Ready to elevate your meals to restaurant-quality dishes? We asked six chefs about the Asian pantry essentials they stock both at home and at their restaurants. Plus: Maker's Mark is known for their signature bourbon with the red wax cap. But what about their new wheat whiskey?

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‍These Asian Pantry Staples Will Bring Restaurant-Quality Flavor to Your Cooking

BY ZOE DE LEON

It’s an exciting time to dine out in America. Concepts like Korean steakhouses, South Indian tasting menus and Filipino bakeries are just a few of the creative new restaurants that are cropping up across the country and introducing the culinary diversity of Asia. Their success is revealing: American diners are hungry for international flavors.

Although restaurant menus reflect a wider range of cultures than ever before, global flavors remain underrepresented in home cooking. This was recently brought to my attention when my boyfriend’s childhood friend visited us in NYC. Seeing staples like sesame oil and Kewpie mayo in my cupboard, he confessed that while he’d love to expand his cooking repertoire with new flavors, he wouldn’t know where to start. Having grown up together in a predominantly white suburb, their diets are admittedly fueled by a familiar rotation: homemade BECs, chicken wings, leftover pizza — you get the idea.

My mind began swirling with ideas. It’s easier than you think to give everyday recipes flavor that you might typically attribute to dining out, and it all starts by bringing in a few new ingredients.

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Maker’s Mark Releases Its First Non-Bourbon

What we’re drinking: Star Hill Farm Whisky 2025

Where it’s from: Launched in 1953, Maker’s Mark is best known for their signature square-ish bottles that are hand-dipped in red wax and the use of soft red winter wheat in their bourbon mash bill. Maker’s is also the world’s largest B Corp-certified distillery and utilizes sustainable agriculture practices at their home of Star Hill Farm, all of which plays a large role in their new expression.

Why we’re drinking this: Maker’s Mark has famously only ever used one mash bill (70% corn, 16% soft winter wheat and 14% malted barley). So why is the distillery suddenly introducing a wheat whisky (no corn!) and their first new offshoot brand in more than 70 years?

Timex Reissued the Same Watch My Dad Wore in the Army

BY OREN HARTOV

Back in the late 1970s, my old man was about to enter the military, and he needed a watch.

A recent college graduate with a degree in, ahem, theater — the apple, which has a degree in music, doesn’t fall far from the tree — he didn’t have much cash for this purchase. Turning to my grandfather, the old old man, himself a teacher and not a wealthy guy, kindly obliged by purchasing him a timepiece for use during his service. The watch? A base-metal automatic Timex. I remember when my father first told me this story, on the eve of my own entrance into his old battalion; we both laughed.

It turned out the joke was on us.