"most expensive" news and stories

Pernod Ricard is launching a new champagne at a price that will make Cristal and Dom Perignon look like two-buck Chuck, as $400 per bottle price tags seem small when compared to this one. The wine and spirits group said that it would be launched under their Perrier Jouet Belle Epoque brand and it will be priced at $1,270 (€1,000) per bottle. This makes it the most expensive champagne in the world. Unfortunately, aside from the price tag, the company was fairly quiet about the other details of the release, though chairman Patrick Ricard did say "We won't do many cases and won't be offering it in France."

The group is actively pursuing ways to increase the perception of their brands as very upmarket, so perhaps this will be the first of many releases from the company. Regardless it will certainly set a benchmark in the champagne industry.

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A $38,000 bottle of Scotch whiskey, The Macallan Fine and Rare Collection, 1926, made the top of Forbes Magazine's list of the most expensive whiskies in the world. Bottles of the stuff are sold out, but apparently you can still get a $3,000 dram in some restaurants and bars. Coming in second, at a perfectly respectable $10,000 a bottle, is a 1939 Macallan. Forbes' resident boozehound Nick Passmore tries to put some of these outrageously priced bottles in context by describing the current movement towards not only collecting, but actually drinking and appreciating ultra-premium spirits. Unfortunately, like other Forbes lists, you have to use a painfully clunky separate browser window to view information on each bottle.

In another of their superlative-based reviews, Forbes magazine has created a list of the most expensive chocolates in the world. Topping the list is "Chocopologie," a $250 truffle from Connecticut-based Knipschildt Chocolatier. Why are these things $2,600 per pound? Because there's an entire French black truffle inside each one. The next most expensive offering on their list, from Texas-based Noka, is a selection of single origin chocolates that go for $854 per pound.

The article itself is the usual talk of flavanols and the rising popularity of specialty chocolates in the U.S. Really, this one's all about the sticker shock.