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Do I need to keep my sparkling wine corked while it’s open? How fast will it go flat?
If you’re planning to drink the entire bottle, then continuing to recork the bottle after pouring each glass is a bit of overkill. The bottle will not go flat in one sitting. However, if you don’t finish the bottle and want to save some for the next day, recorking it is definitely the call. If you leave it open and sitting on the counter until the morning, the wine is sure to be flat. Recorked and in the fridge should leave you good to go 24 hours later.
You can buy our favorite Champagne stopper here. But if you don’t have anything to recork the bottle, another trick is putting the handle of a metal spoon inside the bottle, and then putting it in the fridge. This also helps preserve the bubbles, but not as well as recorking it will.
Recently my friends and I were at a restaurant. We ordered drinks from the bar and then some food. Our appetizers came out, but not the drinks. Then our entrees came out, and the drinks arrived only after we had already started eating. I really wanted that drink before or at least for the duration of the meal. Should I have asked them to take it off the bill?
A restaurant bar can get slammed, but if you are telling me your drinks didn’t come until well into your meal, that is no good. A good restaurant would have recognized what happened and either apologized and offered to comp the drinks, or brought you out something else to make up for it. If this did not occur, you can always say something polite such as, “I know the bar can get busy, but we ordered these drinks when we first sat down, and we didn’t receive them until well into our meal. Is there anything you can do?” That should be sufficient.
Why does my face turn red when I drink?
A red face is called alcohol flush syndrome and it occurs because you lack an enzyme in the body — ADH2 — that helps metabolize alcohol. That doesn’t mean you’ll get inebriated any faster; it just means it will be easier to tell you’ve been consuming alcohol. People most susceptible to this lack of enzyme are those from East Asia, but only about 50 percent actually carry the gene mutation that causes the redness.
Other causes of facial redness can be allergic reactions or simply getting a bit too overheated, but the most common cause is this gene mutation.
