Nothing spoils a good meal like not knowing how to enjoy it. And that’s especially true during the holidays, when hosts break out all manner of delicacies.

That’s why this year, Portfolio.com has made it our mission to demystify a range of foodstuffs with our cheat sheets for everything from truffles, to steak, cheese, and sushi.

We also asked the experts, people like Ariane Daguin, founder of D’Artagnan, the largest purveyor of foie gras in the U.S, and Jim McEwan, managing director of the Bruichladdich distillery in Islay, Scotland, to share how they consume their gourmet products. See the secrets to savoring single-malt whiskey and making a plain bar of dark chocolate divine in our story “How the Experts Eat”.

There have been big and small shifts in food trends this year—for example, New York decided this summer to allow the auction of alcoholic spirits, and we looked at the consequences for Manhattan’s vintage- and collectible-wine market. This winter, Christie’s auction house will sell a bottle of 1926 Macallan whiskey, which has been in a private collection since 1986, for an anticipated $20,000 to $30,000 (“Spirited Bidding”).

If you prefer a killer cocktail to whiskey, there are new ways to jazz up almost every mixed drink (“In the Mix”). Following the success of super-premium liquors, like quadruple-distilled gin, entrepreneurs are concocting exotic mixers made with ingredients like organic agave syrup and quinine extracted from Rwandan tree bark.

Meanwhile, there are new wine regions emerging around the world—and some may be right in your backyard, even if you live in a city (“Wine and the City”). In places like Berkeley, California; Portland, Oregon; Seattle; and New York, entrepreneurs are making wine in gritty urban landscapes. And—surprise—their products are often good. The same goes for Provence, which is finally catching up with other parts of France in terms of the quality of its wine (“French Twist”). We suggest a few good libations to try, of course.

Moving to greener pastures, we went to Greensboro, Vermont, where brothers Andy and Mateo Kehler founded Jasper Hill Farm (“Becoming the Big Cheese”). If all goes according to plan, they will turn their boutique cheesemaking operation, which currently grosses $800,000 annually, into a multimillion-dollar juggernaut with its name on 20 times that amount of cheese, using a model that’s totally new to the American industry. It’s so close they can taste it.