Whisky of the Week: Glenglassaugh is the unkillable scotch and its revival is well earned

Glenglassaugh is back in business with a major marketing push. Are their malts worth it?

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

Glenglassaugh has a classic scotch story — one that nearly ended multiple times. It was one of Scotland’s many coastal distilleries, a whisky mill in a classic stone building turning water into something better. The northeastern fishing town, a breezy mix of salt and sand, saw its brewer shutter its doors twice since its 1875 founding. Once in 1908 and once as it faced the hardships of the whisky crash of the 1980s.

But the stills roared back to life in 2008. Now, a little more than 15 years later, Glenglassaugh has pushed its way back onto the marketplace with a proper dram. 2023 marked an aggressive marking strategy revolving around a new 12-year whisky to complement the distillery’s other standbys. Its place as a coastal Highland suggests it could hit the sweet spot between the inland’s smoother, full-bodied malts and Islay’s salty, smoky, brassy offerings.

I love both those styles. Let’s see how Glenglassaugh holds up.

Restaurant Foods We Love

It can be a chain, a mom and pop, or a local legend-there’s enough variety in restaurant choices to find favorites nearly everywhere! Here’s a quick update of some our recent encounters that we loved enough to recommend. First, if you find yourself …

It can be a chain, a mom and pop, or a local legend–there’s enough variety in restaurant choices to find favorites nearly everywhere! Here’s a quick update of some our recent encounters that we loved enough to recommend.

First, if you find yourself in Galveston, Texas, visit Gaido’s Restaurant along the seawall. We have this restaurant on repeat, and always get some version of their crab-stuffed shrimp.

Indulge in an appetizer from Gaido’s, too, like the breaded onion rings, above.

We mentioned chain restaurants, so First Watch gives you an opportunity to find one of the more than 500 locations across 29 states. We love their seasonal menu items, and this delicious sugar-rimmed drink was from their Fall line-up.

While Gaido’s is a local institution, Mama’s on the Hill, in St. Louis, Missouri, is all that and more to the people of St. Louis. It’s a family-owned restaurant that serves great pasta in an area where great Italian food is supreme. Try their Tortellini a la Pappa, with prosciutto and a creamy garlic Parmesan sauce.

Finally, we come to a homegrown favorite and a twist on avocado toast, found at JW’s Kitchen in Southwest Missouri. It’s in a trendy area called Farmer’s Park, and it lives up to the promise with a fresh version of Neighbor’s Mill bakery’s multi-grain bread, topped with pickled onions, egg, radishes, and lots more. Great for brunch or any time of day, particularly when paired with one of their fresh juices, like the combo of beet, cranberry, and more pictured in the background.

Restaurants are doing one of three things right now: innovating, recovering, or closing. Go support your local favorites and prevent that last from happening!

What is Paczki Day? The Fat Tuesday tradition, explained

It’s Paczki Day!

Editor’s note: This story was originally published in 2020.

Welcome to FTW Explains: A guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world. You may have heard it’s Paczki Day and are wondering what that’s all about. We’re here to help.

It’s Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday, and you may have heard some people talking about paczki or Paczki Day as well and have no idea what they’re talking about. That’s OK because we’re here to explain.

There are countless ways people celebrate Fat Tuesday, the day before the Christian holy day of Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. And this is just one more.

Although Paczki Day is a particularly big deal in the Midwest, it’s certainly not exclusive to that area of the U.S. So let’s break down the basics.

What is are paczki?

RICHARD LEE/Detroit Free Press/USA TODAY Network

A paczek is a Polish-style fried pastry bun made with butter, eggs and sugar and filled with fruit or jelly. The plural of paczek is paczki — although it’s common for people to throw an S on the end of that.

As the Detroit Free Press noted a few years ago, traditional paczki are prune-filled, but nowadays, there are a wide variety of fruit or custard fillings. They can also have a powder, glaze or sometimes chocolate finish.

How do you pronounce paczki or paczek?

One Polish-style pastry, paczek, is pronounced poon-check, while the plural, paczki, is pronounced poonch-key.

What do paczki taste like?

They’re a delightfully sublime slice of heaven that melt in your mouth with each exceptionally high-caloric bite. It’s richer, and far better, than a typical doughnut and only comes in a spherical shape. And despite being fairly heavy — although the really good ones don’t often taste like it — they’re not greasy, thanks to a small amount of grain alcohol added to the dough, which, when it evaporates, prevents the dough from absorbing oil.

So what exactly is Paczki Day then?

It’s along the same lines of Fat Tuesday, or the last day to splurge on sweets or rich food before fasting during the Lenten, the six weeks that precede Easter on the Christian calendar. Leading up to Lent, indulging with paczki has been a tradition in Europe dating back at least to the Middle Ages, the Detroit Free Press noted. But, of course, traditions and recipes have evolved in the U.S.

However, Paczki Day wasn’t always celebrated on the same day as Mardi Gras. As the Polish American Journal explains:

While the practice of Pączki Day is traditionally observed the day before Ash Wednesday in the United States, in Poland, pączki sales are the highest on Tlusty Czwartek, or “Fat Thursday.” (The Thursday before Ash Wednesday). This day marks the start of the final week of the pre-Lenten celebrations.

Are they healthy?

Not even a little bit. One paczek can have more than 400 calories and 25 grams of fat. But that’s sticks to the theme of Fat Tuesday or Fat Thursday.

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Celebrate National Pancake Day with free IHOP pancakes on Tuesday, February 13 2024

Here’s how to get free pancakes today!

Did you know Tuesday, February 13 2024 is National Pancake Day?

I didn’t, but now I’m really glad I learned it. Because thanks to the good folks at IHOP (that’s the International House of Pancakes to you) are giving away pancakes on that day, and we all love free food, especially pancakes.

So how can you do it? We’re here to help.

Per the chain, on Tuesday, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., you can get a free short stack, one per guest. That’s three buttermilk pancakes, free, for dine-in-guests only. Also, you can pair the free pancakes with $1 donations to help support Feeding America.

That’s it! Go enjoy the day with some free pancakes!

The 2024 Super Bowl going to overtime means free Buffalo Wild Wings for America

FREE WINGS!!

Hey, guess what, America?

Thanks to the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers going to overtime in Super Bowl 58, that triggers a deal with Buffalo Wild Wings: If the big game went to OT, people could win FREE WINGS.

How does all that work? On February 26, 2024, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at a local Buffalo Wild Wings, you can get six free wings.

That’s it! Congratulations to you all! You get free wings! And you get free wings!

Here are the details, along with some people who are really, really, really excited for free food (I am too, don’t worry).