What to Drink at Thanksgiving or Christmas

As Christmas is coming, with the inevitability of a credit card bill, and there are a whole load of things to worry about. Buying Christmas presents, usually an expensive and traumatic period, is followed by the Christmas card list, the decorations, the food, yes, all that food and cooking and normally the last on the list, the Christmas drinks. Christmas drinks are possibly the least thought about but are the subtle catalyst that can turn an ordinary Christmas into a great one. Yes, you can go with all your normal standbys but Christmas is special and so should be your Christmas drinks. Although these tips are primarily directed at Christmas, they will work just as well for your Thanksgiving meal.

To start with, there are many traditional Christmas drinks like Egg Nog and mulled ale. My father used to put his beer into a pewter tankard, heat a couple of pokers in the fire, then plunge them into the tankard. This should only be attempted with metal drinks containers, I have a vague recollection of him trying it with glass and making a mess on the floor when it broke. This doesn’t really work with lager or other blond beers, a good bitter, brown ale or porter should be robust enough to take that sort of treatment.

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I Love Touring Paris – The Eighteenth Arrondissement

The 18th arrondissement of northern Paris is located on the Right Bank of the Seine River. Its land area is about 2.3 square miles (a sliver over six square kilometers). The population is on hundred eighty five thousand and the area is home to about seventy thousand jobs.

The distinctive Moulin Rouge (Red Mill or windmill) is a major highlight of this historic district. It is one of the world’s best-known nightclubs or to use the French term, cabaret. The Moulin Rouge was built in 1889 by the owner of the Olympia, Paris’s oldest music hall located in the neighboring ninth district. You can’t miss this building because of the imitation red windmill on the roof. Josephine Baker, Frank Sinatra, Mistinguett, and Edith Piaf and many other famous entertainers regularly played the Moulin Rouge. The story has it that Elvis had a crush on a can-can dancer and never went to Paris without stopping at the Moulin Rouge.

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I Love French Wine and Food – A Rhone Valley Crozes-Hermitage

If you are looking for fine French wine and food, consider the Rhône Valley region of southeastern France. You may find a bargain, and I hope that you’ll have fun on this fact-filled wine education tour in which we review a Crozes-Hermitage red wine from the northern Rhône Valley.

Among France’s eleven wine-growing regions the Rhône Valley ranks second in acreage. The region extends 125 miles (200 kilometers) along the Rhône River. This region is actually composed of two parts, the north and the south whose wines tend to be quite different. The northern Rhône Valley is quite narrow. Its major red grape variety is Syrah, while its major white variety is Viognier. The northern Rhône Valley produces some of the best red wines in all France, and according to its fan club, some of the best red wines on earth. The southern Rhône Valley produces about 95% of the Rhône Valley wines. This is the kingdom of grape blending. For example the famous Châteauneuf-Du-Pape AOC wine may be made from up to thirteen different grape varieties.

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