10 best alcoholic Christmas gifts
Ramp up the festive merriment with a brilliantly boozy present
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Your support makes all the difference.It's the palate cleansing foil to the rich pickings of the festive dinner table, the necessary neck oil required to eat a whole stollen slice in one sitting. It’s the social lubricant that gives us the courage to partake in painful games of charades. For some, it provides a necessary alcoholic fug to contend with a house full of relatives and over-excited children.
It’s also makes the best festive gift. There’s a drink to suit all tastes here… sing hallelujah and rejoice our boozy list.
1. Grey Goose Martini Gift Set: £64.99, Selfridges
At a time when most of the country's poultry population tries to keep a low profile, this flash, goosey gift set honks “BUY ME!”. A limited edition bottle of slick Grey Goose Vodka is flanked by two engraved martini glasses, a pair of goose-themed cocktail picks and a decent cocktail recipe book. The whole package is housed in a smart wooden box, engraved with the somewhat rose-tinted legend that reads “Let’s Raise a Toast To An Unforgettable Year”. Buy it in-store at Selfridges and they’ll personalise the box for you.
2. Foxdenton Christmas Liqueur: £23.50 for 70cl, Foxdenton Estate
A hip flask filled with this festive blended gin will put a spring in the step of anyone's Boxing Day walk. It’s a warming, delicious, berry-red booze made from a blend of fruit-infused gins from the Foxdenton range, with an added touch of rum and ginger for extra punch. Gin lovers might wish to explore Foxdenton’s other fruity offerings – its sloe gin is a cracker and the plum is far from duff.
3. Red Chateauneuf-du-Pape in Presentation Case with Accessories: £34.99, Virgin Wines
When Sir Cliff Richard eulogised about ‘Mistletoe and Wine’ in his festive ode to Christmas, this is the booze he must’ve had in mind – a big, luscious, ripe-cherry number, as red as Rudolph's nose. This booze bottle comes housed in a posh leatherette box along with a wine pourer, drip guard and sturdy corkscrew – gifts that’ll keep on giving, long after the wine has been guzzled.
4. Sipsmith Mince Pie Gin Set: £20, Sipsmith
Distilled from mincemeat (the fruity, festive kind), this deconstructed, liquid interpretation of a mince pie will flush the cheeks of the most ardent Christmas Grinch. Pop the cork on the 90ml bottle and you’ll be treated to smells of spruce trees and Nordic log cabins, with hints of cinnamon and buttery figgy pudding that bring the taste of Christmas to your chapped winter lips. For your money, you’ll also get a 50ml of Sipsmith’s fine London Dry Gin for good measure, all neatly packaged in a wrapping paper friendly box.
5. Delirium Tremens Gift Pack: £22.99, Beer Hawk
The pink elephants on the packaging should serve as a warning to those unfamiliar with the potency of this legendary Belgian beer. Delirium delivers big mouthfuls of boozy banana and cloves and finishes with a crisp citrus hit. This gift pack offers up four fine bottles to maximise merriment, and comes with a nice, elephant-flecked tulip glass from which to sup your beer. A gift guaranteed to add an exciting, unpredictable dimension to proceedings when coupled with a Christmas games of Twister.
6. Lagavulin 8 Year Old Whisky: £52.95 for 70cl, The Whisky Exchange
Want to give the gift of whisky, but baffled by choice? Fling your money at a bottle of this and you won't go wrong. This is one of the best from Islay you can buy – it's a dry, peaty fireside sipper with complex notes of sherry and Lapsang Souchong tea. It’s the perfect accompaniment to Hogmanay high jinks, and with judicious sipping, there should be plenty left in the bottle for haggis-toasting duties come Burns Night.
7. Mulled Wine Stag Jug with Spices: £17.99, Lakeland
Deliver the essence of Christmas by encouraging your pals to mull up some booze and release the winter-warming aromas contained within the five sachets belonging to this gift set. The hot ‘n’ spicy concoctions can be served in a splendid, stag-festooned jug, and there’s another pair of antlers woven into a neat spice pouch. All that’s left to mull over is whether to serve cider or wine.
8. Best of British Christmas Beer: £36.99 for 12 x 500ml bottles, Best of British Beer
Lots of beer retailers offer mixed cases for Christmas gifting but few manage to fill their boxes with as many genuine festive beers as Best of British. Hand-plucked from the nation’s finest microbreweries, which include the likes of Titanic, Cheddar Ales and Monty’s, your gleeful recipient can expect to find a great range of winter beer styles to keep their pint glass busy well into the new year.
9. The Scotch Malt Whisky Society Membership: from £61.50, The Scotch Malt Whisky Society
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society has the world’s widest collection of single cask whiskies, and this gift of membership opens up its treasure trove of golden booze to your whisky-loving recipient. Discounts on exclusive bottles and events, plus a free quarterly magazine, are among the benefits, while an upgrade to the welcome pack includes three limited release 10cl bottles to give you something substantial to wrap.
10. Krug Champagne Sharing Set: £175, Champagne Direct
The recipient of this plush booze box will have to have been particularly nice to deserve this. A deep breath and even deeper pockets are required for making this eye-watering purchase, but you’ll be hard pushed to find a better bottle of bubbles. Christmassy wafts of marzipan and gingerbread give way to a soft, candied, superior sipping experience. The gift set contains a 75cl bottle of Krug and two fine crystal flutes, which should send a subtle hint to the recipient that you’d quite like a piece of the action.
The Verdict: Alcoholic Christmas gifts
Beer lovers will be overjoyed to pull out the Delirium gift set from an oversized, mantlepiece-mounted sock on Christmas morn. For a boozy gift for someone very special, the Grey Goose Martini Set is well worth a gander.