the glass comes together, That's where
it's fused. Yes, so that's the weakest point of the bottle.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Okay. So if you don't have a.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Saber on hand, which, first of all, are you even
really serious about cooking?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
If you don't have a saber, well, how long does
the blade have to be to be a saber as
opposed to cook the knives.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
I think saber it's all about confidence. If it's big
enough and it's confident enough, it counts as a saber.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Right.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
But make sure you use the back of the knife,
so not like the back, like the handle.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
But don't use the sharp edge because you'll wreck it.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Oh I see, Yeah, you want to use that heavy edge.
So what you would do is you would take the bottle.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, and if you.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Want to make sure that the bottle's cold, so it's
a little bit more fragile, especially on the edge. And
then what you want to do is you want to
take the bottle. You're going to take the cork end.
You're going to point it away from you because again
it's about to explode. But you can't saber it now
that you've already taken the all. No, well you would
(17:10):
just fill champagne everywhere.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Well what would happen? I just I saw a thing
on TV. You have to keep the knife connected to
the bottle right like it has.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Right, So you want to have the knife on the bottle.
But here's the reason, here's the reason. You can't do it.
Now that you've done it. You're taking the bottle, you're
pointing it away from yourself, and then taking the knife
in one smooth motion. You're trying to knock the top
off of the bottle with the knife.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yes, but the.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Reason it's considered safe is because any tiny little fragments
of fragments of glass that might break you are shooting
off with the pressure of the champagne. It takes the
champagne away with it, or it takes the glass away
with it. So that's what makes it safe. Whereas if
you did it now, you just be breaking glass into
your champagne, which I don't recommend.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Well, have you ever seen this go wrong?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
I've seen it go wrong in my restaurant.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
No.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yeah, So our old general manager, who he knows who
he is, let's just call him Greg, not that that
was his real name or anything. We'll call him Greg.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
And so we get to like eleven forty and I'm
thinking Near's Eve has gone great, got away with it
for one more year. I can finally relax. And twenty
minutes later, I hear my staff come running to the back,
going Tanner Tanner come. Greg has decided he's going to
saber the bottle. He's messed up, a piece of the
(18:31):
glass is gone backwards, and he got a scar under
his eye that he still has from shamp from sabring
at the restaurant.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Well, there's one good thing. At least he got the
scar and not one of your guests.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That's true. And you know what, Greg doesn't even work
here anymore.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
So, not that that's his name, No, not that that's
his name.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
The guy that we call Greg hypothetically, he.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Doesn't work here anymore. Okay, well, you know, it was
sort of satisfying to hear that little pop. There is
something to be said though about champagne spraying all over
the place. I'm sure. Look, it's fun.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
It's celebratory for everyone who doesn't have to clean it up,
which is normally restaurant people. I mean, the number of
times Grace comes home and goes there was so much
champagne all over the sofas. It was a mess.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah. Well but people pay big money for it, so
it is what it is. I guess.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Yeah, you kind of just have to let them. I suppose,
is that right? You just have to let them. Yeah,
I guess after it's open, what they do with it's
their own business. If they want to poort tequila all
over themselves, they suppose they can do that too.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Well, Okay, one quick question then, for Grace, if you're
in a club, as opposed to going to the liquor store.
If you're in a club, what's a reasonable price to
pay to get a reasonable champagne on something like New
Year's Eve?
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Reasonable? I mean, honestly, I would say most bottles of
champagne would start around five hundred dollars, maybe.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Four hundred at certain places in a club on New
Year's Eve. Yeah, you might see people just spending more.
That's definitely like a safe range. But it only goes
up from there.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
And usually if.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
You see bottles that are priced at that, you know,
five hundred dollars price.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Point, the people that want to come in and do
New Year's Eve big will just buy more of those
and end up just having a ton of Champion on
the table.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
It looks a lot better than that way too.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
I see I paid five hundred dollars for this bottle.
I'm gonna sprain around if I want to.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, that's exactly great.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Hey, Grace, thanks a lot, Yeah, thank you, guys. This
is flavor files that we're doing our New Years show.
We do these things ahead of time so that hopefully
some of the things we pass on, like you know,
what we've said about champagne is useful for you when
we get to the actual holiday. Now, you can find
this show Flavor Files p h i l e. S.
As in We're in Love with Flavor at flavorfiles dot com.
(20:55):
You can get the podcast of this show anywhere you
get your podcast, just flavor Files. And coming up next,
we're going to dig into a little bit of a
pop quiz on what we've done this season. We're going
to do a segment here on because we're talking about champagne,
a pop quiz, and we'll start with a couple of questions. Actually,
(21:17):
I have one now that I've opened this bottle of
champagne in the middle of the day as we're recording
this Tanner, how long if I put the cork back
in kind of stuff it back in there? And how
long is the champagne any good? After that?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Well, you're going to find out that you can't put
the cork back in.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Oh that's what I was wondering.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Yeah, so you'll be really disappointed by that. Unfortunately, So
what you need is they have champagne stoppers. So you
put it in like sort of on the top, and
then it has these little silver wings. You kind of
press them down and then they lock under the edges
of the bottle where the champagne cage used to be.
I see, And so you need one of those. But
(21:58):
I find if you don't have one of those, and
if you did, you could probably keep it for a
couple of days. But since you don't, you'll just have
to commit to finishing the bottle.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Okay, thanks a lot. Remember we got in trouble with
a listener because you said something about buying cheap prosecco,
and he took it to me that you think that
all prosecco is cheap and you hate Italians, and we
addressed that on a previous episode. But champagne or prosecco,
is there really a difference.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
So the biggest difference is going to be where they're made. Right.
Champagne we talked all about at the beginning about the
region of Champagne and how that region became popular. Champagne
has to come from that region has to come from Champagne.
Prosecco comes from Italy, Cava comes from Spain, and so
the biggest difference is where they're made. They'll have different
(22:47):
processes that winemakers will use in those areas, but those
are really the biggest the regional difference, and then how
they regionally make them is different. So if you drink
prosecco versus drinking champagne, you'll notice differences. But the one
that most people can remember is it's just from different countries.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
All right. So beyond that, then you want to ask
me some questions. See if I've been paying attention this.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Year exactly, we want to know were you really listening
or were you just nodding your head and saying uh huh.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
So first question on your.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Pop quiz, we had a guest on and he ate
chilies that are between one million and one point six
million scoville units. What chili pepper is this?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Oh? I know this one. I get off to a
good start. The Carolina Reaper.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Yes, the Carolina Reaper pepper one of the hottest chilies
in the world. For reference, a jalapago is about one
to five thousand scoville units and he has the record
freaing one hundred Carolina Reapers in thirty six minutes. Okay,
next we had a guest. She is the only person
ever to have been a contestant on Master Chef Canada
(23:58):
and then become a judge who was that well.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I couldn't possibly get this wrong. I cheered for her
from episode one when she was a contestant, and then
she became an employee of the television network that is
affiliated with the radio station where I work, and so
I not only meet her in the hall once in
a while, she's been on my radio show. It's Mary
Berg and she's fabulous.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Exactly right now. If you're playing along as you listen
to this, just know the next one's controversial, but there
is a right answer, and hopefully you get it. Dad,
What is the best tasting shape of Reese's cup?
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Now, wait a second, the question should not have ended.
There should have been co According to Tanner and some
of the people in his restaurant, you ate a bunch
of the different shapes. They have the Christmas tree, they
have the pumpkin, they have the various shapes, and I
think that what you all came up with was the pumpkin.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Pumpkin is the best shape. It doesn't matter who it's
According to I'm an expert. I have my own radio show.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah, so do I. But I'm not an expert on that.
But you said it's because you don't like the ridges
on the original Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Don't like the ridges on the original cup. I think
it's the worst part of the cup, which is I mean,
there's a lot of there's a lot to love about
the cup, so it's it's a minute complaint. But they
once they created Pumpkin, they really perfected it and they
should stick with it.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
This episode of Flavor Files is brought to you by
forty four Magnum, the most powerful champagne in the world.
At forty four percent alcohol, it's the strongest champagne on
the market, stronger than whiskey, and because power demands presence,
forty four Magnum only comes in Magnum bottles, twice the size,
(25:45):
twice the attitude, and absolutely not TSA approved crafted with
a bold, straight liquor flavor profile that will make your
day and a finish that asks you one simple question.
Do you feel lucky? Well? Do you celebrating and intimidating
or simply try to forget the last year? Pop the cork,
(26:07):
let the bubbles fly, and make your own rules. Do
it with the heavy kick of a forty four forty
four magnum. Make your toast a warning shot.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
There's a game called plane plane shot Roulette that I
taught our listeners. What is that game?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
What Tanner does is he goes to the liquor store
and he buys those little airplane size bottles of liquor,
puts them in a bag, somehow gets them onto the airplane,
and then the people that he's with they order ginger
ale and then you have to reach blind into the
bag and take out one of those bottles and that's
your drink. And there's no arguing. And sometimes you put
in some horrible bottles.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Absolutely, the horrible ones are the best bottles, like Fireball
or something like that. Fireball Banana Liqueur is also a
good one. I can't believe that they make it in
little tiny bottles. What's more fun than somebody realizing they
have to do a shot lot of peppermint vodka or
peach snops it really And the best thing about this game,
if you're going to play it as you're traveling for
(27:08):
New Year's is the worst tasting things also cost the least,
so you're saving money, and you're creating memories.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Okay, but it's hard to get a group all grouped
together in seats in an airplane.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Well right, but you can play this as soon as
you get through security. You know, you'll probably have a
delay because that's how things are going this year, so
you'll have plenty of time. So you should bring lots
of bottles. Okay, yeah, I mean this is really important
work that we're doing here. Okay. Next back to the
chili episode. Sri Rocha sauce is being ripped off all
(27:42):
across the world, and that reason is because of why.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Because the person who invented it, did all that hard work,
came up with sarroches sauce, got people excited about it,
and failed to trademark thauce exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
He trademarked the name of his company, and he trademarked
his logo, and he didn't trademark the style of sauce
he was making. And now everyone is ripping him off.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Abrasco has a Sirocha sauce and they wouldn't be able
to do that had he been. Had he or they'd
have to pay him either way.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Right, or they have to pay him or at least
if he owned the three rochet pepper, right, if he
had trademarked that and like owned the seeds or whatever,
then people would have to at least buy the peppers
from him. But instead he's just unfortunately this is he's
not really a good story. Maybe make a resolution. If
you're inventing a new hot sauce that's going to change
(28:37):
the world, trademark it. That's a good little resolution for
you as we wrap up the year here. Okay, next
talking about Thanksgiving, What is sort of the number one
piece of advice that I gave if you're going to
be a Thanksgiving guest or a Christmas guest or a
New Year's guest.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Oh, this is very important, and that is if you
are told don't bring an don't bring anything, be sure
the host or hostess, and it's probably most often the
hostess wants you to bring something because there's nothing worse
for somebody who has spent perhaps days preparing for this party,
this meal, and you walk in, Oh, look what I
(29:16):
brought for everybody to eat, and it doesn't fit in
at all with their plans. It's not good.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Exactly if you want to bring something, bring something that's
not food related. Or bring them something that's food related
they can enjoy after their party and everybody has left.
Next question, what are some signs that when you go
to a wood fired restaurant? What are some signs that
they're doing a good job, that the food is good,
(29:41):
that they're properly cooking over an open fire.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Well, now you got me. Now, I don't know what
the answer is to this. Well you can see them,
I suppose.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Yeah, I mean, I guess if you can see them
not dropping the food on the floor and then picking
it back up, yeah, that would be a sign they're
doing a good job. But what I was looking for
is that smoke is a flavor. It's not the dominating flavor.
That the smoke and the char and the grill compliments
everything else that they're doing. All of us have had food,
(30:14):
maybe you cooked it over a campfire, or a little
kid made a s'more and they.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Just burnt it.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
If your food's just burned, that doesn't mean it was
clearly cooked over a live fire, But that doesn't mean
it was done effectively. That's not how food should taste
when you have it off of a wood grill. It
should compliment the natural flavor of the ingredients as all
dishes should.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
I'm Jerry Aggar, He's Tanner Eggar. He's a bartender recognized
by various authorities, including a Micheline Award for his cocktails.
And you couldn't make your cocktail at the beginning of
the episode here because it was did you let your
champagne get too warm? Before the episode started.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
I let it get too warm. I could try to
pass off the mistake and say something happened to the bottle.
Nothing happened to the bottle. I just messed it up. Now,
now my cocktail's fine. Now my cocktail tastes great. I
still have champagne all over me. But of all the
things to spill on yourself, champagne's one of the better ones.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Okay. The other thing is you said at the very
beginning that you don't necessarily have to pour champagne into
a flute, that it isn't necessarily the best. And I
had prepared for this by getting a flute out and
having it ready, and that's what I have my champagne
in now that I've opened the bottle. So what's the
deal with that.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Champagne flutes are really common, one of the most common
actually before the flute, so it's the most popular glass
before the Flute took over. Was called the Coop. You've
seen coops before. It's the sort of whatever you think
of as a cocktail glass, sort of a stem, kind
of has that little bowl you've had Manhattan's in it,
Dakeries in it, sort of classic cocktail glass. Apparently the
(31:54):
cocktail glass is actually modeled after Marie Antoinette's breast. The
size of the original coop apparently perfect cup for her.
And so that is one thing that a lot of
people drink champagne out of. They love to tell the story.
I am disheartened to let you know. I did fact
(32:14):
check that while we were working on this episode, and
it's not true at all. The Coop existed before Marie
Antoinette was drinking before she was even born. So it's
very disappointing, but it is a cute story. You can
tell this New Year's Eve if you would like to.
The glass that is sort of now considered the best
it's a glass that it comes up, it's got a stem,
(32:37):
it comes up like a flute, and then it sort
of tapers in a little bit. So this glass is
called a tulip, so it kind of comes out and
it tapers in. The idea being that it allows you
to get the aromas of the champagne, to really smell them,
to appreciate them. But since it's not so wide open
like a coop is wide open, it allows you to
(33:00):
maintain more of the bubble in the glass for longer,
so you can enjoy the champagne better.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
All right, let's talk about some traditions for New Year's
around the world, and maybe something that you could incorporate
into your celebrations this year, just to change it up.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
A big one that I was unaware of till I
moved down here. Have you ever had black eyed peas
and collared greens for New Year's Eve?
Speaker 2 (33:25):
I've had black eyed peas and I've had collared greens,
not together and not for New Year's Eve.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
I didn't know this was a Southern US tradition, but
I literally worked at a bar one year where we
had two crock pots on the back of the bar,
one full of peas and one full of greens, and
it was very important to the owner that I give
a scoop of each to everyone that came. And I'll
tell you I thought it was weird, but when the
(33:52):
guests were looking at me as I went, here's your
cocktail and here are your peas. That was not a
tradition I got, but some people really appreciated it, and
eating the two together is a New Year's tradition down here.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
All right? How about Europe? What kinds of things do
they have?
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Spain has a fun one. You're supposed to eat twelve
grapes at midnight for luck. I've heard about this spreading
down to South America, Central America. So you eat twelve
grapes at the stroke of twelve, and that helps set
you up for good luck. Of course, there's more than
twelve grapes in your champagne, so if you don't quite
(34:28):
get to it, you can still feel like you did
a Spanish tradition this year and tried something new. In Italy,
apparently people eat lentils. I'm not sure why. I like lentils,
but I don't necessarily think of them as a special
or lucky food. I guess none of these really are, right.
They probably became traditions because they were things people had
(34:49):
a lot of that they could enjoy, right, grapes, lentils,
black eyed peas, collared greens. They're not fancy things per se.
There's something that everybody has access.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
To, Okay, but the ideas often are locked and prosperity
and that kind of thing, because what else would you
want to say as a new year starts.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
I think that is what you're saying. That's the whole hope,
is that next year is going to be such a
great year because either I've had a really great year
and man, next year, I'm just keeping this train running,
or praise God, this year is over. I can't wait
for next year to come bring me new things. That
brings up a couple other traditions. You know, money is
(35:29):
a big one. Wealth is something. In the Philippines, I
read that people like to eat round fruits or they'll
give away coins kind of try to cut them into
coin shape, and that's an idea of financial prosperity. In Japan,
they do soba noodles, and soba is a noodle that's
actually gluten free. It's made out of buck wheat, so
(35:50):
even though it's called wheat, it is gluten free. And
so my understanding is the length of the noodle symbolizes
your long life and that you're only kind of part
way through it, and may you have a long, prosperous life. Also,
New Year's Eve is generally pretty cold, so something like
sober noodles sounds really great. Also, if I was kind
(36:10):
of drunk, as I tend to be on New Year's Eve,
a nice hot bowl of really rich soup does sound
like a pretty great tradition to me. One of your
favorite traditions at New Year's is New Year's Eve you
make a giant pot of chili and then on New
Year's Day you watch all the Lord of the Rings
movies back to back to back.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Yeah, well not just by myself, with your brother and
everybody else plans something else and they leave. You'll watch
some of it, but.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Before I've you sleep during it before, and I'm a
big fan.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
You've got to be dedicated. Though. These are the director's cuts,
the long ones, so it's basically a twelve hour adventure
to watch it all the way through.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
I know. The problem is it always comes after New
Year's Eve, which is a day I generally have to
work really late. I have to work till two three
o'clock in the morning. I'm not really up at eight
am for movie watching. It's sort of if we could
do it on the second maybe this year we could
try to push it.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Before we run out of time. Here, we've talked food here,
what about traditions for everybody around the world must not
be drinking champagne on New Year's Eve? Well, they should be, no,
but but they're not.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
No, they're not.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
They're not.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Of course in other countries you mentioned before, lots of
people drink sparkling wines that come from other countries. In fact,
I actually had British sparkling wine earlier this year on
my trip to London, so that would be something to
watch out for. I was surprised that it was actually good,
but I guess as conditions kind of get a little
(37:41):
bit warmer along the coast of Britain and as technology advances,
they can grow grapes there. But plenty of people love
to start it off with a kiss, with some with
a shot. We've gone through so many cocktails. I don't
think there's a bad thing to ring in the New
year with. It should be something that you like, something
that you're excited to serve to your guests, something you're
(38:03):
excited to share with your loved ones, and sort of
toast that way. I'm sure in Japan it'd be sake,
or if it was Korea, be showed you or sort
of these national drinks. I'm sure in Mexico it's plenty
of tequila, and I will also shoot tequila on New
Year's Eve. I'm a mess on New Year's Day. That's
why the restaurants have to be closed.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Okay, but there's there have been times when I've been
at New Year's Eve parties and somebody hosts a New
Year's party, and invariably they'll have a bunch of little
plastic glasses and they'll have some glasses of some bottles
of champagne. But there are a tremendous number of people
don't really like champagne. Do you have something else as well?
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yeah, if you're having a party, you could definitely have
something else. Of course, you know, non alcoholic sparkling cier
is a great option if it's an alcohol reason. Just
having anything that people can enjoy that feel celebratory to you.
What is a high life? High life is the champagne
of beers. Maybe, yeah, have some champagne of beers on
hand for you this year, for any of other guests
(39:05):
you've got coming by.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah, well, there's nothing wrong with the glass of ginger ale.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
It's sparkly ginger ale, sparkly. Sure you could do root beer.
I mean it might be a little bit sad to
just sit there with a can of club soda, but
I suppose you could do that as well. Maybe put
some bitterers in it, because bitterers plus soda plus line,
that's a bartender trick. It's great when you're hungover. It's
a great way to remind yourself to hydrate. Maybe we
(39:29):
should do that as in a Mouze booze for our
no alcohol episode coming up next year.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yeah, well, we will be talking in an episode next year,
early next year about how alcohol sales are down, young
people aren't drinking and how that might affect the business
that you're in. But we're out of time here. Have
a very very good holiday. Tanner does this from Dallas, Texas.
I do it from Toronto, Ontario. So but we're going
to get together for Christmas, and I'll look forward to
(39:56):
seeing you and actually getting together.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
It'll be great, it'll be fun. Maybe we could record
live from the.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Beach just to rub it in.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Happy New Year's everybody,
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