What's $1000 for a mint julep between friends? and other food and drinking news

• Why This Lavish Mint Julep Costs $1,000 The Kentucky Derby has become as synonymous with the mint julep as it is with champion horses, wide-brimmed hats, and men smoking cigars in seersucker suits. The ultimate status symbol at the track may be a horse in the winner’s circle, but then there’s Woodford Reserve’s $1,000 Mint Julep coming down the back stretch, making a close second. It’s a bottomless variation (free refills!) on the classic summer drink served in a silver plated cup designed by Billy Reid, with a 24k gold straw.

The wine The Daily Telegraph's Nick Trend went searching for

• Alsace wine tour: In search of the world's greatest white wines - "I’m full of anticipation because, about 20 years ago, I tasted a wine which, because it was so unexpectedly delicious, has lodged in my memory ever since. ... this wine, made from riesling grapes, was steely dry, and had an almost ethereal freshness. I began to realise why riesling is ranked among the greatest of all varieties. It can taste of honey, yet without a trace of sweetness; it can smell of petrol, yet be utterly delicious. It can be both rich and light, fresh and intense. And the best will mature for decades, darkening to a rich amber and increasing in depth and complexity. It sparked an enthusiasm for Alsace wines which has never abated. And now at last I had managed to arrange a trip to the place where it – and several other great rieslings I have discovered since – was made."

Should he/she be used for meat or Milk? That is the question.

• The sad, sad story of Palestine's hermaphrodite goat. Episode One: A Hermaphrodite Goat Could Be The Ultimate Scapegoat. Episode Two: And The Fate Of The Hermaphrodite Goat Is...
• Conflicts of Interest at the F.D.A. - The Food and Drug Administration’s lethargic regulation of dietary supplements containing a dangerous stimulant described in recent reports in The Times is a classic example of what happens when industry representatives infiltrate the agency that is supposed to regulate them. The worrisome ingredient is BMPEA, a chemical nearly identical to amphetamine that is added to weight-loss and workout products in an effort to enhance their effect. Whether it does so is unclear, since there have never been tests of its effectiveness and safety in humans.

Fermentation and other wine news and views

Winemaker heaven: watching the pinot ferment kick in. pic.twitter.com/FyWFqRK7K7
— Ata Rangi (@Ata_Rangi) April 9, 2015

• Celebrity wines: how good are they really? How good is wine from celebrity owned vineyards? 
• Majestic Wine buys Naked Wines in £70m deal as it eyes US and Australia expansion

• Gavi: Does a Wine Beloved in the ’80s Hold Up Today? - Our columnist uncorks a few bottles of Gavi to see if the Italian white retains the romance it held decades ago—and is still a perfect warm-weather wine
• Champagne: bursting the bubbly - ‘We are left in the dark about too many champagnes. In an ideal world, I’d appreciate information about all ingredients’
• The Right Wine to Drink With a Sandwich

Torturing animals in the pursuit of profit

• U.S. Research Lab Lets Livestock Suffer in Quest for Profit - Animal Welfare at Risk in Experiments for Meat Industry - "Pigs are having many more piglets — up to 14, instead of the usual eight — but hundreds of those newborns, too frail or crowded to move, are being crushed each year when their mothers roll over. Cows, which normally bear one calf at a time, have been retooled to have twins and triplets, which often emerge weakened or deformed, dying in such numbers that even meat producers have been repulsed. Then there are the lambs. In an effort to develop “easy care” sheep that can survive without costly shelters or shepherds, ewes are giving birth, unaided, in open fields where newborns are killed by predators, harsh weather and starvation."

• The U.S. is now more worried about unpasteurized milk than marijuana - "Americans now appear to be more scared about the negative effects of raw or unpasteurized milk than of marijuana, according to Oklahoma State University’s recent Food Demand Survey. Almost 60 percent of those questioned in the monthly online survey of at least 1,000 people said they support a ban on the sale of raw, unpasteurized milk, while only 46 percent said they would support a ban on marijuana."
• Peeling 200 kilograms of potatoes in one week in support of the Guyra Lamb and Potato Festival
• Veggie Fight: The Lengths Chefs Go to Secure New York’s Finest Produce - New "produce-forward" menus continue to pop up all over town and centerpiece vegetable courses are so prevalent that New York critic Adam Platt recently bemoaned the omnipresence of cauliflower, once considered to be a truly unsexy ingredient. With all the veggie love going on today, though, it's become more important and more difficult than ever for chefs to get the exact produce they need — which means they do everything they can to give themselves an advantage.
• Bones, Broth, Bliss - Bone Broth Evolves From Prehistoric Food to Paleo Drink
• From Detox To Elimination Diets, Skipping Sugar May Be The Best Bet
• United Noshes: Dinner Party Aims To Eat Its Way Through Global Cuisine
• Australian wine exports rise amid growing premium demand

Why mozzarella is the king of pizza cheese and other eating and drinking news of the day

• Science Crowns Mozzarella The King Of Pizza Cheese - 'It's been known for a while that mozzarella melts and blisters better than most other cheeses. But [Bryony James, a professor of materials engineering at the University of Auckland in New Zealand] and some colleagues wanted to investigate further: Why do different cheeses look and taste different when they're baked? Their paper, titled "Quantification of Pizza Baking Properties of Different Cheeses, and Their Correlation with Cheese Functionality," appears in the August issue of the Journal of Food Science.
• Secret menu: Tasty treats await 'in-the-know' customers - "Competition is driving many fast-food restaurants to fill special orders. As a result, hundreds of "secret menu" items circulate on social media to be snapped up by savvy eaters."
• Austria's only snail farmer - "The 40-year-old is Austria's only full-time professional snail farmer, producing 300,000 per year for human consumption. With 1kg of snail meat selling for up to 80 euros ($105; £63) it is a lucrative business." 
• Brain 'can be trained to prefer healthy food'

• China's museum craze: Beijing's history of roast duck
• These 5 Crops Are Still Hand-Harvested, And It's Hard Work
• Study Finds Nothing Special About Breakfast - A new study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition finds eating breakfast or skipping it might not make much difference. Popular theory holds that people who don't eat breakfast may binge later on lunch and dinner, leading to weight gain or other health problems. Other people argue that skipping breakfast will help you lose weight by eating less. Turns out - both could be wrong.

• Real Vanilla Isn't Plain. It Depends On (Dare We Say It) Terroir - "You've likely heard of Madagascar Bourbon vanilla. It's the classic, deep, rich 'real' vanilla the world has come to know and love. It helps that Madagascar is the world's biggest producer of vanilla bean, harvesting 1,000 to 1,500 tons per year.But what about Tahitian vanilla, with its strong notes of cherry, or spicy, nutmeg-y Mexican vanilla? They're pretty amazing, too, thanks to their own rich soils, curing techniques and vanilla-friendly climates."
• When Zero Doesn't Mean Zero: Trans Fats Linger In Food - "... the FDA has yet to issue a final rule requiring food companies to eliminate trans fats entirely. In the meantime, researchers decided to find out just how many products still contain them. Turns out it's more than you might think. While many food companies have found affordable alternatives to partially hydrogenated oil, 1 in 10 packaged foods still contain it, according to researchers at the New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene."
• How Foster Farms Is Solving The Case Of The Mystery Salmonella - "Foster Farms, California's biggest chicken producer, has been accused of poisoning people with salmonella bacteria. After an outbreak last fall, the U.S. Department of Agriculturethreatened to shut down three of the company's plants.

Since then, though, the company has reduced its rates of salmonella contamination dramatically. Some food safety experts are now saying the whole poultry industry should follow this company's example.

The company is also taking the lead in figuring out a food safety mystery: How in the world do tests detect salmonella frequently on cut-up chicken parts but not on whole chicken carcasses?