Boxwine

This is shameful heresy, but I have a box of pretty high quality white wine in the cabinet near my stove, I keep a clean shot glass next to it, and whenever a recipe calls for something wine-shaped I basically just use that.

Sake? BOX WHITE. Shaoxing wine? BOX WHITE. Vermouth? BOX WHITE. Deglazing a pan? You better believe it’s BOX WHITE.

Sherry? Nah, I’m using BOX WHITE.

Thing is, keeping a bunch of trash-tier half-open liquor to go off in your cabinet is not going to make good food. That bottle of sake you opened six months ago to make teriyaki one time? That’s no good. You should throw it out.

Box wine, on the other hand - unlike bottled wine - stays fresh for months after being opened.

The obvious alternative strategy is that every time dinner calls for a shot of sake or vermouth or sherry, you should open and finish a nice, high quality bottle in the next two days, but I just am not in a place in my life where I can drink that aggressively.

I do the same with box red, which I use for stews and braises.

If I have any left at the end of the year, I’ll often take the dregs and use them to make hot, sweet, heavily spiced mulled wine.