Like a reindeer aloft over a snow-covered chimney…
Or one big unseasonable bat out of hell…
It’s time for UrbanDaddy’s 2024 Food & Drink Holiday Gift Guide, here to show you what to buy for people like us.
Meaning you and me and others who enjoy indulging in amazing foods and the finest booze on Earth.
So, without further adieu, let's get to shopping, so we can soon get to eating and drinking.
Now, all together in our best Santa voice: "On caviar, on lobster rolls, on rum-infused steaks..."
20 Food and Drink Gifts for the Holidays
On the first night of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a really adorable mini-can of Negroni from Straightaway Cocktails’ 12 Days of Cocktails advent calendar, which features a different drink each day. Trust us, it makes a better gift than a song.
You blinked and they’ve suddenly graduated from Build-A-Bear to Beer Pong. Bridge the gap by getting them El Guapo’s Build-Your-Own-Bitters set, in which you’ll pick four bottles of craft bitters from a selection that includes chicory pecan coffee, gumbo, and holiday pie bitters for the ultimate cocktail companion quartet.
Your buddy is always saying they’d kill it on Hot Ones, but is still yet to get the invite. Don’t deny them the sensory pleasure of burning their face off. Send them an 18-pack of A-Sha x Hot Ones’ ramen noodle soups, which come in three flavors: a milder Sweet Chili, medium Garlic Chili, and the hot Smoky Chili that portends to really test their mettle.
Holiday drinking doesn’t need to be eggnog-rich and hot chocolate-heavy. Good-for-you kombucha brand Health-Ade has a bubbly, Holiday Cheers-themed probiotic drink with notes of ginger, cacao, vanilla, and all-spice. It already sounds like the least regrettable drinking decision you’ll make all season.
You and Santa are basically the same. Only, instead of navigating flying reindeer around the world and squeezing down filthy chimneys to jettison presents all night, you just order your favorite people Nice Coffee Roasters’ Extra Nice Coffee Subscription, so they'll be mailed regular shipments of the L.A. roaster’s personal choice of beans. You could teach Santa a lot about efficiency.
Usually canned cocktails dwell on the classics. But Junglee does canned cocktails differently, with electrifying Indian flavor profiles in concoctions like its tamarind margaritas and green mango smashes. In other words, send a crate to yourself when you send one to a friend. Otherwise, envy could occur.
Carbone is one of the country's hardest reservations, so if you can't get a table, bring the restaurant's famous Spicy Rigatoni to your own table. The Carbone Fine Food’s Spicy Vodka Pasta gift set is filled with all the essentials required to recreate their iconic Spicy Rigatoni dish in the comfort of your own home. The pasta, the sauce, a recipe card, even a hand-painted rooster serving platter. Like we said, all the essentials.
You know how kids and pets are often more interested in the box than the actual gift? We never understood that until we laid our eyes on this gorgeous Roe gift set featuring white sturgeon caviar, a mother of pearl spoon and a tin-opening key, all packaged in a handsome wooden box. Though to be clear we're still very excited about what's inside.
As much as people love a stocking full of Citarella's Gambero Rosso shrimp and a gift-wrapped seafood tower, the best bet for holiday gifts is probably still caviar. Citarella is stocked with salmon roe, white sturgeon caviar and Osetra caviar, so you've got options across sizes and price points. Bring a bottle of bubbly to Christmas morning, and your recipient may feel compelled to pop the tin and share.
Gardenista is a line of ready-to-drink, herb, jalapeno, and ginger-based cocktails from Colorado that come with different spirit bases, including bourbon, tequila, and vodka. Plus it’s green, has a 15% ABV, and only 98 calories per serving. Which we assume means it’s good for you.
Imagine their beaming faces as they reach for a box and unwrap their Luke’s Lobster’s lobster roll and clam chowder kit. So happy. So thankful. So about to be crammed with knuckle and claw meat in New England-style rolls, clams, and whoopie pie. It’s touching, really.
The first rule of giving The Gardener Gin? Making a Brad Pitt reference, no matter how clumsy. This organic, French gin comes from Pitt, Miraval rosé makers Famille Perrin, and alchemist Tom Nichol. Its London dry-style recipe has bitter and sweet oranges, pink grapefruit, an Oscar, and like, seriously sick abs.
And speaking of James Bond, if your giftee is into Tequila, Cierto’s Ultimate VIP Gift Set looks so super sexy and dangerous it could probably play a hot Bond villain. Meet Lotta Agave. She’s the strong, silent, full of additive-free Tequila type.
When you give the gift of Meadows Estate Vineyard and Winery, you give the gift of superlative Rhône and Bordeaux varietals from a Black-owned vineyard located in Oregon’s Umpqua Valley, including award-winning Syrah, Vigonier, Pinot Noir, Grenache, and more. And all you have to do is click a couple of buttons. What a world…
Santa Barbara County’s Pali Wine Co. offers a collection of different wine clubs, with new and limited releases, highlighting everything from single vineyard vintages to additive-free Neighborhood Winery blends to the Bordeaux and Rhône-inspired cuvées of Tower 15 Winery. It’s like a Choose Your Own Adventure. With less reading and more drinking.
Look. You like us and we like you. So should you be, you know, wondering what an amazingly festive website on style and gear wants for the holidays… please don’t count out any 60-day dry aged, bone-in ribeyes infused with Santa Teresa rum that you see out there.
Lasso Motel Whiskey. It sounds like the title to a Wilco album, but in actuality, it’s an overproof U.S. whiskey line with an extensive selection of cask strength spirits and cask-finishes. So you can match the finish to the type of giftee you’re thinking of, picking a sherry cask finish for your bestie, a cognac finish for the boss, and Brazilian Amburana oak for that samba dancer you shimmied the night away with back in ‘04. That was you, right?
For the food-savvy friend who wants to know exactly where the chicken comes from, you’ll send selections of regenerative farm-raised, fresh pasture-roaming chickens from Pasturebird. They’re fed a natural diet and treated ethically, resulting in poultry with three times the omega-3s, 50 percent more vitamin A and E, and 21 percent less saturated fat than ordinary chicken. Winner winner!
Kanosuke Japanese Whisky is a mellow, pot still-made single-malt crafted by the fourth generation of a time-tested Kagoshima family of shochu producers. We’re big fans of the Double Distiller blend that combines their Hioki and Single Malts, and feel strongly that anyone you give it to will be a fan of it. Go ahead and get one for yourself while you’re at it.
Montecito’s seaside Miramar Rosewood hotel may be the most desirable destination in the country right now, particularly when everyone else is freezing in their respective regional corners. Get your most valuable giftee a stay, sparing no expense by including a gift card for Caruso’s, chef Massimo Falsini’s Michelin-starred, oceanview restaurant known for its multi-course tasting menus, with dishes like carbonara with house-cured guanciale and A5 Matsusaka wagyu ribeye. But only if you want them to love you forever.
