Welcome to Fake Booze’s celebration of the year! 2021 was a big one for us, because it was the first full calendar year of our existence.
And what better way to celebrate this truly memorable and relentlessly positive 12-month period than a randomly created series of gongs that will allow us to pretend that the world isn’t going to hell in a handcart?
Our Awards of the Year are aimed at celebrating the ridiculous launches, misguided initiatives, egotistical pronouncements and cynically manipulative actions that make booze the great industry that we all know and love.
Over the next week or so, we’ll be publishing collections of stories that we’ve run in 2021 before randomly deciding on a winner that you probably won’t agree with.
For you, it’s a chance to catch up on that one story of ours that you liked back in March, or to read articles that you missed because you were doing a real job with a salary attached.
For us, it’s a chance to make our website look busy and functional without having to do any more actual work. Just like every other magazine over the Christmas period.
To be serious just for a second, over the last year we’ve published about 150 stories – some 50,000 words. That’s a lot of sarcasm. Particularly for free.
We know that you guys love what we do. And we appreciate it.
But we’d appreciate it even more if you supported us on Patreon. Seriously. It costs next to nothing and will allow us to eat occasionally. And for those of you who are already supporters – many thanks for your help over the last year. You guys rock!
Now, talking of which, on to the first Award of the Year…
Launches of the Year
There’s never any shortage of utter rubbish making its way into the drinks world. And ‘launch’ stories are a regular feature of Fake Booze. Some of our stories are inspired by actual launches, others we just created because we were bored.
Somewhat shockingly, we think it’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference between our patently ridiculous creations and the unintentionally ridiculous ones that some idiot somewhere thought was a good idea. We will, we’re sure, come back to Celebrity drinks over the next few days.
Within this ‘Launches of the Year’ award, we’ve included new legislation as well because it’s kind of like a new product. Ish.
Anyway, plenty of good stuff for you to get your teeth into here instead of working or panic-shopping.
Winner: Launch of the Year 2021
Worried that their legislation might be halfway comprehensible, the Germans introduce new rules that will be too complex even for Quantum computers. Bravely pointless and pedantically illogical, it’s a work of genius. And a deserving winner. With the added bonus of having lots of words containing 40 letters.
Runners-up
It can be hard to recognise all the classic aromas found in a winemaker. But this new training aid can show you how. Perfect if you can’t tell your ‘coffee breath’ from your ‘wet labrador’.
Is the Wine Wotsit actually the stupidest wine gadget in the world? Since it’s an obviously made-up Fake Booze reader offer, we couldn’t possibly comment. But believe us, we think there are worse real ones…
New Cava rules could make the drink even less interesting to non-experts, according to the DO. They said it was impossible. They were wrong. Well done to Mac Abeo and his team.
From Crapinette to Pisse-poul, we run the rule over those six new Bordeaux grape varieties. All the stuff they don’t teach you in your WSET exams…
Probably the most influential fictional range of glasses launched this year, the Fake Booze range of stemware are sustainable, dolphin-friendly and dishwasher-safe. Except when they break.
Check in tomorrow, when we’ll be deciding who or what is the winner of our Shock of the Year.
