Wine is for drinking, but for centuries the human love-affair with what the ancients called “the Drink of the Gods” has led to a variety of different uses. That includes everything from cooking with wine to bathing in it as an anti-aging remedy!
Okay, maybe you’re not ready to fill your tub with a fine Merlot or chardonnay, but many wine lovers find they sometimes have leftover wine. Especially if it ends up being a bottle they don't particularly care for. It never has to go to waste. Here are some ideas about what to do with leftover wine.
Cooking with wine has been a common practice most likely since the first wines fermented thousands of years ago. Adding wine to soups, sauces, gravies and sautées is deep tradition. The number and types of recipes that wine enhances are almost unlimited.
It’s common, for example, to sauté mushrooms in butter and wine, or just wine alone. Another excellent idea is poaching fruits, especially pears and berries, in a delicious white or red. Red wine is well-regarded as an enhancer of the flavor or red meat. Thousands of seafood recipes leverage white wine to bring out the flavor of fish, oysters, lobster and more.
The Versatile Wine Cube
Pouring wine into ice cube trays is not only a way to keep leftover wine for long periods, but you can use frozen "wine cubes" in many ways. You can use them to chill a glass of wine without worrying about watering down your glass with regular ice cubes. They also make instant “flavor cubes” at-the-ready for cooking. Don’t forget to try a “wine slushy.” Put wine cubes in a blender and make a terrific frosty drink.
Leftover Wine
Of course, one of the most obvious uses for leftover wine is to drink it later! The challenge here is to keep wine fresh until you’re ready to use it. This is where wine accessories become your friend. Keeping wine fresh means keeping it away from air.
A search among wine accessory products reveals many devices and methods for maintaining freshness. That includes pumps which can suck air out bottles. That means you’ll also need a good stopper, such as the original or new cork, or a designed stopper accessory.
Handy Wine Tools
Speaking of wine accessories, some must-haves include a wine aerator, a wine-saver pump, a wine chiller, a lovely carafe, a corkscrew and maybe a padded wine bag for transporting bottles. These items are available in an amazing array of technologies, schemes, materials and prices, so make sure to take time to examine selections thoroughly when searching for wine accessories.
Wine As Skin Care?
At the top of the story we floated the idea of a wine bath, but what about applying it right to the skin as a skincare product? Well, the jury is out among experts, but most agree that the best way to use wine as a skin enhancer is to drink it! Flavonoids and other wine components can nourish the skin - and moderation is the key.
1 comment:
I usually keep wine to drink it another day or use it in recipes.
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