Emi and Kyle Heart Food: Man Party - Wine Tasting and Fast Food

For my birthday this year, I had a group of my friends over to celebrate at our house. Being a "Man Party" I decided to host a blind wine tasting competition. Try to class it up a bit. I selected three wines for my guests to try as a part of a blind taste test. All they knew was that I had three reds for them to try and the bottles were all different prices (also nothing too pricey). The challenge was for them to guess what kind of wine they were trying and which wine was the most expensive.

I used three of my favorite wines. The first wine they tasted was one of our favorite new wines, the Ross Andrew "Glaze" Cabernet Sauvignon. This is Ross Andrew's "economical" limited run brand, we tried it for the first time at an Innovators Network event. We also found it at Toulouse when we went for dinner, but they told us they were taking it off the menu because the demand had outrun the supply. This is a smooth, bold cab, and only $15 a bottle. Most of my guests were able to guess that this was a cab.

The second wine was the Nota Bene Cellars Syrah. Similar to the Glaze Cab, we purchased this bottle after a tasting at Savour, a specialty food shop in Ballard. If you haven't been to Savour yet, make sure to check it out. We went for lunch and saw a sign advertising local wineries hosting tastings there. Nota Bene was the highlighted winery of the weekend, so we decided to hang around for some free booze. Maybe it was the multiple glasses of wine or that we really enjoyed it, but we left with a few bottles. The syrah was about $35. Another great wine and we did have a few people guess that this was the most expensive bottle.

The third wine ended up being the favorite for the majority of my guests and it was the cheapest. The Alamos Malbec is around $8 a bottle and can be found at any grocery store in the area. I must admit, it is very, very good. One of my favorites and for the price why not get a couple bottles?

For dinner this year we decided to change things up a little. What pairs well with three solid bottles of red? Fast food of course! Last year Emi and I cooked throughout the night for my friends. This year I decided to have everyone pitch in and bring in our favorite fast foods to enjoy for the night.

We had Red Mill Onion Rings, McDonald's french fries which we paired with my friend's homemade chili and another batch with truffle salt, Dick's cheeseburgers and Deluxes, Five Guy's Burgers, Ezell's spicy fried chicken and for late night we had two Papa Murphy's pizzas, Hawaiian and Chicago style stuffed pizza. What a greasy feast all topped off with my Baskin and Robbins ice cream cake.