Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends: may your turkey be perfect, your pie portions criminal, and your stories loud enough to retell for years.

The rest of us are already neck-deep in the annual pre-Christmas panic, sprinting to clear the decks before the fairy lights go up and the world collectively clocks out.

So, while there’s still a sliver of calm left in 2025, steal it. Grab a cuppa, burrow into something unforgivably cosy, and let’s tuck in:

Angelique

AI Chef Takeover

The new Woohoo restaurant in Dubai is handing the entire evening (menu, mood, service) to an AI chef. Diners surrender control and walk out with a dinner story that sounds made-up when they retell it.

Does handing the soul of hospitality to an algorithm speak of 2025 hubris? Or is this the future of food?

Trading-Card Cocktails

At TCG & Board Games’ Cafe & Bar Fun, you hand over a prized Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Magic or One Piece card and the bartender scans its palette, energy and lore, then builds a drink that tastes and looks like the card stepped off the table and into your glass.

Now this is service I can get behind: the kind that takes our weirdest, longest-running passions and says, “Yes, I see you — let me build you something.”

Home Alone Suite

New York’s Plaza Hotel is selling a Home Alone 2 stay that recreates Kevin McCallister’s on-screen holiday. Room, view, room service, the lot. Guests basically buy access to a childhood fantasy and then sleep inside it.

Which scene from culture are your customers secretly trying to live inside? And how could you let them book it?

Savoury & Sweet Mash Ups

OREOiD’s Thanksgiving Dinner Cookie Tin launched with six fudge-dipped flavours that compress the entire holiday plate (Turkey & Stuffing, Creamed Corn, Cranberry Sauce, Sweet Potato, Pumpkin Pie, Caramel Apple Pie) into one sweet bundle that sold out in hours.

Why? They bought it to survive the dare, film the grimace, and own the strangest flex of the season. Curiosity + FOMO + social currency, all dipped in chocolate.

Seasonal Push Notifications

Molson Coors is teaming up with 136 Greene King pubs across the UK to give away free pints of Coors whenever the temperature drops under 5°C this winter. One pint per person and a shot at a three-day Reykjavik trip turn a grim forecast into a reason to head to the pub, helping venues keep energy and spend flowing through the quieter, colder weeks.

Bad weather just became the push notification we might actually enjoy.

So McBenz

A truffle burger and an all-electric CLA sedan launch together as “So McBenz”. The car hides in McDonald’s posters and sits under the arches. The burger wrapper gets Mercedes matte-black treatment.

Luxury just moved into the drive-thru. Expensive enough to flex. Cheap enough to eat. Gone before anyone can accuse it of trying too hard.

Cookie-Shaped Vape

Muha Meds x Cookies just launched a THC disposable shaped exactly like a chocolate-chip cookie with a “bite” window that shows how much oil is left. It sold out in hours, and was posted everywhere for being vice in disguis.

One TikTok of this in a 15-year-old’s backpack and the entire category takes the hit. How far can you push “playful” before it becomes a regulator’s Exhibit A?

Camera-Roll Matchmaker

New opt-in alert: Tinder’s AI peeks at their users’ actual camera roll (messy nights, dog spam, gig shots, closet chaos) and uses it to serve just a handful of matches who live in the same uncurated universe as you.

Perfect profiles just died. “Your life looks like my life” is the new love language.

The Signal Behind All The Noise

We’re hunting moments that feel alive. Theatrical, mischievous, weirdly seen.

We want to hand over a trading card and drink our obsession.

We want luxury with our fries, a dare with our dessert, a match who recognises the mess on our camera roll.

The future belongs to the brands that makes us whisper, “Finally… someone gets it,” and then hands us the exact feeling we didn’t know how to ask for.

Now go build that feeling, before someone else does.

Last Tuesday we migrated to our new hosting platform on Substack. Hopefully, you already received it and marked the new email (Angelique Green [email protected]) as safe so it doesn’t vanish into spam. If you have any trouble as we switch over let me know: [email protected].

Here’s what stays the same:

And what gets better:

A huge thank you for being here so far. I’m excited to give this thing a home that makes it easier to explore, engage, and generally revel in all things pleasure.