Finally, the perfect gift!
Now you can give a floral bouquet to your friends who would rather you buy them a drink instead.
These attractive arrangements are currently offered in your choice of Strawberry Floral Margarita, Margarita Bouquet, Cosmopolitan Bouquet, Beer Mug of Blooms, Mini-margarita Bouquet, Apple Martini Bouquet, and Champagne Wishes.
Moet & Chandon has a new service where you can bedazzle your bottle with Swarovski crystals for gifting or keeping. You can choose from a 750ml or 1.75 liter bottle and a couple of types of champagne, and pick one or (on the 1.75) two lines of text up to seven letters each. Bottles are ready in three business days and shipped from New York. The price starts at around $100.
At the MyMoet website, you can play with the application and see how it looks. Here's a bottle I made. I also made some others with swear words, because I am about as mature as a twelve year old.
Gift Week on Alcademics continues with Frivolous Friday- the day for expensive and awesome stuff!
Eventually you fill all of your kitchen cabinets and need to start storing bottles in the living room, which is where this Modine Bar from Pottery Barn comes in. It has hidden wheels, a built-in drip tray, and stores tons of booze as well as bartending accessories and glassware. Be sure to order it by December 15th to get it to my house by Christmas.
Want something a little smaller? Then how about this three-pack of Dom Perignon? It has one each of Dom Pérignon Vintage 2000, Dom Pérignon Œnothèque Vintage 1995 and Dom Pérignon Rosé Vintage 1998. It would make a lovely gift for me and will only set you back $1500.
A relative bargain for this page at $320 is the Remy Martin 1989 Cognac. Most all cognacs emphasize the art of blending between different years, but not so this single-vintage bottling, the first by Remy released in the US since 1965. I have the remnants of a bottle at home and can tell you that it is so very, very delicious I hide it in the back of my liquor cabinet so that I don't drink it empty. It's definitely in the top spirits I've had all year and I am getting so darn thirsty writing about it that I'm going to have a glass of it right now.
One product that sounds expensive just for the sake of being expensive is The Last Drop 1960 Vintage. The story goes like this: in 1970 someone made a blended whisky of 70 malt whiskies and 12 grain whiskies, then stuck the blend in sherry barrels and let it sit for 36 years. Now there are 1347 bottles in total of it and they're charging appropriately: The stuff goes for $2,000 per bottle. I would dismiss it entirely as a marketing gimmick if not for the awesomely great 95 rating it was given by Malt Advocate. Now I just want a little sip. Little sip?
Today on Gift Week we go local- most of the gifts here are useful for San Francisco gift givers or receivers.
A gift certificate to Omnivore Books, or a trip there to pick out some books yourself. I haven't even been to Omnivore Books on Food yet and I already love it. They carry vintage and new books on food and drink. It looks like they have vintage copies of A Cordiall Water by M.F.K. Fisher, Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks by William Terrington.
A gift certificate to Bourbon & Branch, the Beverage Academy, or Cask Spirits. That's right, the same gift certificate can be spent on drinks at the bar or a class at the Beverage Academy or on liquor and liquor accessories at the new store. That's drinks at a bar, drinks at home, or the knowledge to transfer from one to the other.
An aging barrel kit or single bottle of spirit with barrel stick from Monterey Rye Spirits. In either case, you get some "white dog" unaged rye spirit that you age yourself in the barrel or bottle. I see they have the bottles at BevMo but you may have to call around for the barrel kits.
Tres Agaves Cocktail-Ready Agave Nectar. Even lazy people need margaritas. With this agave nectar, which is already watered down to the proper sweetness level (others you usually need to dilute with water to make them easily mixable for drinks) you add an ounce from the bottle, and ounce of lime juice, and two ounces of tequila. Done. They may carry the nectar in a few liquor stores but definitely sell it in 750ml and larger bottles from the restaurant. You can also pick up a gift certificate good for food (and more importantly, drinks) a the venue.
Or just buy some locally-made booze. You can get gin from Anchor Distilling or 209 Gin or D.H. Krahn, or vodka and other spirits from Hangar One or Charbay.
As part of Gift Week here on Alcademics, today is Drinking Accessories Wednesday. So here are some gifts to keep or give to others:
A subscription to Imbibe Magazine. If you don't have one already you should hurry the heck up or else you won't get to read my giant feature in the January issue!
Fusebox from CrushPad- It's learning, it's drinking. All good. The kit has seven bottles of wine to play with- six for blending, and a mystery bottle you're supposed to guess what's in after you play with the others. The kit seems like a fun party game with four people- sounds perfect for nighttime at the ski cabin. Not that I ski.
Cylinda Line Cocktail Shaker from Design Within Reach. I haven't seen this shaker in person, but it's so very, very pretty in the picture.
Metrokane ice crusher- I also have a Lewis Bag for crushing ice but I don't always want to bother whacking at the thing. The hand-cranked ice crusher is fun and I can store it in the vegetable drawer when I'm not using it (since I don't bother with vegetables most of the time).
A giant 12 pound can of maraschino cherries. Then go to the dollar store and buy a bunch of jars to put small portions into and give them as gourmet party gifts.
Riedel Tequila Glass
A fresh citrus basket from an online vendor such as this or this or this one. Where I live in California, winter is an exciting time for citrus, but maybe your friends in Washington state or Minnesota are not so blessed. Send them a citrus basket and maybe even a book
Here are a few recommended bottles of booze to give as gifts or horde at home this holiday season. Today is Boozy Tuesday as part of Gift Week on Alcademics!
Bols Genever
Available in stores in New York and San Francisco, and on the internet everywhere else, Bols Genever is the latest genever to hit the US market. It's also probably the best one with which to mix.
Genever is a very old precursor to gin that tastes like unaged whisky with gin flavorings. It is malty/grainy, and doesn't exactly substitute for gin or for whisky in recipes, which puts it in a new (old) category of spirits. Most of the other genevers on the market are very light jonge genevers (not much malt content) or aged oude genevers (higher malt content). The Bols Genever is at the level of corenwijn- extra high malt content- but is unaged. It seems to me this hits the sweet spot- it's strongly flavorful so you know you're mixing with it, and it's not wood-aged so you know you're supposed to.
It's not just an historical anomaly, it's really delicious- even if you only make the Improved Holland Gin Cocktail (recipe here).
Pernod or Kubler Absinthe
There are now a ton of absinthes on the market, but you don't need ton
of different types of home. I think either of these are a great place
to start as they're easily drinkable on their own and they mix well
with others.
Glenmorangie Four-Pack
This gift pack of Glenmorangie expressions- the 10-year-old plus the port, sherry, and sauterns finishes- would make a fun way of trying each of them if you haven't had the pleasure already. The trouble may be finding the gift pack in stores.
Delamain Cognac Three-Pack
Another gift pack, this time for cognac lovers or explorers. It's a three-pack of 200ml bottles: one each of Pale & Dry, Vesper and Tres Venerable. This should set you back a little less than $100.
Glenrothes Three-Pack
Glenrothes makes the cutest bottles in the scotch whisky industry, and the minis are even more adorable. They're the shiba inu puppies of whisky. The liquid is tasty too- more on that next week- but really in this case it's all about the bottles.
Oban Distiller's Edition 1993
More scotch? Yes please. I tend to lose little sample bottles around the house (note to marketers: send huge bottles) and just popped open this one found behind my desk last week to have a wee nip. Then I said "Damn! That's a good nip!" It tastes like salt, sweet peach insides, and wet white slimey mold (in a good way), the latter flavor probably added by its time spent aging in fino sherry casks. For me this is a great sipping whisky- delicious enough to keep me coming back to the bottle, but intensely rich so that I don't want to drink the whole bottle in one sitting.
Multi-pack of Bitters
This might be fun as a gift for a friend just getting in to cocktails. It's a six-pack of Fee Brothers bitters from Kegworks. Or for the more advanced cocktailian, how about this Orange Bitters Collection
Stirrings "Cocktail Connoisseur" Set
While I think that anyone who orders this set is something less than a connoisseur, it will make a great gift to your friends who enjoy easy-to-make girly drinks. It's a set of drink flavorings in flavors of Apple Martini, Cosmopolitan, Margarita, Mojito, Pear Martini, Peach Bellini, Pomegranate, and Wild Blueberry.
I *do* have many other suggestions for spirits, but I have a story with nine more recommendations coming out in the San Francisco Bay Guardian soon. I'll link to it when it's online.
Hello, and welcome to Gift Week on Alcademics. It's a week of ideas for holiday presents, and also just an excuse to name a few things I like that I may not have mentioned before.
Here's the plan:
Monday is Book Day
Tuesday is Booze Day
Wednesday is Drinking Accessories Day
Thursday is Local Day
Friday is Frivolous Day
Hope you like it.
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