Have you ever watched someone decant wine?

It’s always struck me as a stunt. Some weird ritual that fancy restaurants invented to make the rich feel special.

If you haven’t heard of decanting — it’s the process of pouring a bottle of wine into another piece of glassware and letting it sit for 10 minutes to 2 hours. The glassware can be all sorts of funky shapes and sizes, but it’s meant to expose the wine to oxygen.

It’s this process of “oxygenating” wine that has always struck me as absurd. …

In 1938, one food was responsible for 25% of all the foodborne illness in the US.

Care to venture a guess to which?

If you’re not sure, let me give you another clue.

This food caused a bunch of nasty diseases like tuberculosis, brucellosis, salmonellosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, septic sore throat, and dysentery.

What’s your best guess now?

I’m betting good ole’ milk didn’t come to mind, but it used to be deadly (and raw milk still is). …

One of my least favorite responsibilities is gassing up my car. I hate making the extra stop. I’d rather push the limits while driving on empty.

So, like any reasonable adult, I’ve struck a deal with myself. Any time I stop to gas up my car, I can pick out a special treat. I know, very mature of me, right?

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that recently I forgot my chocolate bar on the passenger seat of my car.

When I was finally ready to indulge, I opened the candy only to see it covered in a white haze. It looked like mold had started chomping on my sweet treat, but luckily I knew this grayish-white coating isn’t microorganisms at all. …

It’s always been a mystery to me why cranberry sauce appears on the Thanksgiving table year after year.

Does anyone even put that jellied mass onto their plate? And who keeps bringing it?

It doesn’t matter if it’s homemade or from the can, that gelled sauce isn’t taking up any of the limited space on my plate.

As you can tell, I’m not a big fan. But, I was curious how jellied cranberries came about. …

How do you order your coffee?

Maybe you ask for a dash of milk or cream. Perhaps you even specify how many sugar packets you want.

But, have you ever stopped to ask why we even cut your coffee with these added ingredients?

I’m guessing for most of us, it’s probably to mask the bitterness or any other off-flavors in the brew. To dull the parts of the beverage we don’t enjoy while still getting the caffeine. At least that’s an important part of my morning routine.

Now, this makes sense. I mean coffee is a natural product derived from the beans of the Coffea plant. While we can control how the beans are harvested and roasted, there’s still plenty of factors that are left to nature. …

I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but during the pandemic I’ve really been flying through bottle after bottle of red wine.

Recently, I started wondering if I should switch up my drink of choice just to spice something up in my life. Turns out, working from home and seeing no one but your roommates really doesn’t provide a ton of excitement.

Since this seemed like the most pressing issue in my life, I began researching some other boozy options. I was quickly reminded that there’s no reason wine has to be made from grapes or beer from malted barley. …

Here’s why

I remember the first time I had fresh pineapple. I was in high school, which I now realize is an extremely old age for having your first real pineapple experience, but that’s not something I can change now.

Don’t get me wrong, I had pineapple before, but for some reason my parents only brought those single-serve, plastic containers filled with pineapple pieces. You know the ones where you’re in constant fear of the juice splashing out as you slowly peel back the thin, plastic lid.

I assumed that’s what all pineapple tasted like, which might explain how I became borderline obsessed with the fresh stuff after discovering it so late in my life. Just tossing piece after piece into my mouth. …

If you’ve ever purchased alcohol in the US, you’ve probably seen the ‘proof’ or ‘ABV’ labeled on these beverages. ABV is the easier one to understand: it means “alcohol by volume” and tells you how alcoholic a drink is.

Alcohol, more formally known as ethanol, is what gives booze its intoxicating effects. ABV gives you the percentage — that is, the number of mL of pure ethanol in 100 mL of the drink.

Proof is a bit more complicated. In the US, it’s equal to double the ABV — that is, ABV multiplied by two. But if you go back to 19th-century England, 100 proof is equal to 57.15% …