You know why you never see any of these YouTube cooking videos, or cookbook recipes, calling for the use of “cooking wine?” That’s because these “cooking wines” we see in the stores are simply terrible. Julia Child said we should only cook with a liquor we are willing to drink ourselves, and why would we want to drink one of these watered down, salty “cooking wines” when we can just as easily cook with, and drink, real wine? The discount wine rack at the local liquor store sells cheap wines that cost just as much as these “cooking wines”, which means we’re not spending any more money if we use cheap, but real, wine in our cooking.