Every year about this time, the so-called experts offer their insights on holiday pairings. Typically, we see a different pairing with every single course. And when you start thinking about volume, even with just a half glass of wine with every course (appetizer, salad/soup, entree and dessert), that leaves you with just about three full glasses of wine (3/4 of a bottle in most cases) per person. That's a lot! Pairing cocktails with courses is even more problematic because distilled spirits are both anesthetic in nature, as well as analgesic. Meaning that they not only kill germs, but they also dull your senses. And last time I checked, taste was a sense. Pairings are also particularly problematic because not everybody likes the same things. But one of the great things about a Thanksgiving meal is that it's almost universal in its construct.
Then there are the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (or yams), stuffing and gravy. So as such, it would seem relatively easy to pair an alcoholic beverage with it all. Right? Well, wrong, actually. When it comes to alcohol, not only do people have different tastes, but those particular Thanksgiving items are not well suited to the most popular of them. And what goes well with turkey doesn't necessarily go well with sweet potatoes or cranberry sauce. There are two schools of thought with pairings. Pick something that enhances the food or realize that the food and the beverage are separate entities, and if each is good and well balanced in their own right then they don't necessarily need to complement each other. And, if you don't like something, you are probably not going to like it paired with something else.
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