We Have A Wiener

I knew this would happen. I do a post about the world's most expensive beer and the next thing I know, there's another story in the news about the world's most expensive hot dog. Really? A hot dog? See, this is what I mean by people just making stuff up so that it can be the most expensive. Trust me. There isn't much expense that goes into hot dogs.

According to the newsy folks over there at the NY Daily News, a local restaurant called Serendipity 3 (I'm not sure what's up with Serendipities 1 and 2) created the world's most expensive hot dog at $69. Now, if you're wondering what goes into a $69 hot dog (which they call the "haute dog" in a failed effort at being cutesy), so was I. Seriously, it's a hot dog. Do you know what goes in a hot dog? Everything but the oink, that is correct. How are you going to have a $69 hot dog? Easy. The same way you could have a $89 hot dog or a $109 hot dog. You charge that much and then you get someone to buy it.

And that's pretty much what happened over there at Serendipity 3. The owner of said establishment, a one Stephen Bruce, came across an awfully gullible tourist, a one Trudy Tant of Rock Hill, South Carolina, and "...asked her to spend her dough on the pricey frankfurter." If someone had asked me to spend almost seventy bucks on a hot dog, my response wouldn't have been "Sure!" It would have been more along the lines of something that I'm not overly comfortable typing here. It would not have been pretty.

But this soft headed woman was all for the idea! "The publishing company worker said she relished the opportunity "to do something out of the ordinary." (I'm sure that "relished the opportunity" was not on purpose because I can't imagine that someone who is dense enough to fall for this would be so quick to make an appropriate pun such as that.) I can think of a whole bunch more things that would have been "out of the ordinary" that would have left her less seventy dollars in the end. Some legal, some possibly not so much. Most of them would have been money better spent than on a hot dog.

In case your a-clamoring to make your own $69 dog at home and see how many of your friends you can weasel into coughing up the dough for it, here's what you're going to need: Some truffle oil, a salted pretzel bed, truffle butter, duck foie gras, Dijon mustard, Vidalia onions and ketchup." Wait a minute. You're going to put ketchup on a dog that has foie gras on it? That's just gross. Foie gras in and of itself is gross, but to put ketchup on it? That's just wrong. But basically, the only thing worth anything on this dog is the truffle stuff and the duck liver. Other than that, you've got yourself some pretty basic hot dog fixin's. See what I mean? It's all just a ruse. And who wants their hot dog on a pretzel bun? No one. That's why it's supposed to be a pretzel and not a hot dog enclosure. Pay attention!

But here's the best (or worst) part of this dealio: "The restaurant racked up the priciest dog record right away; there was no previous titleholder." Wait. What now? There wasn't a record? So...basically, EVERY hot dog that was sold before this one technically WAS the titleholder?! This is why there can't be world records for things that you can just make up and put whatever price you want on them. I could take a Ball Park frank, sprinkle it with gold flakes and diamonds, say that it's a thousand dollars, and set it up with a friend ahead of time for them to "pay" me for the dog and then I have just sold the world's most expensive hot dog. Technically. Then again, I wouldn't want to be the world record holder of something so ridiculous. Not to mention so NOT world record-y.

Apparently, this isn't the first world record that Serendipity 3 holds and the other records are just as ridiculous as this one is. They hold the record for the the most expensive ice-cream sundae (which someone paid $1,000 for) and for the largest hot chocolate which was 4 gallons. No word on how much that was or how many morons paid for it. Back to you.

Getting A Little Squirrelly

I'm not a fan of "The Most Expensive ____" (put whatever you want in the blank) because there's no reasonable scale on which to judge something. I can say that I have a pair of socks for sale for one million dollars and that they are the most expensive socks in the world, but that doesn't necessarily make them so, you know what I mean? It's just like having "The World's Biggest (insert food item here)". If it's a food that you're growing in the ground or on a tree, that's fine. But if it's a food that anyone can make, that's ridiculous. Sure, you can have the World's Biggest Hamburger and have it weigh 750 pounds, but what is stopping anyone from having a 751 pound hamburger (other than sheer sanity)? Not much. World records that are the biggest and the most expensive should have a small degree of luck or chance to them.

That's all why I was not overly interested when I heard that, at $770 per bottle, a brewery in Fraserberg, Scotland, is selling a new Belgian blonde ale which is 55 percent alcohol. It's the process to make the beer which the brewers claim is the reason for the exorbitant expense. Apparently they need to keep the beer at far below freezing temperatures so that water separates from the solution. They apparently repeat that process a gazillion times and it takes hundreds of liters of the beer in order to make just one 330 ml bottle. Granted, it's a super boozy bottle, but it's still just one.

Is the process necessary? I have no idea. And while I have a fondness for beer, I don't have much of an interest in drinking a $770 bottle of beer. I just don't. That's not what beer is about. You know what else beer isn't about? Dead rodent road kill that are all taxidermied up with the bottle of beer shoved down inside them. Wait. What? Behold!

Oh, what the hell is that? That is the End of History Beer by BrewDog. According to AOL News the BrewDog co-founder, a one 29-year old James Watt said, "This is the beer to end all beers. It's an audacious blend of eccentricity, artistry and rebellion; changing the general perception of beer one stuffed animal at a time." OK, then. I'd definitely say that a $770 bottle of beer is audacious and reeks of a rebellion. But I'm not so sure that it changes the general perception of beer as much as it changes the general perception of anyone out there who is trying (sometimes desperately) to make a buck. I'm not much for gimmicks. I'm all for gimme, as in "Gimme my beer and leave me the hell alone". THAT I can totally get behind. A gimmick? Not so much.

Mr. Watt went on to say, "We want to show people there is an alternative to monolithic corporate beers, introduce them to a completely new approach to beer and elevate the status of beer in our culture." Well, that's all fine and good, but I don't know that you're going to elevate the status of much by cramming it down roadkill. I'm just saying. Mr. Watt added that (referring to beer drinkers in the United Kingdom) "are constrained by lack of choice; seduced by the monolithic corporate brewers' huge advertising budgets and brainwashed by vindictive lies perpetrated with the veracity of propaganda." I really wish he had given an example of the vindictive lies by corporate brewers. What could a brewer lie about? This beer won't get you drunk even a little bit? I don't get that. As for the constraining lack of choice, you DO live on an island, my good man. It's hard to have much variety when there isn't a lot of choice to be had. That doesn't mean that one needs to create variety by shoving a bottle of beer down a....what is that? A chipmunk? Never mind. All I'm saying is that you'll adjust the the drudgery of no variety.

Fortunately, there are only 12 bottles of The End of History. Unfortunately, they've already sold out of them. Of course they have. (In case you were wondering, the one creature is a stoat and the other one is a squirrel. There were 8 stoats available and only 4 squirrels. Apparently, stoats are more prone to getting clobbered by traffic than are the squirrels.) This is only going to make them try to do something of this nature again. They'll just strive for something a little more outrageous, is all. Maybe they'll cram a keg of ale inside of a hippopotamus or something. Or have a whole variety of beers on tap being poured from a cow's udder. Who knows? I only wish that I wouldn't have to find out.