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    I Started My 2022 Off By Trying Out Some New Food And Drinks — Here's How They Stacked Up

    New year, new flavors!

    Hannah Dobrogosz
    by Hannah Dobrogosz

    BuzzFeed Staff

    Heyyy beautiful people! My name's Hannah, and I love sampling, creating, and reviewing all things food and drink. Yeah, I'm the gal always sampling new alcohol releases. I also really love a good plate of food.

    a woman with a cocktail, then a bowl of pasta, then a pretzel with beer cheese, then a woman with a hard seltzer can
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    Since I'm always on the prowl for new things to try, I figured I'd bring you along with me for the ride! As you're about to see, I had a busy January. Here are some of the food and drink products (new, and new to me) that I tried!

    NBC / Via media.giphy.com

    1. Platterful

    platterful box with an arrow revealing the contents of the kit
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    With Galentine's Day coming up (oh, and Super Bowl Sunday), I wanted to find some cute and easy snack options to make hosting more of a breeze. Dropping $$$ on individual items to fill up a charcuterie board can be expensive, and sometimes it's easy to forget some key components. Plus, I live in a small apartment, so I don't have ample storage space. I liked that Platterful sends you basically everything you need, and the portions are sized in such a way that makes storing them nice and easy.

    It came with a list of everything included, and a step-by-step guide on how to make the perfect platter!

    a list of ingredients and an instruction guide on how to make a charcuterie board
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    I followed the instructions a bit loosely, but it was a great guide to ensure the board looked as great as it tasted!

    Anddd, here's the finished product! Isn't she a beauty? I opted to include my own box of crackers to give it some variety, and I kept the chocolate off the board so it didn't mingle with any salami juices. But otherwise, here she is!

    a charcuterie board
    Buzzfeed

    It was the perfect snow day treat with my friends. Platterful offers individual kits starting at $65, or options for monthly subscription packages. If you love hosting get-togethers, the subscription probably makes more sense. But, if you're just looking for a cute, cost-effective way to celebrate girls' night or date night, a single kit is probably your best bet! It sure beats buying each individual component at full-price from the store.

    Get a one-time charcuterie subscription box from Platterful for $65 (or subscribe for monthly deliveries for $59).

    2. Spritz Society Canned Cocktails

    four cans of fruity cocktails
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    I'm in the midst of planning how I'll host Galentine's weekend/Super Bowl Sunday, and a cute drink that packs a punch PERFECTLY fits the bill. Yes, I want to get drunk in style!

    Buy a 4-pack of any flavor from Spritz for $17 or variety pack with all flavors for $80 (available in four flavors).

    Blood Orange

    canned cocktail next to a woman holding it and smiling
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    I was a little caught off guard by this one because it was a bit bitter and not as sweet as I anticipated. It reminded me of an Aperol spritz more than an orange drink. Not bad, but not my favorite. 6/10.

    Get a four-pack from Spritz for $17.

    Pineapple

    canned cocktail next to a woman holding it and smiling
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    Pineapple-flavored things always rank high in my book, and this cocktail was no exception! It was sweet, tangy, and super refreshing. 10/10.

    Get a four-pack from Spritz for $17.

    Grapefruit

    canned cocktail next to a woman sipping it
    BuzzFeed

    I looove grapefruit drinks. Fresca soda and grapefruit wine have such a hold on me. So, no surprise here, I loved this flavor! Perfectly sweet and sour. 10/10.

    Get a four-pack from Spritz for $17.

    Lemon

    canned cocktail next to a woman holding it and smiling
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    It was more flavorful than I expected! Sometimes I feel like lemon-flavored drinks are kind of boring, but this was pretty tasty. Somehow, the aftertaste reminded me of grape flavoring (like the stuff used in grape candies and grape soda). No complaints though. 8/10.

    Get a four-pack from Spritz for $17.

    3. MALK

    bottle of vanilla oat milk
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    Gorgeous, gorgeous girls love oat milk...right??

    Nut milk and oat milk are HOT commodities right now. I love ordering a chai tea latte from a coffee shop with almond or oat milk, but when I try to recreate it at home, it just tastes flat and watery. Welllll, MALK has finally convinced me.

    a mug filled with hot cooca
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    The vanilla oat has been a ✨lovely✨ addition to my chai and breakfast teas, and it makes a MEAN cup of cocoa. Seriously, it's so creamy and rich (but doesn't send me running to the bathroom, or for a pepto, lol). It would probably be great for smoothies too. MALK also makes an original oat milk, and a vanilla and unsweetened almond milk...so many to choose from!

    Get a bottle of Malk from select grocery stores (available as almond or oat milk and two flavors).

    4. Home Chef

    two recipes, one for quesadillas and one for sliders
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    Cooking for one can be such a drag, especially in a tiny apartment! I'm so sick of buying a ton of groceries and wasting food or getting sick of the same meals over and over. I wanted to experiment a little with a meal subscription kit to see if it made sense for my space and my situation. So, I opted to try out two recipes for the week (each recipe designed to be two servings) from Home Chef to see if this could be an enjoyable, cost-effective way to cook and eat. 

    Here are the ingredients (meat kept separately) divided and portioned out — nice and easy for organization and storage!

    outstretched hand holding bags of ingredients
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    My only real complaints about their packaging were 1. there's a lot of wrappers and trash, and 2. the tortillas for the quesadillas were beyond smashed and essentially fused together. 

    The harsh realities of cooking in a tiny kitchen! This is about all the space I have, so I'm glad I chose fairly easy recipes. Anything more complex would've been a headache, simply because I do not have the space to put things or carry out additional steps.

    a crowded kitchen counter and patties on a stove cooking
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    Side note: Home Chef recipes are ranked based on their difficulty, so you can pick and choose how complicated you want your experience to be. I obviously opted for meals on the easier end of the spectrum...and thank god I did.

    Voilà! Both meals turned out great. The portions were spot-on. Since the recipes were for two servings, I was able to get two meals out of each with no food waste. So, while there may feel like an excessive amount of trash (wrappers and what not), there's a perfect amount of food for one person to get two meals per recipe! Obviously this would work great for a couple cooking together too (but let's just say that doesn't apply to me right now 🥲).

    plate of quesadillas and a plate of sliders
    BuzzFeed

    Since I used a promo code from Home Chef's site, my first three boxes only cost $20 a pop, which is an awesome deal. That's four meals in a week for a total of $20!!!! After the promo runs out and the boxes are back to full price, I will have to decide if it still makes sense for me. I definitely enjoyed making these more than random Pinterest recipes (where I'm inevitably always short one ingredient), and it's convenient to receive exact portions of all your necessary ingredients, but I can see how this could get pricy. You still have to grocery shop so you have food around the house for breakfast, lunches, and snacks. I liked the experience, but I'm not sure if I will continue after my promo ends. 🤔 

    Get a Home Chef subscription for 6.99+/per serving.

    5. Buenavida Hard Seltzer from Stone Brewing

    four glass bottles of hard seltzer
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    Love the glass bottles! Feels much classier than a can (and helps eliminate that weird, metallic taste).

    Use Stone Brewing's  "beer finder" to find it in a store near you.

    Black Cherry

    a glass bottle of hard seltzer by a woman tasting it
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    While I love black cherry soda, I've never liked it as a hard seltzer flavor. The black cherry White Claw makes me want to throw up. Luckily, this tasted much more subtle than the White Claw and didn't induce vomiting! I probably wouldn't seek it out, but it wasn't half bad. 6/10.

    Mango

    BuzzFeed

    Pretty tasty! I'm a fan of how seltzer tastes out of a glass bottle more than how it tastes out of a can. Even so, this didn't exactly taste like mango to me...more like peaches! Good thing I like peaches. 8/10.

    Watermelon Lime

    glass bottle of hard seltzer next to a woman holding it
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    Not what I was expecting! Watermelon-flavored things are never my first choice, but this wasn't bad! I guess it didn't really taste like watermelons to me. It just had sort of an earthy, fruity flavor. It's hard to describe. 6/10.

    Mandarin

    glass bottle of hard seltzer next to a woman holding it
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    Predictable, but it does the trick. It didn't have that fakey orange flavoring that I associate with medicine, so that's nice. It was kind of like drinking a mimosa because it had that orange flavor plus all the bubbles. None of the metallic taste you sometimes get from hard seltzer in a can. 7/10

    6. Kit Kat Chocolate Hazelnut Thins and Strawberry + Chocolate Duos

    three Kitkat duo bars and a bar of kitkat thins
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    I am a fiend for chocolate, so it's no surprise that I was excited to try Kit Kat's newest additions. Coming soon to a store near you — just in time for Valentine's Day...👀

    Strawberry + Chocolate Kit Kat Duos

    a wrapped KitKat next to it unwrapped
    BuzzFeed

    Ahhh, it smelled so good — kind of like a glass of strawberry milk from childhood. The sweetness from the strawberry part really paired well with the less-sweet dark chocolate. It was reminiscent of a chocolate-covered strawberry. And, from an aesthetic point of view, it's so cute! Looove a pink candy bar. Perfect to give to your honey (or yourself!) for Valentine's Day. Just...don't eat too much at once. I did get heartburn. 

    Get a pack of 24 from Amazon for $24.69.

    Chocolate Hazelnut Kit Kat Thins

    woman holding a bag of kitkat thins, next to the open bag filled with the candy
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    They're so tiny and cute (so I'm stoked they come in such a big bag). If you're a hazelnut lover like me (Nutella, anyone?), these will hit the spot! They're kinda like those fancy-dancy Ferrero Rocher chocolates that come wrapped in gold, only sweeter and less nutty. I think they'd be reallyyy good crushed over some vanilla ice cream (I'm brilliant, I know). 

    Get them from Target for $3.99.

    7. Brother's Bond Bourbon

    bottle of bourbon
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    If there are two things I love, it's bourbon and the CW Network. I may be a little late to the game on this one, but I found something that really combines these two guilty-pleasures for me.

    Ohhh yeah, Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley, who played Damon and Stefan Salvatore on The Vampire Diaries, created a bourbon! Though they aren't brothers in real life, their time as TV brothers left them feeling bonded as such. Hence, the birth of Brother's Bond. 😍

    Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images for InStyle, CW Network / Courtesy Everett Collection

    Gaaahhh, they're so dreamy.

    I didn't have any fancy ingredients lying around to make this a true cocktail, so I sipped the bourbon straight up (over ice), and mixed it with ginger ale. And damn, it really packs a punch!

    woman taking a drink
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    It's gooood, but I am wimpy and really need it diluted with a mixer or some other complimentary alcohol flavors. I'll never be the girl who just sips straight-up bourbon, unless Ian and Paul invited me over for a drink...

    Get it from Brother's Bond online and check out where you can find it in-stores.

    8. Momofuku Chili Crunch

    hand holding a jar of chili oil
    BuzzFeed

    Not to tell on myself, but I'm a little baby when it comes to spicy foods. BUT, I'm also such a lover of sauces, oils, and spreads. Momofuku has a range of incredible restaurants (both in NYC and around the world) and an awesome online store that I've heard soooo many wonderful things about...so I had to try one of their signature products. 

    Interestingly enough, the chili oil reviews raved about putting it on eggs and baked brie, so that's exactly what I did. Plus, I figured eggs and cheese were mild and creamy enough to help cut some of the heat, while retaining the oil's rich flavor.

    BuzzFeed

    This oil could certainly be used as a garnish on Halloween party snacks! It's vibrantly red, so yeah, it looks a little terrifying.🩸 But damn, does it taste good. It was tasty on the egg, but it was out-of-this-world on the baked brie! I was swooooning over that brie (even if it looks like a scene from a horror movie). I added a little bit of a honey drizzle to it as well, which complemented the chili oil SO well. You need to serve this at your next gathering.

    Sign up for the waiting list at Momofuku.

    9. Bud Light Next

    can of bud light next
    BuzzFeed

    NO carbs in a can of beer? Sorry, I'm skeptical. With the world's current obsession with hard seltzers, I totally get why making lighter beers makes sense, but I just feel like turning beer into a seltzer kills the regular appeal of beer. 

    So here's the deal: It tastes like a beer-flavored hard seltzer. It's lighhht. It's definitely pushing the boundaries of what I would consider beer.

    woman smiling with a can of bud light next with the text "eager to try," then a woman sipping the drink with the text "puzzled"
    BuzzFeed

    I totally get that there's a market for this — seltzers are hot right now — but it's just not for me. I like beer, and I like hard seltzer. I also like for those things to be mutually exclusive. I guess if you really want something that resembles beer but doesn't come with the same carb or calorie count, this is for you! It just didn't really convince me.

    Get it from a variety of delivery services online or at a store near you.

    There ya have it! Though I didn't fall in love with everything I tried, I did find some products that reallyyy got me excited (charcuterie board/baked brie/canned cocktail night coming soon). Do you see something you'd like to try? Or, have you tried something on this list already? Tell me about it in the comments!