What better way is there to make the most of your summer than to get outside and throw some steaks, hot dogs or even veggie burgers on the grill?

The Talos Outdoor Cooking Suite is an open-air professional kitchen custom-built to your specific needs. The hand-crafted stainless steel exterior houses a 42” grilling area, three 25,000 BTU cast burners, a 20,000 BTU searing station and griddle, a hardwood cutting board and a warming drawer to keep your food ready to serve. It even has a bartending station with everything you need to mix your guests’ drinks.

Of course, all that convenience comes with a hefty price. This expensive grill can be had for $35,000.

If you’re looking for something truly spectacular, however, then settle for nothing less than the most expensive grill in the world.

This grill, created by BeefEater for the “World’s Finest” exhibition, features six high-output barbecue burners, a wok burner, a roasting hood with viewing window, a vaporizer grid and a warming rack and reflector system.

Oh, and it’s also plated entirely in gold.

Unfortunately, the grill will likely never see mass production. If it did, however, estimates put the price anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000.

Regular readers might expect the most expensive salad in the world to be sprinkled with edible gold leaf and topped with enormous brilliant cut diamonds. In this case, however, the dish itself is deserving of the price tag—even if it does have a bit of gold leaf.

The most expensive salad was created by celebrity chef Raymond Blanc at the Hempel Hotel in London in observance of Florette National Salad Week in 2003. The salad took six hours to create and included such fine ingredients as Florette Baby Leaf salad, beluga caviar, grated truffle, potatoes decorated with gold leaf, Cornish crab and lobster and 30-year-old balsamic vinegar. The 50 grams of Almas golden caviar, made from the eggs of albino and Oscietre sturgeons and formerly reserved for Russian tsars, is the true draw of this sumptuous salad.

The Florette Sea and Earth Salad came to £635.60 (US $1,013) to create—and the costly caviar alone accounted for £600.

The most expensive hot dogs in history weren’t exactly special. Sure, they were limited items available for only a few days in Stockholm. Sure, it cost 999 Swedish kronor ($130 USD at the time) to get one. The pricey hot dogs, however, were no better than your average street vendor may sell you.

The expensive hot dogs were part of a United Nations initiative to highlight global poverty. The idea was that, for one of the billion people worldwide who live on less than a dollar a day, paying the standard price of a hot dog would be like your average, comfortably living individual paying $130. These expensive hot dogs were available from in September, 2005, from the United Nations Development Programme’s Nordic Office. They were sold by a number of Swedish celebrities and politicos.

The most expensive hot dog currently available, however, is a different story entirely. The Guinness-certified sausages are sold by Serindipity 3 in New York City’s Upper East Side. The Serendipity Foot-Long Haute Dog was launched on National Hot Dog Day on July 23rd, 2010. The fancy frankfurter is made of beef and grilled in white truffle oil. The bun is salted pretzel bread that has been toasted in white truffle butter. The hot dog is topped with duck foie gras, caramelized Vidalia onions, heirloom tomato ketchup and Dijon mustard. Black truffles are included in both the foie gras and the Dijon mustard.

The most expensive hot dog in the world is priced at a staggering $69 and must be ordered 24 hours in advance.

Serendipity 3 is also the home of the world’s most expensive sundae.

Beer is one of the oldest drinks known to man—and one of this writer’s favorites. While many people enjoy drinking light and less expensive beer, there are still some beer connoisseurs out there. If you don’t believe it, then check out the proof–the world’s most expensive beers.

Tutankhamun Ale – $52 per bottle

This expensive beer has a peculiar history. It’s brewed in a Cambridge laboratory from a recipe discovered in the Queen Nefertiti’s Temple of the Sun in Egypt. The beer is named after the queen’s stepson, more commonly known as King Tut. The temple, which housed a brewery, is believed to have been built by King Akenhaten, Tut’s predecessor and likely father. This beer is also limited and may be purchased for $52 per bottle.

Samuel Adams Utopias – $100 per bottle

Vintage No. 1 may be four times as expensive as Samuel Adams/Boston Beer Company’s Utopias, the former most expensive beer, but Utopias still holds a Guinness World Record for being the strongest beer at 50 proof.

Utopias was brewed with a blend of high-quality hops and sold in an ornate copper-plated brew kettle and offers a flavor unlike any other expensive beer or beverage in the world. The sweet flavor is richly highlighted with hints of vanilla, oak and caramel. The expensive beer is non-carbonated and should be served at room temperature.

Production of Utopias was limited to 8,000 bottles.

Carlsberg Vintage 3 – $348 per bottle

The Carlsberg Group, a brewing company founded in 1847 and named after founder J. C. Jacobson’s son Carl, is best known for their light-bodied lager, Carlsberg Pilsner (also known as Carlsberg Beer or Carlsberg Hof). In 2008, however, Carlsberg introduced another beer guaranteed to be linked to the Carlsberg name in the public consciousness, Vintage 1.

Vintage 3 is the third in the trilogy of beers created from 2008 to 2010. At the time of its launch, the “pale barley wine” was the only available beer to have been aged in French Côte d’Or oak barrels in the Carlsberg founder’s original cellar. Only 1,000 bottles of this exclusive beer were hand tapped and labeled with art by Kaspar Bonnén and two artists selected from the Radiant Copenhagen project.

The price of Vintage 1, 2,008 Danish kroner, reflected the year it was introduced. The brewer introduced Vintage 2 in 2009 and Vintage 3 in 2010, priced at 2,009 and 2,010 kroner respectively.

Brewdog’s “The End of History” – $765 per bottle

Well, PETA is going to have a field day with this one. Scottish brewery BrewDog has produced a beer served in bottles as shocking as the beer’s extremely high alcoholic content.

Only eleven bottles of this expensive beer, named after a book by philosopher Francis Fukuyama, were produced. The blond Belgian ale, infused with nettles from the Scottish Highlands and fresh juniper berries, is 55 percent alcohol and will be BrewDog’s final high ABV beer.

The bottles, however, are the beer’s most striking aspect–each one is encased in a squirrel or weasel stuffed by a gifted taxidermist. The four grey squirrels and seven weasels selected were all roadkill, however, so their immortalization as beer bottles may actually be considered more respectful than ignominious roadside decomposition.

A Heligan pineapple.

A fruit produced in the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall, England, may just be the most expensive pineapple in the world.

The gardeners at Heligan, who began restoration of the derelict gardens in 1990, first purchased fruits for the Pineapple Pit in 1994. Utilizing the same techniques used 70 years ago, during Heligan’s heyday, Heligan’s Productive Gardening Team produced a miniature pineapple that was, according to the gardeners, “the most delicious pineapple flavour ever tasted.”

The “hotbed” technique used in the Pineapple Pit involves heating 30 tons of straw and horse manure through glass. The team was lucky enough to locate the proper mixture of straw and horse manure at a stable near Falmouth, about an hour from the gardens.

While the price of a modern day Heligan pineapple is yet to be announced, the original Heligan pineapples are estimated to have cost the Victorian equivalent of $15,000 to produce.

After the first fruit was tested by Heligan’s gardeners, the second was delivered, by hand, to the Queen.

(via Daily Mail)

The baked potato may not be the most healthful item on your plate but, thanks to chef Ben Kingdon of The Cary Arms, it could be the priciest.

The Cary Arms is “The Inn on the Beach” in the coastal town of Torquay in Devon county, England. It’s there that Kingdon produces the gastropub food for which the inn is known—including the most expensive baked potato in the world.

The 24-year-old chef refers to this delicacy as the “tuxedo spud,” as a baked potato is known in Great Britain as a “jacket potato.” The potato’s flesh has been mixed with creme fraiche, lemon, chives and spring onions, and topped with caviar. Sides include balsamic-roasted vine tomatoes and a side salad, served with the potato on a wooden board. The dish is served with a glass of champagne.

The expensive potato is priced at £40—US $60. Unfortunately, only one was ordered in the two weeks after its debut.

Filipino chef Angelito Araneta, Jr. specializes in extravagant foods to be used during courtship and marriage proposals. In 2009, he created a $2,500 “carat” cake coated completely in gold flake and topped with diamonds. In 2010, he created a dish that looked somewhat more, well, edible—the most expensive sushi in the world.

Each of the five pieces on this sushi plate is covered with a leaf of edible gold and garnished with a .2-carat African diamond. The plate was presented at a Milanan restaurant in June.

The dish was valued at 91,800 pesos, or just under $2,000.

You can’t put a price tag on good company—or can you? While some might shell out for an entrée laden with gold flake and white truffle, foie gras or a Cabernet Sauvignon from Chateau Mouton Rothschild, patrons of the world’s most expensive lunches are there for one thing—the company of billionaire investor, industrialist and philanthropist Warren Buffett.

For the last decade, Mr. Buffett has hosted these Power Lunches to benefit the Glide Foundation, a San Francisco community-based charity organization. The lunches are auctioned on eBay and, at $2.63 million, this year’s Power Lunch beat the 2008 record of $2.11 million. The winner and up to seven guests may dine with Mr. Buffett at Smith & Wollensky in Manhattan.

This year’s record-setting lunch is particularly auspicious as demand for the nonprofit’s services has increased by thirty percent during the recession, while donations have fallen by twenty percent.

Another expensive lunch was had by Roman Abramovich in 2009. The Russian billionaire and nine other guests dined in at Nello’s restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side for $52,000. That lunch included three bottles of La Tache, two bottles of Chateau Petrus and two magnums of Cristal Rose—each wine being $5,000 per bottle. Other highlights of the lunch include three plates of truffle tagliolini at $195 each and two plates of truffle carpaccio for $100 each. The group was apparently feeling generous, as they supplemented the over-$7,000 automatic gratuity with an additional $5,000.

The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) has surveyed water prices in twenty Western countries. Their findings indicate that Denmark may have the most expensive tap water in the world.

Water in Denmark costs $6.70 per cubic meter. That’s about 2.5 cents per gallon–quite a bit more than in the US, where a gallon of water costs between .07 and .2 cents. Part of the reason for this price is that it includes the price to clean and dispose of the water. This practice has led Danish consumers to use water more conservatively, but it has also strained their agricultural industry.

The least expensive water came from Mexico, where citizens pay about 50 cents per cubic meter.

The most expensive cereal in the world isn’t available in stores. In fact, there’s not enough to fill a whole cereal box—after all, there’s only one “Great Illinois Corn Flake.”

The corn flake was discovered in 2008 by a 15-year-old in Chesapeake who, likely unaware of the monumental importance of her discovery, noted that it looked like Illinois. The significance of this fine anthropological relic, of course, is that Illinois is the second-largest producer of corn in the US.

It soon found its way to eBay, where it was offered with a jewelry box and free shipping. Unfortunately, their first attempt to sell the Great Flake—an auction that reportedly reached $200,000—was barred by eBay’s food policy. They were, however, able to work around the policy by instead selling a coupon redeemable for one Great Illinois Corn Flake. The coupon was sold to TriviaMania.com for $1,350.

Of course, the story of the corn flake’s origin could just have been a marketing ploy like the world’s most expensive french fry.

Cheese is probably the most popular dairy product in the world, a food that predates written history. In 2004 alone, over 18 million metric tons of cheese were produced worldwide. The world’s most expensive cheeses, however, are a little harder to come by.

One expensive cheese is only produced at one farm and at a very specific time of year. Unusually, the cheese isn’t made from cow’s milk—the milk comes from moose! Moose House, a 59-acre moose farm located in northern Sweden, is where the cheese is produced from three foundling moose named Gullan, Haelga, and Juna.

The moose are unusually tame, which is the only reason Moose House owners Christopher and Ulla Johannson can collect milk for the cheese. Even then, they can only be milked between May and September and the process takes about 2 hours per animal, hence the outstanding price of the cheese.

The moose cheese is 12% fat and 12% protein and only about 660 lbs are produced annually. The Johannsons sell it to high end Swedish hotels and restaurants for about $500 per pound.

If you’re surprised that moose cheese is so expensive, then you’ll be floored by Pule, the most expensive cheese in the world.

Pule comes from the Zasavica reserve north of Belgrade, capital of Serbia. A kilogram of the smoked cheese is priced at €1,000—around $616 per pound—but has no special ingredients beyond 25 liters of donkey milk.

Yeah, you read that right—donkey milk. The cheese even gets its name from the animals, as pule is the Serbian word for foal.

The milk is collected from 100 Balkan donkeys that make their home in the Zasavica Special Nature Reserve. The cheese is low in milk fat which, according to the reserve’s manager, is why no one else is making it.

Their success with pule has even spurred the reserve’s staff to find more applications for donkey milk, from cosmetics to a special donkey milk liqueur.

by Hunter Davis and Jeremy Harris

Bottled water is big business–I mean, really big. In less than ten years, bottled water consumption has doubled, with prices about 100 times that of tap water. Whether you think bottled water is healthier or it tastes better, or even if you happily drink tap water, it’s clear that bottled water is here to stay.

Bling h2o – $40+ per 750 ml bottle

Hollywood writer-producer Kevin G. Boyd tapped into the bottled water market with an image approach. His water, Bling h2o, has been spotted in the hands of numerous celebrities and even at awards ceremonies like the Emmy’s, Grammy’s, and the MTV Video Music Awards.

The water is bottled in Dandridge, Tennessee, probably the least notable quality of the most expensive bottled water. Boyd’s approach to the bottled water market is as extreme as the limited edition bottles themselves. They come frosted, corked, and boasting hand-applied Swarovski crystal. Bling H20 boasts that it has won the gold medal at the Berkely Springs International Water Tasting Festival with its nine-step purification process. If you are a water elitist, be prepared to spend $40-60 for a 750ml bottle. If you are buying your expensive bottled water at a club, be prepared to spend more.

Hawaiian deep seawater – $33.50 per 2 oz bottle

This seawater is so lucrative that the Hawaiian government is now allowing bottlers to use a state-certified logo for their deep seawater for a nominal fee. Hawaii Deep Marine Inc.’s Kona Nigari water, for instance, sells for $33.50 per 2 oz bottle. It’s extracted from a depth of 915 feet, over 700 feet more than is necessary for the water to be considered deep seawater.

Acqua di Cristallo Tributo a Modigliani – $60,000 for a 1.25 ml bottle

The world’s most expensive bottle of water is truly unique. Designed by Fernando Altamirano of Tequila Ley, who holds the records for the world’s most expensive tequila and cognac bottles, the 24k gold-coated bottle is based on the work of late Italian painter and sculptor Amedeo Clemente Modigliani. It holds 1.25 ml of blended spring water from France and the Fiji Islands, as well as glacier water from Iceland.

The world’s most expensive bottled water went up for auction on March 4th, 2010. Proceeds from the auction went to the Planet Foundation.

Altamirano also produced a similar “dummy” bottle of gold, silver and platinum festooned with 6,000 diamonds. It was valued at $3.3 million.

If you’ve never been to a restaurant that serves genuine ramen, you’re likely to think of ramen as the cheapest of all foods—a brick of instant noodles accompanied by a sodium-rich flavor packet, all for about twenty-five cents. It shouldn’t be too surprising, however, that the most expensive ramen in the world is something completely different.

At the ultra-exclusive Fujimaki Gekijyo restaurant in Tokyo, patrons can feast on the Five-Taste Blend Imperial Noodles. The dish is made with over twenty ingredients, including high quality Chinese stock as well as another, spicier stock inspired by Thai tom yum soup. A bowl of Fujimaki’s exquisite ramen sells for a jaw-dropping $110.

Fujimaki Gekijyo is an omakase (i.e. menu-less), reservation-only restaurant that is only accessible to guest who have already dined at one of owner Shoichi Fujimaki’s less expensive restaurants. American diners will be able to try the expensive ramen when Fujimaki opens a restaurant in Los Angeles in August, 2010.

Tacos are undoubtedly one of the cheaper foods in life, but that doesn’t mean they can’t get the Most Expensive treatment. All you have to do is add gold and diamonds and voila—you have the most expensive taco in the world.

In this case, the “gold and diamonds” were actually hunks of filet mignon. Offered by Brentwood Restaurant and Lounge in Los Angeles, this fancy fare was a specialty entrée accompanied by pico de gallo, vegetable rice and black beans. Unfortunately, this expensive taco is not present on Brentwood’s online menu and we can only assume that it is no longer offered.

Brentwood’s filet mignon taco entrée had a price of $38.50. That may not seem like much, but we’re talking about tacos here. If you know of a more expensive taco, though, let us know.

The bluefin tuna is a species in decline. While the Pacific variety isn’t as endangered as the West Atlantic bluefin, it’s quite telling that half of the 600 devices that researchers from Tag-A-Giant attached to Pacific bluefins were returned to the New York-based operation by fishermen seeking the $500 reward for each device. Combine the pressure from fishing with the weather experienced in the region this year and you have a species that may not be around to see 2010.

It certainly doesn’t help that it’s such a tasty fish.

In early 2009, a 282-pound bluefin caught off the northern coast of Oma was sold to a pair of rival restaurateurs who set aside their differences to procure the massive fish for $100,000. In 2001, a 440-pound tuna was sold for the phenomenal price of $220,000.

In 2010, however, the 440-pound tuna’s record was beaten by the sale of a gargantuan 513-pound bluefin. Sold at Tokyo’s Tsukiji market, the most expensive tuna in the world was also purchased by a confederacy of restaurateurs—this time the owners of two sushi restaurants in Japan and the owner of one in Hong Kong.

Part of the reason for these phenomenal prices, of course, is the bluefin’s rarity. While forty-one bluefin tuna were sold at a 2008 auction, only three were sold at the same auction in 2009. The economic crisis, however, may have been a boon for the bluefin population as consumers found the fish too rich for their wallets. In adition, The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas reduced the quota for the 2010 catch to 13,500 tons—around two-thirds of the former quota.

Still, offering a reward for the prize in the fish’s belly might not have been such a good idea after all.

A bluefin tuna fish.

To the rest of us, hot sauce aficionados may seem a little crazy. The hottest of sauces may seem like bottled pain to us, but to them it’s a delectable condiment. Luckily for us, the most expensive hot sauce in the world isn’t one of those.

Cackalacky Spice Sauce is rated fewer than 1,000 units on the Scoville scale, which measures the capsaicin content—or “heat”—of a hot sauce or pepper and tops out at 16,000,000 for pure capsaicin. What it lacks in piquancy, though, it makes up for in flavor. According to the CEO and President of Peppers.com, who hold a Guinness World Record for the world’s largest hot sauce collection, Cackalacky is “the best tasting spice sauce commercially available.” The sauce is flavored with yams, burgundy wine, aged chiles and other spices.

Of course, Cackalacky Spice Sauce alone is only $5.99 for a bottle. In 2005, however, Cackalacky released its Single-Batch Private Reserve Stock. The Private Reserve came in a five-ounce bottle, autographed by Cackalacky’s brand creator and “Ambassador of Good Taste,” Page Skelton. It sold for an eye-popping $98,786.

This isn’t Cacklacky’s first off-the-wall promotion. The company’s website also features recipes for Spiced Barbecue Ice Cream and Spiced Chicken Lollipops.

Gin is made by flavoring pure grain alcohol with juniper berries and other natural flavors. While it hasn’t been as popular in mixed drinks as vodka, gin has made something of a comeback in recent years. It’s no surprise, then, that the most expensive gin bottle in the world was produced in 2008.

Bombay Spirits Co.’s Bombay Sapphire brand of gin is flavored with almond, lemon peel, liquorice, orris root, angelica, coriander, cassia, cubeb, grains of paradise and, of course, juniper berries. When Bombay Spirits teamed up with jewelers Baccarat and Garrard and designer Karim Rashid, the result was Revelation.

Five Revelation bottles were created—each one a handmade crystal bottle topped with a bejeweled stopper with a sapphire centerpiece. The collection was unveiled at Garrard’s in London and then sold at five different airports.

Each bottle had a price of $200,000.

Chicken is often one of the cheaper meats at the grocery store, but you can still pay a premium price for the poultry if you try hard enough. Bresse chickens, from their namesake area in France, are valued for their gamey flavor and tender flesh while Silkie chickens are valued as show chickens for their almost mammalian plumage. The Sussex chickens offered by Greenfire Farms, however, may be the most expensive chickens in the world.

Sussex chickens are a dual-purpose breed. They’re useful for both their egg-laying capacity—up to 250 eggs per year—and their fat, meaty bodies. As the breed’s name suggests, the Sussex chicken comes from Sussex County in England and only four of the eight different varieties of Sussex chicken are widely available in the US.

Greenfire Farms offers two of the varieties less common in the US, the Silver Sussex and the Coronation Sussex, for a hefty price. The Silver is black with prevalent streaks of white and silver while the Coronation is an almost opalescent white. Greenfire offers both of these bloodlines at $750 for six day-old chicks.

Coronation and Silver Sussex chickens

A West End stage production of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, featuring Anna Friel in Audrey Hepburn’s iconic role, has opened this month and Chambord has crafted the most expensive breakfast in the world to mark the occasion.

Chambord, known for their black raspberry liqueur, has combined the culinary arts and the jeweler’s craft with a croissant embellished with edible gold and diamonds, as well as Bar le Duc hand-seeded redcurrant jam. The meal also includes Kopi Luwak—the world’s most expensive coffee—and a Chambord and Perrier Jouet Belle Epoque champagne cocktail worth over $30,000. As if that wasn’t extravagant enough, the Chambord is served from a gold, diamond and pearl-encrusted bottle worth $2.4 million.

Should you wish to enjoy this breakfast of champions, it’ll set you back nearly $35,000. If you plan on taking in the show afterwards, however, be sure not to snap any pics of Anna Friel’s nude scene—the ushers have been instructed to confiscate any phones or cameras used for such nefarious deeds.

It’s not just the world’s most expensive potato; it’s one of the world’s five most expensive foods. It’s called La Bonnotte and it grows only on the French Isle of Noirmoutier.

The costly tuber owes its price to the fact that it must be harvested by hand and that its growing season lasts a mere ten days—from May 1st to May 10th. La Bonnotte is so fragile, in fact, that it would’ve gone extinct between World Wars I and II if not for a group of devotees to the pricey potato.

The potato’s flavor is said to be both earthy and salty, owing its complexities at least partially to the presence of algae and seaweed in the soil.

La Bonnotte can be purchased from ritzy restaurants in France and the Netherlands until around May 15th. While normally sold for around €70 per kilo (US $45 per pound), the potato has been sold for up to €500 per kilo (US $322 per pound).

via Fresh Plaza

Harrods, London’s premier department store, now carries a most luxurious loaf. Britain’s most expensive bread and, if you believe some of the hype surrounding it, the most expensive bread in the world, the Roquefort and Almond sourdough is created with some of the finest ingredients money can buy.

Master baker Paul Hollywood, creator of the bread, calls it the “Rolls-Royce of loafs.” The bread, which contains no additives and no artificial flavors, is made with grade A flour from a specialist miller and France’s finest Roquefort cheese.

The bread, recognized as Britain’s most expensive by the National Association of Master Bakers, will be sold at Harrods for £15 (US $24.50). They expect the bread will do particularly well during the holiday season.

In 2005, a couple named Mike and Liz started a blog about a special french fry they’d found at McDonald’s. The fry, which they had dubbed the Lincoln Fry, featured a near perfect profile of the sixteenth president as seen on the common penny. It was also seen in an “amateur” commercial during that year’s Super Bowl XXXIX.

Of course, the story was completely fabricated. It was concocted by McDonald’s as a viral marketing campaign and the Lincoln Fry itself was made from polyurethane plastic.

That didn’t stop GoldenPalace.com—an online casino that, for some reason, thinks I’m in Kentucky—from purchasing the 4-inch french fry for a nationwide tour alongside the “Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich.” The casino secured the world’s most expensive french fry at auction for $75,100.

Proceeds from the Yahoo! auction went to Ronald McDonald House charities.

As the Dow Jones slouches toward 9,000, WinePrices’ has published their Fine Wines 100 Index for April of 2009. The Fine Wines 100 Index “is based on the most actively traded wines at global auctions as compiled by WinePrices.com.” We’ve pulled the top five best performing wines from the list to give you a taste of something just a little bit different from our usual, most expensive fare.

1996 Latour
Index Value: 238.34

One of only four Châteaux to achieve First Growth status in the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855, Château Latour received its name from a garrison tower that stood on its grounds until its destruction during the Battle of Castillon in 1453. The 1996 Latour, with an average value of $543.55, is April’s fifth best performing wine.

1982 Mission Haut-Brion
Index value: 248.56

Château la Mission Haut-Brion, located in the Graves region near the city of Bordeaux, produces one of the 1953 Graves Classification’s Grand Crus. The vineyard has been operated since the 16th century and spent 130 years in the hands of the Pères Lazarists of the Mission of Saint-Vincent de Paul. The 1982 vintage has an average value of $878.21

Lafite-Rothschild
Highest Index Value: 354.16

The three best performing wines of April, 2009 were produced at Château Lafite Rothschild in the Médoc region northwest of Bordeaux, currently owned by the French branch of the affluent Rothschild banking family. Château Lafite is the first on the list of Châteaux to achieve First Growth status in the 1855 Classification and the same vineyard produced one of the world’s most expensive wine bottles, the famed “Th.J” bottle thought to have once been owned by Thomas Jefferson. The best performing and most valued vintage was the 1982 Lafite-Rothschild with an average value of $2,143.88. Second and third place went to the 2000 and 1998 vintages, respectively.

Some may have you believe that the world’s most expensive mushroom is the white truffle. While that rare fungus is truly expensive, it lacks one important quality—it’s not a freakin’ mushroom. Now that we’ve cleared that up, Japan’s matsutake mushroom can take its place as the most expensive mushroom in the world.

The matsutake, or mattake, mushroom is expensive because of its rarity. While its historical prevalence meant it was nearly synonymous with autumn in Japan, the introduction of an insect that kills the trees under which the mushroom grows has caused a dramatic decrease in the number of matsutake mushrooms. A method for farming the matsutake has yet to be developed, which means the lack of trees from which to harvest these mushrooms naturally is a serious problem for the species.

The world’s most expensive mushroom can be purchased for around $1,000 per pound, though prices for specific mushrooms may reach up to $2,000 per pound. It is known more for its spiced, fruity aroma than its flavor and is a cherished gift in the Japanese corporate world.

It’s only available at Mélisse in Santa Monica, CA and even then only between October and December. It’s the most expensive macaroni and cheese in the world and it’s a far cry from Velveeta Shells and Cheese.

The decadent dish is just one example of Chef Josiah Citrin’s cuisine, blend of traditional French and modern American that has made Mélisse a Mobil Travel Guide 4-star recipient for 8 years. The macaroni and cheese is Chef Josiah’s fresh tagliatelle covered with a hefty portion of white truffle, brown butter truffle froth and grated parmesan cheese.

The white truffles are the reason it’s available for a mere three months of the year—during the truffle season—and the most likely culprit for the most expensive macaroni and cheese’s $95 price tag.

An Indian restaurant in London is celebrating the DVD release of Slumdog Millionaire in its own, special way. It’s called Samundari Khazana—“seafood treasure”—and, at £2,000, it’s the most expensive curry in the world.

Bombay Brassiere has packed this platter full of the most expensive ingredients they could find. Devon crab and white truffle and a half tomato filled with Beluga caviar and dressed with gold leaf are just the start of this lavish dish. A Scottish lobster, also coated with gold, four abalone and four shelled and hollowed quails’ eggs filled with even more caviar round out the dish.

Bombay Brassiere’s head chef, Prahlad Hegde, expects to sell the dish despite the recession that makes the £2,000—over US $3,200—price tag seem ludicrous to some. Regardless of its success as a standalone dish, the hype surrounding the world’s most expensive curry will undoubtedly bring some new faces to the Brassiere.

In its original form, the word “whisky” meant “water of life.” I’m sure some of you readers out there will agree with that sentiment. Luckily for you, there’s quite a variety of different whiskies (or “whiskeys,” if we’re talking about American or Irish liquors). Check out the most expensive whiskies in these popular varieties.

The Most Expensive Bourbon Whiskey
$300

The most expensive Bourbon is the 16 Year Old A. H. Hirsch Reserve, one of the few remaining examples of the Kentucky pot-still tradition.

The Most Expensive Canadian Whisky
$10,000

The world’s most expensive Canadian rye whiskey was presented to Queen Elizabeth II at the Kentucky Derby in 2007. If it were sold, it would be expected to go for over $10,000

The Most Expensive Scotch Whisky
$58,000

The world’s most expensive Scotch whisky is a Dalmore 62 Highland Malt Scotch Whisky sold to an anonymous buyer and, reportedly, shared with five of his friends in 2005.

The Most Expensive Irish Whiskey
$143,020

One of the last remaining whiskeys from the Nun’s Island Distillery in Galway, Ireland, this particular elixir is still up for sale at £100,000. If purchased, it will be the most expensive whiskey ever sold.

When the heir of the Persse family estate, including the Nun’s Island Distillery in Galway, Ireland, decided to pursue racehorse training instead of continuing the family business, he probably didn’t realize he was creating what may be the world’s most expensive Irish whiskey—that is, if anyone ever buys it.

According to whisky seller Ken Thomas’ story of the expensive bottle, it was brought to him by a customer who had inherited it from a lady friend of the Persse heir. Dating from the late 1800s, the 25 Year Old Pure Pot Still Whiskey was one of the last bottles produced by the Nun’s Island Distillery, which closed its doors around 1913.

Thomas’ Arkwrights Whisky and Wines store is offering the bottle, on behalf of its owner, for £100,000 (US $143,020). If it sells at that price, it won’t just be the most expensive Irish whiskey ever sold—it’ll be the overall most expensive whisky ever sold.

Canadian rye whisky doesn’t quite have the prestige of its Scotch cousin, but it still has its moments. One such moment happened at the 2007 Kentucky Derby, when the attending Queen Elizabeth II was presented with the world’s most expensive Canadian whisky.

“Canadian whisky” refers to any whisky that is mashed, distilled and aged at least three years in a 700 L or smaller wooden barrel, all within Canadian borders. By Canadian law, any such whisky may also be labeled “rye whisky”—even if low rye content would prevent it from being labeled such elsewhere. Crown Royal Canadian Blended Whisky, one of the most popular Canadian whiskies, was originally brewed in 1939 to commemorate the first Royal Tour of Canada by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (the late Queen Mother). The Crown Royal brand is now owned by Diageo, the world’s largest producer of spirits.

The presentation of Crown Royal’s Extra Rare Heritage Blend to Her Royal Majesty hearkens back to that inaugural event. The expensive whisky’s high rye content can be attributed to the rare barrels selected by Crown Royal’s master blender, Andrew MacKay, who supervised its production. In deference to the venue chosen for the presentation of the exclusive blend, Diageo commissioned Casey Hyland of Glassworks in Louisville to create the bottle, which is etched with 24-karat gold leaf for lettering.

While the most expensive Canadian whisky in the world is obviously not for sale, it has an estimated value of over $10,000.

Bourbon whiskey, like Champagne, is named after the region from which it comes—Bourbon, Kentucky. Unlike Champagne, however, Bourbon’s production isn’t limited to its home region. While it is still made primarily in Kentucky, Bourbon can be distilled anywhere in the US.

Currently, the most expensive Bourbon is the 16 year old A. H. Hirsch Reserve. This smooth whiskey was distilled at Michter’s Distillery in Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania in 1974 and left to mature until it was bottled in 1990. In fact, this particular whiskey is one of the few remaining examples of whiskeys distilled in the Kentucky pot-still tradition. A 750ML bottle of the 16 year old Reserve may cost up to $300.

Another expensive Bourbon, Evan Williams’ 23 year old, was reported by Forbes to be the most expensive in 2006 at $350. It has since gone down in price, however, and may be had for less than $200.