Recommend a Food/Wine Magazine, please

I signed up for the BD/GCC offer on the Grand Reserve Master Card (which has its own thread you can check out if you don’t know what I’m talking about).

One of the card benefits is a free subscription to one of the following. Some of these I’ve never seen, and the rest I haven’t seen in several years. Which do you recommend and (if you have a moment) why? Thanks!

Wine Enthusiast
Bon Appétit
Imbibe
Food & Wine
Wine & Spirits

I used to get Wine & Spirits – I thought it was quite good. It is usually pretty current about what is in the US market at the moment; often has interesting articles about wine; and while I am not as into spirits, I learned some interesting things about spirits. I dropped the subscription because I already have enough to read. However I also got the credit card, and missed (or have not paid much attention yet) that there is a free magazine subscription as one of the perks. So like you I am curious what others have to say.

1 Like

slightly OT, but I recommend you don’t subscribe to Cooks Illustrated.

Great magazine, but the business end is shady AF. Good luck unsubscribing.

1 Like

I subscribe to Wine&Spirits and think it’s one of the best general wine magazines around. A number of really
good writers in their stable. The wine reviews are not as lengthy as some publications, so that’s a plus
in my book.
Tom

1 Like

Wife gets Food and Wine and Bon Appetit which she enjoys - both she has been subscribed for probably about a decade or so. I hate the wine team at Food and Wine. Bon Appetit is more “esoteric”. Both have pretty limited wine or alcohol sections.

I’ve personally done Wine Enthusiast, but I don’t really enjoy their tasting notes much, I find them to be very generic (if that makes sense?). Imbibe I get via a cocktail subscription service that I do. Mostly cocktail oriented. Wine & Spirits is the only one that I have not read.

If I had to pick one, based on experience with the rest, I would probably take Bon Appetit. I like and appreciate their scientific approach to recipes.

1 Like

The Art of Eating would be my choice.

I did not know the shady part, but LOVE the issues I have seen.

I have personally found that magazines are either strong on food and weak on wine, or vice-versa. I’ve read some of each of those on your list and I’d go Bon Appetit or Wine & Spirits, depending on which you’d like to read more about: food (the former) or wine (the latter).

1 Like

I too love the content, but Google “cooks illustrated subscription scam” and you’ll see pages of hits. Cancellations that don’t get processed, Byzantine procedures for canceling, etc

I second Cooks, but 90% for food 10% wine. It’s that good, you won’t want to cancel it. However, charge it to a credit card so if you have to and need to dispute, no issue.

I have subscribed to Imbibe for many years and really enjoy it. It is primarily focused on cocktails and spirits, with some content on beer, wine, and other beverages with a handful of longer form articles each issue. I would only recommend it if you are interested in cocktails though.

1 Like

I like Food & Wine, Bon Apetit and Cook’s Illustrated for the food coverage (especially like learning about new products / tools). As others have suggested, the wine coverage is going to be underwhelming for anyone that frequents these boards. But I cancelled my WS and WE subscriptions for the same reason.

I subscribe to everything through Amazon, which makes payments and cancelling safer / easier.

Title made me think of this.

1 Like

Agree completely on this, it happened to me. My late DH was a subscriber, and they kept sending books and other things on approval even after I called them and told them to stop. They said I couldn’t cancel, only he could. They wouldn’t listen when I explained he was deceased. Finally I called my Chase credit card, and they graciously reversed everything, put a block on the company, and told me to keep whatever was sent.

Another bad one is Life Lock, my Dad had it and we couldn’t get rid of them either,

2 Likes

Everything in the Cooks Illustrated empire is also heavily recycled content too. I used to get their stuff for a long time (I think I got in the 90s?) and their business practices were not as bad then. It feels like they outsourced circulation mgmt to some skeevy agent, who does all this, since it feels odd (to me) that Chris Kimball would be like this, in person.

I used to get Food & Wine and Bon Appetit, and didn’t think they were anything special. A lot of those just accumulate, and end up getting tossed at some point. Wine Enthusiast at least seems to be more focused on the topic, but I don’t have a sub to that.

I don’t believe Kimball has been involved with Cooks Illustrated (or anything else under the America’s Test Kitchen umbrella) since 2015 or so due to disputes over contracts and management. He did start Milk Street Kitchen which seems similar in format and content, though I haven’t subscribed to their magazine.

I subscribe to Decanter and like it for the wine content. I just recently went to Premier to have access to the database (which integrates seamlessly into Cellar Tracker). I don’t like reading it on the tablet, but the old review access made it worth it. They basically offer no incentives to get both physical and electronic copies.

I also subscribe to Cooks Illustrated, but agree the content is going downhill. Just doesn’t have the interest it used to. Recipes and reviews aren’t bad but I also haven’t been wow’d. They also offer almost no incentive to get both digital and print, but I stuck with print on theirs. Might “try” to cancel next time it runs out. My credit card is different now, so that will help :slight_smile:

I also get Wine Enthusiast as a free gift with a credit card. That thing has like 4 pages of real content out of like 100. It’s sad how worthless it is. I don’t even leave it on the coffee table for others.

Yes. The breakup between Kimball and Cooks/ATC was pretty ugly. As for a wine magazine (not food related) I recommend The World of Fine Wine. Probably not available with your CC deal though.

Thanks for that color; I had not known that. I got Milk Street Kitchen for a few years, before cancelling that too. (I don’t remember anything odd about ending that). At one point I had some 800 cookbooks or so, but there was a Stalin like purge, and scant few remain on the scarce shelf space. I actually mailed a bunch of books to a friend on Colorado this weekend (USPS Media Mail) so I would not have to bear the emotional pain of letting the books go myself.