When clocks strike midnight on New Year’s Eve in Spain and parts of Latin America, many revelers are too busy to pop champagne, set off fireworks, or kiss their spouse. Instead, they’re stuffing 12 green grapes in their mouths—an attempt to ward off bad luck in the new year. A common story traces the tradition of the twelve lucky grapes, or uvas de la suerte, to grape farmers in Alicante, Spain, who cannily suggested the idea when they had a surplus harvest to unload in the early 1900s. But according to…
