Interesting Facts

The £144 record for the most expensive pancake has been broken, with a restaurant in the UK serving up a pancake that will set you back a whopping £800. (Chef Matthew Downes at the Opus restaurant in Mancester, has created what is now the world's most expensive pancake using Scottish lobster, Beluga caviar and Hulle Verge Truffle all served with a Dom Perignon Rose champagne hollandaise sauce. If you want to save yourself a fortune, try my recipe: http://www.learnenglish.de/recipe/Pancakes.html, served with sugar and lemon juice, you can't beat it.)

The world’s most expensive Christmas dinner will set you back £125,000. (So what do you get for 1/8 of a million quid? The meal, which will be prepared by John Salt head chef Ben Spalding at the home of the customer, is for four people has the following:- Starter - Almas caviar (£5,000)  served with a balsamic vinegar that is 150 years old. Main course - Wagyu beef fillet and heart (£5,000) sprinkled with Akbari Pistachios (£5,000) and edible 50 carat gold leaf. Pud - Whipped Kopi Luwak (£3,000) and Densuke watermelon (£2,600). All washed down with £37,000 pre-World War One champagne, poured into diamond studded champagne flutes. Luxury website VeryFirstTo.com are offering the meal, but the proceeds will go to charity.  Well that's all right then.  You can stuff your face silly, as long as it's for a good cause.  Let them eat Wagyu Beef.) Explore more infographics like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually .

When you're drinking your bubbly to see in the New Year the following notes might help to choose and then describe the taste and bouquet (smell). (Brut Zero & Brut Sauvage, are sugar free and extremely dry. These are also the best option for diabetics. Brut is dry. `Extra Dry' is actually slightly sweeter than Brut. Demi sec translates as 'half dry', which is a good choice for those who prefer medium wines. Doux and Rich are very sweet. Biscuity - a biscuit smell to the bouquet that denotes maturity and integrated flavours. Creamy - obvious tastes of vanilla or cream. Fresh - Champagne has a higher acidity compared to other white wines and usually features traces of lemon and green apple for a refreshing taste. Nutty - this flavour usually derives from age and points to maturity of the Champagne. Toasty - a bready smell to the bouquet that denotes maturity and integrated flavours. Yeasty - Champagne is made using a secondary fermentation...

According to Bruno Dutertre there are, on average, 250 million bubbles in a bottle of champagne. (Seemingly the three-year-study to "understand and study the influence of chemical and physical parameters on the formation of bubbles and the stability of the mousse" cost $7 million. A camera-based, computer-linked "artificial vision system" built by ITMI (Industrie et Technolgie de la Machine), actually recorded the release of bubbles and counted them. The study was financed by Moet & Chandon and Heineken. I would suggest that instead of trying to confirm these findings, you just sit back and enjoy the bubbles.)

According to the Comite Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC), France exports 150.9m bottles of champagne per year. (The main importers are the UK: 38.9m bottles, the US: 21.7m bottles, Japan: 9.1m bottles, Russia: 1.03m bottles, and China: 656,000 bottles. Of course in the UK we have a saying, "Champagne taste on a beer pocket.")

According to the Institut national de l'origine et de la qualite (INAO), the difference between vines within France's Champagne region and those just outside is 995,000 euros. (If a vineyard falls on the wrong side of the "Champagne" divide, the land is worth 5,000 euros a hectare, but on the other side it's worth 1m euros. And all because people like bubbles.)

If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom. (Go on try it - it's great. Like one of those lava lamps from the 70s.)