2015 Holiday Gift Guide - Wine & Spirits Magazine
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2015 Holiday Gift Guide


We’ve got your gift needs covered this holiday season. In addition to The Goods, here are a few more suggestions that missed our print deadline.

Sloshed Snowmen from Chocolats Latour arrive in a tidy package with four distinct flavors: Gin and Juniper; Cassis and Eggplant; Bourbon, Coffee and Orange; or White Whiskey, Grapefruit and Thyme.

 

 

 

Marcelli Formaggi imports organic, small production Italian cheeses, like Caciocavallos from Pezzata Rossa and Podolico Colantuano. Both carry a tang and deep depth of flavor at home on a holiday cheeseboard. We’re always looking for exciting new cheese to pair with our favorite wines: try either of these with a glass of the Leitz 2014 Rheingau Rudesheimer Magdalenenkreuz Riesling Spatlese, or Aphros 2009 Vinho Verde Loureiro Reserva Bruto.

 

The portable Goverre holds liquids, hot or cold, with a sealable top. Drink through the lid, or open up for a casual stemless container. Sealed up tight, the glass is a step above a flask or half-empty bottle.

 

 

 

Magnus Nilsson, chef-owner of Fäviken,in Sweden, has complied The Nordic Cookbook, an extensive tome on the shared cultures and cuisines of Nordic countries, including the drinking culture of aquavit, punsch, glog and more, complete with recipes.

 

 


Read Between the Wine breaks the ice at any holiday party, its playing cards designed to push guests to write tasting notes and think more deeply about the liquid in their glass without taking any of it too seriously.

 

 


Made in Minnesota, the Barwhere Day Pack is a godsend when schlepping wine or these attractive growlers around town: with a removable sleeve to keep bottles from clanking, there’s also space for your laptop or the latest issue of W&S.

 

 

 

Jam makers Vicky Allard and Joe Hanglin at Blake Hill Preserves in Vermont have teamed up with nearby cheesemaker Jasper Hill Farm to introduce a line of booze-infused jams designed to complement cheese. Port gives depth to the plum, raisin and apple confit, designed for blues; single-malt Scotch adds a smoky savor to the bitter orange marmalade (for cheddar); and muscat adds a floral lift to the raspberry mostarda, created to meld with bloomy-rind cheeses like Camembert and Robiola.

 


Wine writer Elaine Chukan Brown, who blogs under the nom de plume Lily-Elaine Hawk Wakawaka, has been putting pen and pencil to paper lately, designing t-shirts and posters. This hand-drawn rendering of the eight central treatments of biodynamic farming—from the horn filled with cow dung (Prep 500) to tea made out of the primordial horsetail plant (Prep 508)—is a helpful and colorful reference to have on hand, especially if your library of biodynamic tomes is a bit thin.


At Stick With Me Sweets, a tiny storefront in NYC’s Nolita neighborhood, Susanna Yoon, former Per Se chocolatier, marries chocolate and alcohol to exceptional effect. The bonbons are the most eye-catching, their vibrantly colored, hand-painted domes hiding a constantly rotating cast of flavors, like matcha green tea and bourbon maple pecan; the truffles, based on Valrhona ganache and dusted in bitter cocoa, are less sweet but just as compelling, available in soju, sake or Champagne versions.

This is a W&S web exclusive feature.

Caitlin Griffith knew her future career would entail food and drink when, at the age of six, she munched an anchovy from her father’s Caesar salad thinking it as a small strip of bacon—and was more than pleasantly surprised. While enrolled in New York University’s Food Studies program, she learned the secrets of affinage in the caves of Murray’s Cheese.