The Internet Food Association

By Spencer Ackerman

The New York Times carries a story about the social scourge of Scotland: Buckfast, the 15-percent alcohol wine packed with caffeine favored by Glaswegian wild(wo)men. You and I know it through Ted Leo’s 2007 reminiscence-filled ode. But what does the stuff taste like?

To the neophyte sampler, it evokes a thick, sweet wine — sherry, perhaps — fortified with cola and Vivarin.

“Have you ever tried Benalyn cough syrup?” asked Sharon Macauley, a sales assistant at G & B’s Newsbox general store, which does a brisk business in Buckfast.

Ted is on that sizzurp! Sort of! This is the opposite of kryptonite, apparently: rather than slowing your roll, the caffeine accelerates it. It’s like Kryptonite and an infusion of radiation from the Yellow Sun of Earth. Whatever it is, it sounds absolutely disgusting.

by Kriston Capps

I don’t take cream or sugar in my coffee. I have much less use for peanut butter and jelly. But apparently someone out there does, or could, or at least would entertain the notion of reading someone else’s report on adding C to PB&J. Hence we get Putting Weird Things in Coffee, a site devoted to the examination of what happens when you put stuff in coffee. For the most part, stuff seems to clump in a sludge at the bottom of the cup.

By Ezra Klein

This kid really has Anthony Bourdain’s number.

By Matthew Yglesias

It’s a recession when you start cutting back on your drinking to save money, it’s a depression when you start turning to Popov:

Industry growth slowed in 2009, with the amount of liquor sold by suppliers up 1.4 percent. That’s the smallest increase since 2001 and below the 10-year average of 2.6 percent.

The lowest-priced segment, with brands such as Popov vodka that can go for less than $10 for a fifth, grew the fastest, with volume rising 5.5 percent, after edging up 0.6 percent in 2008. Meanwhile, the most expensive brands, priced roughly $30 or more for a 750 ml bottle (think Grey Goose, owned by Bacardi), fell the most, tumbling 5.1 percent.

Frightening.