A comforting fact with the approaching holidays is that, as far as
gifts are concerned, you can never go wrong with alcohol. The following
are just a couple of time-saving and sure-to-please ideas for anyone on
your list. And go ahead and purchase some extra for yourself while
you’re at it — you might very well need it to help ease you into your
impending, post-celebratory credit doom.
A far cry from The Beer Store: www.mondoliquor.com is a fairly new website, around for only a few months, and what sets them apart from your typical source for alcohol gifts is that they exclusively sell independently produced artisan and hand-crafted products that are otherwise quite difficult to find. This means if you’re looking for a Jack Daniels gift set or a two-four of Stella, perhaps you might consider the LCBO instead.
Some neat, gift-worthy ideas include the 267 Infusions: Fruit in the Bottle collection of liquors, in cranberry vodka, mango rum, lemon vodka, pineapple rum and chili pepper tequila, each featuring actual fruits in the bottle. So if the receiver of said gift has been an AA member for years and is just completing their second year clean, the bottles will still look beautiful behind glass in a pad-locked display case, as well.
Other notables featured on the site are the Alchemy line of vodkas in chocolate, ginger and wild cherry infusions, as well as the new K’orus line of wines (www.koruswine.com) — not only flavourful, but steeped in music history, as one of the wine’s co-creators (Kedar Massenburg) is a former CEO of Motown Records.
MONDOliquor ships to all 50 states and to most countries worldwide.
Wine, minus the vine: Mill St. Brewery is bringing back Barley Wine for the holidays, more akin to a beer than anything else, though the aging process is very similar to that of wine — it’s aged 10 months (compared to just a few weeks for regular beer), giving it a rich flavour and deep, golden hue.
According to Joel Manning, Mill St.’s brewmaster, “The beer has a spicy nose with a warming palate that is sweet and honey-like; the finish is smooth, warm and drying with a pronounced spiciness and lingering malt flavour.”
Available at the LCBO, Barley Wine comes in a ceramic bottle for $9.95, and with 10 per cent alcohol, it’s definitely meant for savouring.