For twenty-somethings, a love for eating cheap and drinking heavily is the link that holds us together.
Normally we'd pair our Dollar Menu burger with the cheapest beer available, but it's time to try something a little fancier. Just because you're on a budget or time-crunch doesn't mean you don't deserve a touch of class every now and then.
See also: What Your Beer Choice Says About You
Instead of skimping on the booze, we've enlisted the help of New York-based wine seller Clarke Boehling to help you pair high-end wines with your favorite low-end meals. Because if you're knocking a few back with your Big Mac, you might as well do it with style.
Upgrade your fast food meal to a fast food feast with these eight sophisticated pairing suggestions.
Wine Pairing: Alsace Pinot Blanc
Boehling says: "Given that the onion ring is just a dumbed-down, Americanized version of the classic tarte a l’oignon—a caramelized-onion tart with roots in eastern France near the German border—your best bet is to keep it regional and grab a full-bodied white wine from Alsace.
Riesling will work fine, but it’s perhaps a touch precious and haughty for this application. A good Pinot Blanc or Sylvaner is more aspirationally appropriate."
Wine Pairing: California Barbera
Boehling says: "Pizza: a beautiful, perfect, universally appealing example of authentic native Italian cuisine. The pizza roll: a peculiar and clunky piece of ill-informed culinary fusion only an American could come up with. What better to pair with the pizza roll than a ham-fisted U.S. iteration of a classic Italian grape variety?"
Wine Pairing: Old Champagne
Boehling says: "The greatest of wines often shine with the simplest of food partners. In this marriage, the French fries’ crispy exterior snuggles up to the toasty, bready character of a well-aged Champagne.
The wine’s naturally vigorous acidity and lively bubbles slice through the greasiness of the fries like a scythe. And the relatively benign and innocuous flavor of potatoes allows the delicate, nuanced character of the Champagne to express itself without undue interference.
Scrimp on grub, splurge on booze: a mantra for well-executed junk food and wine pairings."
Wine Pairing: Moscato d’Asti
Boehling says: "Some people seek nirvana through alcohol; others through sugar. Maxing out at around 6% alcohol by volume, slightly sparkling, sweet Moscato d’Asti will augment your sugar high without getting you unduly hammered.
And its scrumptious, vivid flavors of peach, apricot, and grape will fuse with the more straightforwardly doughy flavors of the classic Krispy Kreme plain glazed to create something more layered and complex on the palate."
Wine Pairing: Lambrusco
Boehling says: "Cheeseburgers were made to be devoured in a mad rush of ravenous hunger. Lambrusco—the classic, slightly fizzy red wine from Emilia-Romagna in north-central Italy—was made to be guzzled by the liter with reckless abandon.
And talk about harmony: the bloody, beefy essence of the burger sees eye-to-eye with the scrappily earthy flavors of the Lambrusco grape; the bubbles in the wine cut right through that fatty tag-team of meat and cheese; and the slightly sweet character of much Lambrusco can hang effortlessly with a plethora of potential burger toppings, from sweet to sour to salty (and beyond)."
Wine Pairing: Pinotage
Boehling says: "Two foods that should have never been fused deserve two grape varieties that should have never been fused.
First bred in 1925 in South Africa as a cross between elegant, silky Pinot Noir and spicy, funky Cinsault, Pinotage is resounding proof that sometimes the whole can be painfully less than the sum of its parts. Combine it with Doritos Locos Tacos and beckon Armageddon to break loose on your already severely spiritually-compromised palate."
Wine Pairing: Arbois Vin Jaune
Boehling says: "To visiting aliens, the fact that such a wine—the product of regionally specific ambient yeasts, a temperamental and genetically unstable local grape variety and long laissez-faire aging—even exists would be just as uncanny as the fact that such a food not only exists but is regularly (and profitably) consumed.
Beyond abstract commonalities, however, chicken is a divine culinary specialty of France's Jura region, and these two get along on a gut level. Plus, both are exaggeratedly salty—Vin Jaune incidentally so, chicken nuggets purposefully so."
Wine Pairing: California Chardonnay
Boehling says: "Just as sometimes you’re at the mall and starving and the only thing nearby to satiate is a giant soft pretzel, sometimes you’re at the grocery store in the middle of nowhere and nearly the only white wines are big, buttery,and Californian.
In this case, that’s okay, as these two last-ditch efforts make effortless companions. After all, what better to do with a generic soft pretzel than submerge it in copious amounts of butter? In this case, the butter also gets you snockered. Everyone wins except your sense of dignity."
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