What Wine Pairs with Christmas Cookies - Pinkies Up Ep. 4

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome everybody to Pinkies Up. Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas. Looking mighty fine over here. On this episode, we're going to be talking all about Christmas. If you can't tell, please watch us on YouTube and you'll see how great we look right now. So Christmas is coming right up. It's going to be here before we know it. And I love sugar just as much as the next person, but I never really know what to drink with it, which is a real problem. So, in case you're new to Pinkies Up, we aim to answer questions that normal people like me have about wine. So on this episode, we are going to be answering what wine pairs with Christmas cookies.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Welcome to Pinky's Up, a series where we answer questions normal wine drinkers like Bridget have about wine. I'm Nick, and I'm here to answer these questions in a way that makes sense, whether you drink your wine with your pinky up or you drink it in a solo cup. Let's see what's going on this month. Well, as you heard from Bridget's introduction, we're gonna talk Christmas cookie and wine. And this is gonna be a little bit of a challenging. I'm Nick, I'm the wine expert around here. And I gotta say, uh, when Bridget pitched me this idea, I was like, yes, and then I realized the amount of work I'd need to do to come up with good pairings with these Christmas cookies would be a little intense. Bridget, glad you're up for the challenge. Could you please tell us all these this beautiful spread? Actually, I feel like let me uh try and hold this up for the cave.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Oh, okay, good luck, man. So we did turn to our Lake Cheneva Country Meets Instagram story and asked our followers what their favorite Christmas cookies were. So as Nick is showing you, this beautiful this beautiful platter we have, um we had a lot of responses. And I'm sorry if we didn't include your cookie. Everyone has their own separate traditions, but we got what we could here, and so we're gonna be trying things like caram flavors. So we have a snickerdoodle, we have caram corn, we have peanut brittle. What else we have? We have classic sugar cookies because it's not Christmas without those. We have peppermint flavors, shortbread, shortbread thumbprint cookies. So a classic chocolate that's also kind of similar to the uh chocolate kiss cookies. Um what else do we have in there? Oh, fruit cake, which is really just there for the beautiful picture because who wants to eat that anyway? Um, we are missing the jam thumbprint cookie and the spritz cookies. We hear you, but we're not great bakers, so we bought what was available.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

So this is diving in. This is a wide variety of cookies, and I have six different wines here. And on this episode, I thought we could talk about I I have some ideas for each one, and we'll give some definitive rankings at the end. Yeah. But we talk about kind of ideas behind wine and food pairing a lot, and there's two ways you can do it. You can do likey likey or contrasting, right? Some people like to do matchy matchy, some people like to do a little bit of plaid on buffalo plaid, you know what I'm saying? Like opposites attract like Paul Abdul. So my motto. Um a lot of these are kind of drier cookies. And I think with something that's a little drier, you want a nice rich wine that's got some body to it, uh some kind of like wetness, if you say. I know it sounds weird, but some wine's like very dry and light, and you're like, oh, that was you know This was not a wet. Nick told me wet wine, and I'm like, this sounds ridiculous. It's like a seltzer versus still water.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Yeah, I mean he explained it and it made sense.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

So So for those drier cookies, you're gonna want something that has more body, more wetness to it, like maybe a buttery Chardonnay, or maybe a rich cabernet. Um for these very sweet wine or cookies like the caramel and the peanut butter. Peanut butter is so sweet. You're gonna want something I think very sweet to go with it. So I have this tawny port. That's a dessert wine that is delicious, but also has a little bit of kind of like oxidized flavor to it. Yeah, we'll see about that. Contrast a little bit. Yeah. Uh we have prosecco, which is especially with the very sweet things, um, gonna be a nice pairing, I think. And this one's actually an extra dry prosecco, which means a little bit extra sugar.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Oh, so I'm sorry, are we pairing the dry cookies with the wet or the dry, or we're trying it both ways?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

We're gonna try it both ways. Okay, good. And then um, let's see. Well, an extra dry means more sugar than brut. Oh, oh, really? Yeah, it's a weird thing.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yep, it's a weird thing. Oh, okay, okay. So if you see an extra dry sparkling wine, it's gonna be a little bit more sweet, which is nice. I didn't realize. Uh then we have this Gewürzstrominer for things like the gingerbread where it's got a little bit of spice. We're gonna add some spiciness with the wine.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Our gingerbread, of course, we have gingerbread cookies, and it's 2020, so it's a ginger family. So everyone knows.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Finally, uh, we have a little bit of Zinfandel for again spice, a nice rich, bold red wine. So I figure let's uh dive right in. Bridget, which cookie do you want to start with?

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Oh my gosh. Um, let's do like a classic sugar cookie to start. Is that a good way to kick off? Look at this little snowman. Oh, we're just gonna rip his head off right away, guys.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Thanks. All right, so my pairing suggestion with this is the Chardonnay. We have uh a very rich buttery Chardonnay from Josh. All these wines are uh available at the store and other nice local wine shops. Don't go to the big ones, just the little local ones, and uh this they're all under $20 and that kind of like $12 to $20 uh price point generally. So nice, rich, buttery. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 5:16

I feel like you can hear me chewing, sorry. Part of the game. I love this pairing, it's a great wine. They're good. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so classic sugar cookies. I know everyone has like the recipe. Um, we have one that's my great grandma's that I never attempt to make, but my mom and sisters do, and it's so good. Um, this one is a little dry, so um, this is why the buttery wine is great, right? I mean, that uh I would agree that the buttery I would never have thought she did.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Mmm, butter on butter. Yeah, it's just like mmm. Mmm. Mmm.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

That's what we got for you.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

This this is one of the things that Bridget and I share in our friendship is a love of butter and salt.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

I ate a really salty lunch. Now I'm gonna eat all the butter and drink all the butter. Mmm, you're right. I had to get one more bite to do the butter on the end. I'm using my fancy pinkies up uh glassware for my cookies, for my cookie plate. That was smart. Would you like my cup? No thanks. Okay, that was a great one to start with, I think. And you all have sugar cookies on your Christmas cookie plate. So buttery Chardonnay, sugar cookie. Great, good call.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Um, and if we if we don't like one, we'll try a different wine. But let's see, uh, like peanut butt, peanut butter brittle here.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

I guess, yeah, let's try that. I'm not a big like uh this isn't a thing we grew up making. Uh, I think it's really easy to make, sorry. Um, I don't know. I also just feel like it's gonna break my teeth every time I eat.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Look at us. We're so responsible with that. We're dumping our wine. Thanks, man. Um, so this one, I'm actually gonna go with the port. So peanut butter is a wine pairing question that I get a ton.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

This surprised me, actually, this pairing that you're doing right now. Ooh, it's gonna break my teeth, man.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

And peanut butter is really sweet. I love peanut butter. It's really sweet, so it's hard to get it's also really creamy, but this one's crunchy, so I love that you guys are just gonna listen to us gnashing on this episode.

unknown 7:12

Huh.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

I mean, I don't know, to be honest, because I don't really drink port much, but it's it tastes good together. Um, would you do the same? So I saw it when I was at the store, peanut brittle that had like chocolate on top as well. Yeah, portal. Would you do the same? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

I know people like you enjoy the the Cabernet chocolate. Mm-hmm. But port. This is a good port. I wanted to try, it's only like $12, too. Oh, really? Mm-hmm. I actually get a tawny one, not a ruby. Tawny's got a little bit more of the kind of like oxidized fruit flavors, like kind of roasty, cashewy type of flavors than just straight sugar. So it works a little bit with I actually love this as a gift.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Like a port instead of like a bottle of wine is always a great gift. And we have more expensive, better ports. A port with peanut butter brittle specifically, and you could say, like, this is what I learned. I do like that pairing.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Now, the other thing I wanted to try, we'll do a one wine, two different cookies real fast here. Yeah. Is um this Cabernet. Oh, yeah. Okay. So this is Mintolo Jester. If you see me do like Girl Scout cookie pairings, you know I love this with mint because this wine is a really rich style of Cabernet. I think a lot of Australian Cabernet is great for pairings like this because it's rich, not super dry in a lot of cases. Uh, especially if you're getting it from like cunuwara barassa, that area, not way out west, which is a more dry style, but neither here nor there. And the other cool thing is um these caverns from Australia pick up like a mint menthol eucalyptus note a lot, which I think goes well with like the peanut butter and of course the peppermint.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

So we'll try this with the peanut brittle and then the peppermint. I I that is so I love peppermint and I love peanut butter. So I feel like you're speaking to me right now if I can drink cab with both of them. Because I really struggle with peppermint and any drink, really. I mean, besides milk. But like, what do you possibly have with peppermint? Hopefully, it's this cab.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

I think the cab and the peppermint will be good, but I want to try with peanut butter too.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

I like peanut brittle. Who knew?

SPEAKER_00 9:18

I I like the port better. Me too. Definitely. There's too much tannin in Cabernet. Even this one that has not super tannic, it's a little bit richer.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

It just doesn't play off the peanut brittle very nicely, where the port, I mean, really, I'm very sorry.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

I think it's the sweetness. I really think it needs more sweetness.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

The wine?

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Yeah. Or the um the peanut butter. I think it just needs like a ton of sugar thrown at it.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Well, maybe we'll have to homemake some. That's our next endeavor. Okay, well, we're gonna try the peppermint cookie now. And the peppermint cookie we were able to get was one that had a chocolate sandwich cookie on the inside. So chocolate and peanut butter.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

This is gonna be, I think, just the best thing. This Matello Jester with with uh yeah, chocolate and peppermint and white chocolate.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

So um, this is a white chocolate covered chocolate sandwich cookie with peppermint on top. So lots of flavors here.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

I'm making a mess over here. Don't worry about it. I think it's the white chocolate that I like with the wine so much, actually.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

You know, actually the white chocolate's where it gets away from me. Like when I have the so as you people can see, I'm melting the chocolate with my body heat. But the dark thing it's uh I like that with the chocolate. I like the peppermint, but the white chocolate's so sweet.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Well, I think that's why, because this this is a tiny bit dry, and I like it. Okay, I guess for for me, this cab, shockingly, I love and goes goes with all of these flavors.

unknown 10:51

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

A white chocolate is so sweet.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

I mean, would would you pair something different with a white chocolate? We're getting a little bit off topic here, but white chocolate is something at Christmas Eve.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

My next one is let's try the Gewirstraminer with this, which is great. But that's so sweet. I'm I'm not on board with this. Let's throw like sweet on sweet, you know? Maybe you should get on board with sweet on sweet.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

I'll try. This is what we're here for, so I can learn, right, guys. Let's let's give it a try. I mean I love that cookie with this wine.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

If nothing else, you're doing research for Tyler. You're welcome, everybody. Next week. Does whipped cream and peppermint extra sugar sweetness. What wine does that go with?

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Okay, so I don't need to dump any of my cab, Nick. I finished it. Good job.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Let's give you a little rinse.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Okay, yeah, do that. Did we have this one back in October? Uh no. Okay. New wine here. Oh man. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

You're thinking of Gruner Weltliner.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Sorry, I probably am. So many B's and G's.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Alright, so this is Lucien Albrecht. This is actually a French Gewirstraminer, and we're gonna try it with the white chocolate. See if all that sweetness is good with. So Gewerstraminer, nice sweet, a little bit of spice to it. Very aromatic. Perfumed.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Ooh, yeah, it is perfumey. I like the cab better. You like this better, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 12:31

I like the sweet with the it's the white chocolate that gets away from if I was if it's just like peppermint, yeah. I would like it a lot more. If it was just like an Oreo, I'd like it a lot more. But it's the white chocolate, it gets so sweet.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

I think you're right. This, are you saying this um gewirchtaminer with a peppermint would be good?

SPEAKER_00 12:48

No, I like the the cavity, which is straight peppermint.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Or like uh Oreo type of cookie. Okay. What's the technical term for that?

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Chocolate sandwich cookie. Thank you. We're not paid by Oreo.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

But Oreo. We are open to things and we love your cookies. Let me tell you. Double stuff.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Um so what what do you like with this Gewirts streamer? The white chocolate?

SPEAKER_00 13:12

I think so. I think the white chocolate with with the Gewirts streamer. So if you have any type of white chocolate.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Oh, I just don't like this wine. It's fine. Maybe it's maybe oh yeah, maybe I should eat a piece of wet chocolate without peppermint on it.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Well, and the other um thing I had this for was like the gingerbread.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Okay, we can try that because I don't really love gingerbread, so maybe a wine I don't really like and a cookie I don't really like.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

So I thought because the spice and the gingerbread, maybe the spice in the gavers tree meter would be nice with that.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

I could see that. I just, yeah, that that one's not doing it for me. Sorry. Also, not surprising. Oh, thank you. No, this is not the gingerbread. What is this? That's a short bread of some sort. Gingerbread, I searched high and low for them to be shaped like ginger people. We have a man, a woman, and two children, a whole gingerbread family. I can smell the ginger. Ugh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

These are dry.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Oh god. This works. Oh, so much better. It makes it, you know, like dunk it. Yeah, actually, it like really brings these flavors out to me. I put it in my mouth at the same time. Like a real adult, I should follow, but no, I just put it all in there at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Oh, this is good.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Yeah, actually, this is good.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

It brings out the spice and everything.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

It really brings out the spices. Wow, this is the chakra of the day so far. Boom! Boom! Two things I don't really like. Just mix my gingerbread cookie in my wine glass, and we are good.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

I'm liking this. I'm liking this. This is going well. Alright, so so far we have um sugar cookie with buttery Chardonnay. We have gingerbread with gewirst straminer. Yep. White chocolate cookie with Gewerstraminer, peppermint with Cabernet, Australian from cunawara or barassa, and peanut brittle with port. Or McLaren Vale. And peanut butter with port. Yeah. That one was great.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

I missed one in there.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Do you want to try the Zintendel with the gingerbread too? A little bit of red wine with the spice.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Well, let's try it because we already have our gingerbread people over here. Trying to see what else we have. Oh, we have caramely things we have to try.

unknown 15:21

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

We should have had Elliot assist.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Well, I think we have enough cookies left over. Elliot, would you care to assist on the chocolate or uh cookie side of this?

SPEAKER_01 15:36

This is another fave wine of my husband's because of the label.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

You're welcome, Tyler.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Oh, I like this too. I don't think it brings out the flavors as much, which is fine if you don't love spicy cookies. Um, this is a nice one. It works nice. It's a good dunk or two, you know. You guys were here to tell you that you should really be dunking your Christmas cookies in wine, is what we're here for.

unknown 16:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

That was a good one. So I'm gonna give you options here. Do you want to go sparkling wine next or cabernet next?

SPEAKER_01 16:13

I just think we should stick with cab right now. Sparkling will end the celebration.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

So. Okay. Pour me some cab, Bridget. Okay. What are we trying with? We're doing the thumbprint cookies or the Hershey Kiss cookies. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

So the Hershey Kiss cookies, I think people make differently. You can put them on a plain cookie, um, smoosh them down or not, or you can put them in peanut butter cookies. So we've already kind of talked through some peanut butter pairings. Oh, is that a bad or a good face? Oh good. It's a good cookie.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

It is a good cookie. It's the softest of the cookies, which I appreciate. It is, yeah. We've had a lot of crunch cookies. I like a soft cookie. Oh my god, a lot of sugar.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Oh, yeah, so much sugar. That is nice. Ooh, chocolate with cab. You can't go wrong, in my opinion. Right? I mean, is there a bad chocolate with cab?

SPEAKER_00 17:07

I don't recommend uh really, I don't recommend French Bordeaux with it because or Chilean.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Because you have a lot of um more uh green pepper notes, bell pepper notes. Oh yeah. That's very not my fave with the tannin plays a lot more, and same thing with stuff from like Stag's Leap, Oakville, kind of that quadrant of Napa Valley, where it gets really dry. Uh the more tannin you get, chocolate and red wine both have tannin, and the drier styles get just like so much tannin.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Well, I don't like a lot of tannin, so that's why I like cabinet. Australia's a good one. Australia, thanks. Okay. Good day, mate. So much sugar. My stomach's hurting you guys.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Me too.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

We're all gonna go into diabetic shock over here. Happy holidays. Okay. Have we done the shortbread yet? Um, this one with the sprinkles on it? No. Okay. This is a Christmas tree, mate.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

So shortbread was another one I thought the um kind of buttery Chardonnay would be a good one. Because it's wet. It's wet and more butter. I mean, this, let's be clear, what this is butter, salt, and flour.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

With wet, buttery wine. We will, of course, type all these notes out for you because we're going all over the place, but we have found some surprising pairings here for me. And I'll name my most surprising at the end. I also have a surprise dessert for Nick to tell me which wine is gonna be best with. Oh he's gonna throw it at the wall. He's gonna be so mad.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Yeah, we thought, you know, we thought uh we thought just kind of trying things would be the best way to do this one. Meander our way through. It's like a holiday celebration of just meandering through the cookies and the wine, because really there's no great way to do like 72 different cookies with 12 different wines, and also you just gaze at or graze.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Well boy, you're just grazing at the holidays a lot. Like food is out all day, so so is wine.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

All right, these are very crunchy and dry. Okay, and not good. So everyone is aware we had to buy a cracker.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

This is very early on in the holiday season that we had to film this, so all of our favorite cookie places weren't necessarily already available for holiday cookies. Yeah, this cookie, this cookie isn't good. These are like dog biscuits, it's very dry. Ooh. I mean, it has a good shortbread flavor, though. I mean, shortbread is a dry cookie. Is shortbread a good flavor? They remind me of my grandma, so I think that I like it for that.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Because it's old and crusty.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Isn't that what the holidays are about?

SPEAKER_00 19:45

This pairing doesn't work for me.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Is it because you don't like the cookie? I think anything wet when you're eating this cookie.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Yeah, I think like milk would be better. Don't drink wine with shortbread. Shortbread cookies, we're gonna say they're unsavable unless you want to try some sparkling wine with this.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

I mean, is that I think that's where we're at. I think that's where we're at now. So let's. Oh, we have caramel flavors. Is that sparkling wine?

unknown 20:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Sparkling wine and more port.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Oof, okay. We're gonna try sparkling with these delicious shortbread cookies.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

And this is our extra dry proseco, which remember means it's got a little bit of sweetness to it.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Which might help with cookies. I mean, it helps a cookie. No, actually, no, it's not good. I don't like it. Do you like that better than the buttery one? I do, actually. Oh, I don't know. I think you just have it made up in my mind now.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

I like it. It's good.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Okay, well, if we're going to recommend something to drink with shortbread, it's going to be sparkling wine, not um not the buttery Chardonnay. Got a little sidetracked. Okay, let's go on to the sparkling flavors. Let's go into the caramel flavors. Uh okay. Uh caramel. Should we start with caramel corn? So um, again, my family makes a why did we do that?

SPEAKER_00 21:13

We need more.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Oh, yeah, shoot. We both did. Sorry. Creatures of habit. Um, we make a homemade caramel corn every year. We give that as gifts. Uh, this is not our homemade caramel corn, so I'm surely delicious. Um, and then we also have a Struppenwaffle? Is that what you call them? Those like delicious waffly cookies with caramels that you set on top of your cooking.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Maybe we need to try the Struppenwaffel with the Gewusteriner.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

This is great. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Um And you thought we were done with German names. Yeah, darn.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

That caramel corn's better than the cookie we just had.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Oh, it is great. Buttered popcorn and sparkling wine is the world's greatest wine pairing. You get a little bit of caramel, makes it even better. Whoa. This is the greatest pairing of them all.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

Okay. I don't I don't know about that, but this one's pretty good. Okay, caramel corn and sparkling. Sparkling. No question. We don't need to try a different one. Or did you want me to try port with that?

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Yeah, we should try port with that. That was a little out of problems.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

We're very excited. Um I'm super excited because my the pairing I'm most surprised by here is this port and peanut brittle. Because, like I said, both of them are things that I don't normally enjoy. So I think we've talked about this on here before, but it really does go to show when you pair the correct things together how much more enjoyable they can both be.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Also, if you like port, get in touch with me because I can oftentimes buy birth year ports from your birth year or your child's birth year or your parents' birth year. And it's a very cool gift.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

That is a great gift. Nick gifted that to us, which was really cool. So that again, yes, we're here to recommend gifts for you. Lots of cookies and port.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Because port lasts forever. I actually could have bought some 1941 tawny for is a half bottle, is like $250. Um, tell the people what that means.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Is that weird? Is that I mean, I don't know anything about port.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Oh, so port. This is me saying I don't know what you're talking about. So port, you make a still wine, a dry, still wine, and uh then what you do is you pour in brandy to it to make it not rot. Not terrible. And uh make it higher alcohol, and that helps it survive uh, you know, if you're going to wherever. Now, a lot of port is done where you mix a bunch of different years together that kind of stabilizes the flavor, but you can also have uh all the port from just one single year, especially if it's a good year. Um, with climate change, most years in the last 20 years have been pretty good years. Uh, but the older you get and some of the winemaking technique too, it's harder to find what's called a vintage port year.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

So okay, so a 41 is the vintage port year, valuable, delicious.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Very valuable.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Okay. So uh my verdict here on this is that the sparkling wine is better with the caramel corn. Um agreed. And it's because this port is just so good with the peanut brittle that I can't get past that.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Are we here for the stupid woof?

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Is the stuben woofle with the port or the sparkling woof? Well, let's try it. I mean, might as well. So show the people what a stupid woofle is in case they're not sure. Okay. I just don't know what to do. Have you had these? No. I know. I didn't like this goes in coffee? Well, you've set it on top of your mug here. Oh, show the peoples. Okay, everybody. This is my pinky sup tea mug. And you're supposed to set it on top and it warms up the caramel. And it's still extra. That's kind of cool. Yeah, it's so good if you drank hot beverages, Nick. So it is really like a soft waffle cookie, kind of like a waffle ice cream cone, you know? And it's got caramel on the inside. I don't know if this is a thing people make at Christmas. I'm sure they do in Sweden, but not necessarily here.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

I like this.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Isn't it good? I mean, the cookie itself is good.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

I like the parent. I like the cookie.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Is there cinnamon flavor in this or am I just getting crazy? Okay. Maybe it's a cinnamon. We'll have to look. Maybe there's cinnamon in there.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

Oh yeah, that's nice with the port. So, guys, the Stubenmoofle is like rich and creamy and soft with the waffle and the sweet and then the little cinnamon. So the port, like, it's nice and goes with the kind of Can I call myself out?

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Thickness of this? The girthiness. I just said, oh yeah, that's nice. A little bit ago, and it reminded me a little of Manitouk Minute.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

And uh the caramel, yeah. I would go with I would go with this.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Am I wrong to think that this would pair nicely with a few of the things we've tried today? Sparkling, maybe a cabernet? A cab. Okay. I don't know. Maybe it's because I just love stupid lupus. Yeah, sparkling for sure. Would you like to give it a try? Yes, yes, I would. Sparkling wine is my fave. Okay, there we go. Great. Thanks. More sugar.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Everybody, for uh, you know, you see us rinsing here. Uh don't rinse between dry white wines and red wines. That's a waste. But if you're going from red to white, I don't always rinse because I'm okay with a little bit of blush. But use wine to rinse, not wine. Or not water.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

That's nice. It doesn't do as like do as much to elevate any flavors, but it's just a nice pairing.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

That's but we know sparkly wine is.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

I was like, really, spark sparkly wine goes with everything, right? So oh yeah, that's nice. Right. There's no kind of it's just, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Well, and I think the proseco, especially, because prosecco is more like kind of green apple fruit flavors than a lot of other sparkling wines. I think it'd be really nice if we had like the jam-filled things. I know.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

I'm really sorry, guys.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Um, I do think that would be a great pairing.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Jam thumb print cookies. Again, not a thing like we made in our family, but I know they're important to the holidays. I'm very sorry. Didn't have time to bake. Um, have we tried our way through the cookies? We've tried our way through the cookies, unless we're gonna do the we just we just have, yeah, okay. I'm not gonna eat that, but tell the people what you drink with fruitcakes.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

I would do the zinfandel with the fruitcake. Okay. Um again, you got the spiciness in there, you got a little bit, it's a little bit more dense.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

So I'm sorry, a little bit more dense. This is thick, you guys. And there's something green in the middle of it. Jellied something.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

I've never had a fruitcake in my life, but this looks like I think the zinfandel, like big bold red fruit flavors, a little bit more alcohol in there, is gonna help cut through all that sugar.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

And help you forget you're eating a fruit cake. Um, also, we have some delicious ribbon candy because it's so cute, and that's a thing we always used to have too. Would you just like sugar candies that are around? Is that a thing you can drink a good wine with? No, just don't. My friend Laura the dentist says, don't eat any of them. I'm just gonna get my surprise dessert ready real fast.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Oh, yeah, this is great. I mean, the fruitcake. Yeah, the Zinfandel's good with it. Because yeah, Zinfandel fruitcake. I'm scared. Oh okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

This is from, sorry about that, my favorite baker, Miss Little Deborah. This is the elusive Christmas tree cake. It's disgusting and so good. So this is something that my sister and I like hoard at the Christmas season.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Um I'm sorry, I was trying to swallow the I was trying to chew and swallow the fruitcake without tasting it. How'd that go? It went well, but you know how you have to like force it to the side of your mouth to chew on each molar and then just kind of like Did it all get stuck? Or got it down? Well, how was it? It's really gross.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

Yeah, it's really not good. That's a homemade one, too, like from a place I won't say because I'm sure they did a great job.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

It is really gross. I know it's like the joke of like how bad it is, and people are like, well, it can't really be that bad. No, it is that bad, my god. Was that green thing minty? I didn't eat the green thing. It's it could be puke as far as I know. I'm not eating it. The green thing is still intact. All right, so anyway, little Debbie.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Little Debbie, waxy white chocolate tastes like nothing but wax.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

I mean, this has got to be sparkling wine.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Green sprinkles, which are the best part. And ooh, white cake with a white filling.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

So, I mean, I think what we've learned so far is white chocolate likes a little bit more sweet, like you can get from the port or the gewerster miner, or uh a sparkling wine with a little bit of sweetness. All of this garbage needs a little bit of sparkle to just kind of sparkling wine for the win. So, um, do you want to try port or you want to try prosecco? What's what's your call, Bridget? I would say prosecco.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Well, I think so, but let's try port first, and then we'll end in prosecco because we all know that's gonna be the winner. So also, um, we used to always fight over the tip of the tree. It's like the best part when we'd get down to just the tip. Just the tip. You guys I need to know if this was a thing in your house too, because we're in our 30s, well, on our way, and we still like hoard these at the holidays. I just bought my sister a box and like gifted it to her. We bought it yesterday. I think there's one left at my house.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Did Lucy eat all of them?

SPEAKER_01 30:29

No, man, I'm hiding it from my kids. They don't even know these things.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

It's like second grade.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

I love these things. I want to tell you I hate them. So chalky. I would say it's waxy. It leaves a nice film on your mouth. Oh, ma'am.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Oh, port's great. Port's great with it. Oh, yeah. I mean if you want to be a grown-up while eating.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Another Christmas gifting idea.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

I can get you like a several hundred dollar bottle of port with these little Debbies. And that says I am classy. Pinkies up.

unknown 31:02

Pinkies up.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Dude, well done. Okay. Uh yeah, it's good with the port. I think in general, I'm on board with like the opposites attract version. Um, but let's try it. It's good with the I I I again overall am surprised by the port.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

We tell you open some good port next week's episode. More port. Can you tell the difference between 10, 20, 30, 40 year ports? No.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

This is great. It why would I be able to tell the difference? I've had like two in my life, and you have given them to me. Okay. Uh the verdict is in Prosecco, delicious with little Debbie snack cakes. I don't even know if these are little Debbie. I'm sorry if that's wrong. I have no idea. I think they are. Yeah, that's better. Yeah. Came out of a plastic bag. So it can be preserved for a year. Okay, so tell me your favorite one. Do you have that? Ooh. Yeah, I know, toughy, right? Do you want me to go while you're thinking? Yeah, you go. Okay, again, I've mentioned it like seven times. The peanut brittle and the port was my favorite.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

So also your most surprising though.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

But that's why it was my favorite. Is some of this I hate.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

I hate surprises.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

I like, yes. Um, I like when things are planned. So I did not plan to like peanut brittle or port. So you surprised me. Good job.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Thank you. My favorite was a sugar cookie and the buttery Chardonnay. Oh, yeah. It was just like very indulgent and like simple in a way. Yeah. You know, it's just like this was a yummy cookie, and just like we took all the things we like about it and amped it up about 15%. Nothing ridiculous, nothing like, oh wow, I need to think about this. Like, I like the um, I like the cookie and the peppermint with the cabernet a lot. Yeah. But you're like, I can't think about why this works.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

And because it it works, but well, and that one's hard because there were so many flavors in that cookie.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

But yeah, just the like simple deliciousness of the sugar cookie.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Or the other surprise of the day to me, gingerbread and gewirtschaminers.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Yeah, that was good too. That really actually. And a surprise, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Okay, it was to me at least. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

It just all right, guys. Picked it up. Happy Christmas, happy new year, festive Kanza, uh joyous um like all the things to everybody, whatever you're celebrating, happy holiday season. Um, we hope you have some delicious cookies.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

And we hope we answered the question for you of what wine pairs with Christmas cookies.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

If you have a favorite cookie you want us to throw some wine pairing ideas at, let us know. If you have a wine pairing idea with a Christmas cookie, let us know. If you think we're ridiculous, tell us. You can send us an email at hello at dinnerplusdrinks.com. You can also check us out on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook. If you didn't watch this episode on YouTube, you should. We look ridiculous. It's worth it. Thanks for following along, guys.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Happy holidays. See you soon.