Griot is considered a national dish of Haiti and all it takes is a taste to understand why. Adored by José Andrés, this dish is a wonderful mix of cooking techniques; marinated pork shoulder is slowly braised and then fried, leaving the meat tender and flavorful.
"Our study confirmed that in an environment of loud noise, our sense of taste is compromised. Interestingly, this was specific to sweet and umami tastes, with sweet taste inhibited and umami taste significantly enhanced," Robin Dando, one of the study's authors, told the Cornell Chronicle after the study came out.
Named after a community-focused cafe in Dublin, this drink has a flavour profile that brings to mind berry compote and scones. It's delicious as a single serving, or make a big batch and serve as a punch to share with friends.
Dunder pit? This is the one of the most distinctive features of traditional Jamaican rum, a style exemplified by Hampden, which has been in operation since 1753. You typically make rum by fermenting molasses and/or sugar cane juice into an alcoholic wash, then distil that into a potent liquor, but local distillers developed several strategies to oomph up the flavour.
Sorel Liqueur was born long before it reached store shelves, was carried across the Atlantic by enslaved Africans, preserved in Caribbean kitchens, and passed down through generations that refused to forget who they were. Today, that history lives inside a bottle created by Jackie Summers, founder of Jack from Brooklyn and the first black person to be granted a license to make liquor post-prohibition in U.S history. With Sorel Liqueur, Summers did more than launch a spirits brand. He reclaimed a cultural legacy.
One trend I'd happily see fade away in 2026 is the obsession with overly complicated, garnish-heavy cocktails that prioritize spectacle over balance. There's nothing wrong with a drink that looks beautiful, but when the garnish becomes the entire point of the drink, it often means the cocktail itself is an afterthought.
just before we collectively stumbled into this shitty timeline marred by "fake news" and idiot fascism, a journalist did that thing that journalism used to do: hold power to account. In this case, the power was Big Bay Leaf, and the reporter was Kelly Conaboy, writing for the Awl on a "vast bay leaf conspiracy" that-then as now-cons well-meaning home cooks into buying weird leaves that taste and smell like "nothing."
