Tausi Insider

Photo : Allie Chanthorn Reinmann Holiday parties aren’t complete without snacks, music, and festive drinks. (Oh, and friends too, but back to the drinks.) Selecting the very best holiday drink is essential to seasonal revelry, but so is the equipment. I’m always irritated by how ladles leave behind a good half-inch of quality alcoholic beverage at the bottom of flat-bottomed punch bowls, slow cookers, and D utch ovens. Let’s stop this nonsense. It’s time to say good-bye to ladles, and hello to turkey basters. As lovable as drunk friends can be, they have questionable motor skills. If they see that final inch of cranberry punch, but every time they scoop, it feels like getting water out of a horcrux bowl, they’re bound to take matters into their own hands. Lifting a giant glass container, or worse, a 16-pound Dutch oven with hot cider inside, is a terrible way to pour a drink. This is where a turkey baster comes in to save the party. The pointed end of a baster gets right down into...

Photo : Africa Studio ( Shutterstock ) Not all coffees are created equal . Y ou already know this if you’ve been brewing your own for more than a few cups’ time: C offee b eans vary wildly in taste, strength, and even caffeine content. B ut even how you brew your coffee changes its strength. I don’t just mean the flavor. If you’re drinking coffee for the caffeine boost, your brewing method can affect how much of a jolt each serving will give you . You might thing a n espresso shot is the best way to get moving in the morning, but an espresso— even a full or double shot from a specialty coffee shop—actually doesn’t have the most amount of caffeine per cup —at least according to tests conducted by popular Coffee Youtuber James Hoffmann. Hoffmann is the author of The World Atlas of Coffee , runs Square Mile Coffee Roasters, and won the 2007 Barista championship, so you can count on his brewing expertise . Hoffmann got his hands on a $2, 500 Lighttells caffeine analyzer and went...