Ciarán Duffy has been wowing guests at the fabulous Tristan restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina with his delicious signature chocolate BBQ sauces, proving once and for all that BBQ can be a part of a gourmet meal. Guests often want to know the recipe, and as the executive chef says, "One lady wanted to take home a gallon of it." Now, even if you'll never get the chance to dine at Tristan, you can enjoy the luxurious taste and comfort of Tristan's Chocolate BBQ sauce at home.

Available for just $8 per bottle, Tristan's Chocolate BBQ sauce can be ordered online and shipped right to your door. There are three delicious variations to choose from, including: Chocolate BBQ Sauce, Chocolate Chili BBQ Sauce, and Chocolate Pomegranate Sauce.

With the right line-up of alcoholic beverages you can turn any hum-drum New Year's Eve get-together into a great party. To start, forget the cheap beer. Save that for your late night run to the convenient store after everything else has disappeared, because at that point you and your guests probably won't notice just how bad it is. While your guests are still sober, you'll want to serve something a little more sophisticated.

Here are our choices for the top alcoholic beverages to have on hand for your New Year's Eve party, sorted by category:

Rum:

You can never have enough rum on hand; it mixes great with Coke and an assortment of other beverages. Our favorites are Mount Gay Rum and Oronoco Rum.

Mount Gay Rum:
It's James Bonds' newest drink of choice; he even ordered it over his trademark martini in Casino Royale. Of course that's not reason enough to snatch up a bottle of the world's oldest rum. Produced in Barbados, Mount Gay Rum is made with pure cane sugar, giving it a sweeter taste than most other rums. Mix it with Coca-Cola and some ice for the ultimate rum and coke.

Oronoco Rum:

It's a Sure-Fire Hit at Holiday Gatherings

Champagne Cattier, which has never before been available in the United States, landed in US stores just in time for the festive New Year's Eve celebrations this year. After decades of enjoyment in 65 countries around the world, Champagne Cattier made it's highly anticipated entry into the American wine market in mid-November.

Variants of Champagne Cattier are made in the prestigious territory of Montagne in Reims, France on 31 hectares of vineyards primarily classified as "Premier Cru", a highly regarded classification within the champagne category.

Champagne Cattier has earned distinction around the world as the official champagne of the Euro 2008 Championship, selection for in-flight service on British Airways and Air China, and through its high rankings by Robert Parker and Wine Spectator.

Champagne Cattier produces five varieties in beautiful bottles, suitable for any occasion:

The Fabulous Food Show was held at the I-X Center this past weekend, November 14-16. This annual culinary event hosted several popular celebrity chefs, as well as over 150 different food exhibitors. There were many free samples being handed out, and also a wine a beer tasting event.

One of the celebrity chefs, Curtis Stone, put on live demonstration of his cooking talents. It was very entertaining, keeping the entire crowd involved throughout the feature, and even allowed several people from the audience to go onstage and help. The atmosphere and crowd involvement helped to form this show which was definitely not the typical culinary performance.

The exhibitors had many booths set up in aisles that ran throughout the I-X Center. Some local companies and many others more widespread were lined up together to show and sample their product to the visitors.

Bubba's Bar-B-Q & Catering is a local, and world famous restaurant named for Al "Bubba" Baker, , the former Cleveland Brown. This bbq featured samples of their food and handed out pamphlets for the restaurant which included a menu and the location of the establishment.

The fall out of the subprime mortgage industry and resulting credit crisis has led to the downfall of some of the United States' most long-standing and revered financial institutions on Wall Street, but it has also begun to affect consumers. Without knowing just how bad the situation will get, Americans' wallets are getting thinner and attitudes towards spending are beginning to shift. A look to the food industry gives perhaps one of the best indications of the state of our economy, and it's not looking good.

Over the past year we've food prices increase (7.5% in the first 8 months of 2008) while the packages themselves have been downsized. We're getting less for more in a lot of cases. But as economy continues its downward slide, we're now also looking at the very kinds of foods that we buy.

Advertisers and the food industry, are of course aware the changing attitudes towards food in the US now that the economy has gone south. Instead of the big push for gourmet and healthy foods, food giants like Kraft and Campbell will be pushing value meals that still have a high profit margin for them.

Green popsicles take on a new life with the introduction of Bob's Pickle Pops! Yep, that's right - these are frozen popsicles made from pickle juice. They're low in calories (just five per pop), and contain no sugar.

Surprisingly, they seem to be going over well, at least amongst those who enjoy pickles. Even more interestingly, children going through chemotherapy whose tastebuds have been altered are also big fans of the treats.

The popsicles originate from Seguin, Texas, and the craze is quickly spreading. For more information, visit bobspicklepops.com.

Coffee giant Starbucks is launching a new line of Vivanna Nourishing Blends smoothies, answering consumer requests for more healthful meal options in light of the removal of the breakfast sandwiches that never really went over too well in the first place. The 16oz beverages aren't chock full of calories like many of Starbucks other beverages, and have just 270 calories or fewer and no artifical sweeteneers.

The new Starbucks smoothies are made with a banana, 2% or skim milk, protein powder with whey and either fruit juice or chocolate. The new drinks are available in two flavors: orange mango banana, and banana chocolate. Of course since this is Starbucks, consumers can still customize their smoothie drinks, adding green tea powder to the orange mango banana drink, or espresso to the banana chocolate smoothie.

Do you love wine and politics? Have you ever wished you could combine the two? Well one Michigan winery has come up with the perfect solution - Political Wines. There's one red wine and one white wine for Democrats, and one red and one white for Republicans.

You can identify whether a wine is left or right leaning by its packaging color. The blue labels are for Dems, and the red labels are for the GOPs.

The Democratic wines include "Jack Blue", a premium semi-dry white table wine, and "Jackie O’Rouge", a premium semi-dry red table wine.

The Republican wines include "Elie Blanc", a premium semi-dry white table wine, and "Red Trucnk", a premium semi-dry red table wine.

The wines are reasonably priced between $11.99 to $14.99 per bottle.

Epi-log wanted to undertake an interesting experiment to see whether the wines matched up with one's political affiliation. They invited equal groups of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to their wine-tasting event. The Republicans all failed to show up, leaving them with just Dems and Independents to conduct the tests.

Adults spend a lot of time trying to teach young children not to stick toys and other random objects in their mouths. So you can imagine our surprise when we came across this blog post telling us about a new product from Kelloggs - the Lego Fun Snack.

Lego Fun Snacks are fruit-filled little blocks that look just like the building block toys we are all familiar with.

Gabe over at Penny Arcade pointed out the lawsuit-waiting-to-happen snack:

I would love to know what sick bastard at Kellogs came up with this genius idea. I just spent the first three years of my sons life trying to get him not to eat blocks, and now you're telling him they taste like f***ing strawberries. Thanks a lot as******. Seriously, how in the hell did this ever get past their legal department. You can't tell me that this isn't a lawsuit just waiting to happen. I can only assume that their next product is fruit flavored thumbtacks.

The potential for confusion is very real with young children, and Kelloggs should really think about pulling it off the market and coming up with something a bit less potentially dangerous.

Kosher meat, which is typically more expensive than regular beef and poultry, could see a steep increase in price this summer following the arrest of nearly half of the workforce at the country's largest kosher meat processor. Any price increase would not only affect Jews, but also Muslims who buy the meat because it meets halal guidelines, and those who buy it simply for health and safety reasons.

Kosher food prices have already skyrocketed over the course of the past year, and this would only add to the rising prices.

US Immigration & Customs Enforcement agents raid Agriprocessors Inc. in Iowa on May 12, arresting approximately 400 workers on immigration, identity theft, and other charges.

Agriprocessors makes half of the US's kosher beef, and 40% of the nation's kosher chicken. The plant was temporarily shut down due to the raid, but has since reopened. Nevertheless, any delay in the production of the meat will translate into higher prices. With less product on the shelves, and the demand persistent, prices will undoubtedly rise.

Even if the company is able to maintain production, prices are still likely to rise. Following the largest immigration raid in history, the Agriprocessor will now have to hire documented workers.