With all the collapsing and quitting that went on last week, you can understand why the Great British Bake-Off contestants sometimes take a swig of their gateaux-destined kirsch.
But if we want to talk about boozy food shows, surely Saturday Kitchen should come to our mind first.
The show, which goes on air at 10am on (you guessed it) Saturday, frequently sees its guests holding a cheeky glass or two of vino.
But a listener to behind-the-scenes showbiz podcast The Rest Is Entertainment wanted to ask co-host Richard Osman, who’d appeared on the BBC show, when the drinking really kicks off.
After all, “if there’s a rehearsal before the actual show... that would be quite a session before the weekend has even begun,” the listener commented.
When do they crack open the bottle?
Richard confirmed that the show does have a rehearsal at least for the chefs, as that part is so “technical.”
He added, “I know they definitely do drink the wine during the rehearsal because when we were drinking some red wine on the show I was on, someone said ‘this tastes so much better than it did earlier because it’s been allowed to breathe.’”
You start around 10, he said.
Journalist Marina Hyde joked to her co-host that it’s like Christmas day, which the Thursday Murder Club author agreed with.
It “doesn’t touch the sides” on the TV show, he added.
How do they stay sober enough to present?
Even though the drinking starts early, Richard stressed that “the truth is you don’t drink an awful lot of it.”
“You don’t eat a lot of the food either,” he added.
He said that Olly Smith was the wine expert on his show, and he paired a bottle with each of the four dishes.
“You only have a little sip,” he said, explaining that his wine glass was taken away from him after a certain point. “You feel it a tiny bit,” he said.
Richard added that when he was on Sunday Brunch a few years ago, “they did hot gin cocktails at 11 in the morning. We really knocked those back.”
“By the end of that, everyone was kind of like, ‘OK, that’s interesting...’” he revealed.
So if you’re ever after an early morning telly booze-up, it seems Sunday is a safer bet...