Dummies.com: Food & Drink

Assembling the Basic Tools for Bartending

The most important assets for any profession are the right tools. You need basic bar tools to mix, serve, and store your food and drink. Whether you're stocking a home bar or working as a professional, [more…]

Attending a Wine Tasting Event

Finding out about wine is like space travel: Once you get going, there's no end in sight. Fortunately for those who choose to be educated wine drinkers, learning about wine is a fascinating experience, [more…]

Bartending Primer: Essential Recipes

Bartending For Dummies lists over a thousand drink recipes; in this article, you'll find a sampling of 26 recipes, from A to Z, that will help get you started on your bartending career. Some are classic [more…]

Bourbon — an American Whiskey

Several different terms are used to classify the types of American whiskeys known as Bourbon and Tennessee whiskey. The following list cuts through the jargon: [more…]

Candy Making Essential: Thermometers

Thermometers are extremely important in the candy-making process because slight variances in temperature can make the difference between a successful batch of candy and one that's inedible. Two essential [more…]

Candy Making: Cooking Up Caramels

The joy of biting into a piece of candy with that rich caramel flavor is such a pleasure. How many people have gone through a box of chocolates, biting pieces trying to find that caramel center? Maybe [more…]

Candy Making: Nutty Butter Crunch

A butter crunch (also known as a butter crisp) is a crunchy confection that you cook to at least 290 degrees F. This candy is similar to toffee (a crispy confection that contains a lot of butter and sugar [more…]

Debunking Italian Wine Myths

Sometimes ideas or stories take on lives of their own, and innocent Italian-wine lovers become unwitting believers in what are the wine equivalent of urban legends. Here are some examples of those myths [more…]

Deluxe Corn Bread Casserole

Deluxe corn bread casserole falls somewhere between really moist corn bread and a cheesy spoonbread. The casserole starts with a box mix, so you can make this side dish in no time flat. Kids and adults [more…]

Discover Italian Wines: The Top Red-Grape Varieties

Twenty-one red grape varieties compose Italy's major varieties for red wine. Four of these are especially important, either for the quality of wine they produce or for their dissemination throughout the [more…]

Discovering How to Sniff a Glass of Wine

The process of tasting a wine — of systematically experiencing all the wine's attributes — involves three steps: Looking at it, smelling it, and, finally, tasting it. Before you explore the smelling ritual [more…]

Do-It-Yourself Strawberry-Flavored Vodka

Some vodka-aficionados make their own flavored vodka to ensure that the flavors are real and come from organically grown sources. Doing so also controls the amount of flavoring the vodka has. Here's a [more…]

Exploring Wine: Italy's Top White-Grape Varieties

Seventeen white grape varieties compose Italy's major varieties for white or sparkling wine production. Following are five particularly key varieties in their rough order of importance. [more…]

Filet Mignon with Irish Whiskey Sauce

This decadent recipe for Filet Mignon with Irish Whiskey Sauce is wonderful for a special dinner. The filet generally is considered the most tender cut of beef, but it lacks a little flavor when compared [more…]

Getting to Know Australian Wine

Make no mistake about it: Australia is one of the world powers of wine. It is famous for its fresh, fruity red and white table wines that manage to be extremely consistent in quality. The country has about [more…]

Getting to Know Beer Basics

Basically, beer is an alcoholic beverage that's fermented and brewed from rice, barley, corn, hops, water, and yeast. The beer brewing process begins with pure water, corn grits, and malted barley. Malted [more…]

Getting to Know London Dry Gins

London dry gin, the world's most popular gin type, is rarely made in London (only one distiller remains in the city) and is dry only in the sense that it lacks sugar to make it sweet. London dry gins tend [more…]

Go for Gluten-Free Cranberry Nut Bread

You will love the texture and the flavor of this delicious bread that you make in your bread machine. Take it with pride to any gathering, whether it's a meeting of people who can't eat gluten or a holiday [more…]

Holiday Decorating with Tablescapes

Tablescapes are arrangements of items gathered in a grouping on top of a table. They're sometimes called tabletop arrangements. Typically, you can use anything as a prop for a great miniarrangement — for [more…]

Homebrewing Problem: No Fermentation

Fermentation problems occur frequently to homebrewers, and a common one is that the would-be beer just never started fermenting. Before you pour your homebrew down the sink, make sure the process actually [more…]