Year: 2022

Last minute food and drink gifts to buy your hosts this Christmas News Briefing

Last minute food and drink gifts to buy your hosts this Christmas

By

Dan Akroyd’s Crystal Head vodka meets British designer Joshua Kane in this stylish collaboration that makes the perfect gift for your most stylish pal

This article contains affiliate links. We will earn a small commission on purchases made through one of these links but this never influences our experts’ opinions. Products are tested and reviewed independently of commercial initiatives.

If you’re off to stay with friends or family this Christmas, you won’t want to turn up empty handed. Whether your host is an enthusiastic over-caterer or if they are tightening their belt this year, a thoughtful food or drink gift always hits the mark.

If they are the stylish sort, they will love the best dressed bottle in town – namely the Crystal Head vodka bottle, designed by Joshua Kane. Traditionalists will enjoy the charming Fortnum & Mason musical biscuit tin, which will keep paying dividends long after the last cookie has gone.

If you’ve left gifting to the last minute too, we have included some voucher options that won’t look a bit like an after-thought.

Feast your eyes on these carefully selected treats – and most important of all, have a delicious Christmas.

Limited edition Crystal Head & Joshua Kane vodka

The best dressed bottle in town? British designer Josha Kane’s fabrics, more commonly seen on the runway, now adorn the Crystal Head vodka bottle

Crystal Head Vodka, co-founded by actor and musician Dan Aykroyd in 2008, has partnered with British fashion designer and tailor Joshua Kane on a series of limited-edition bottle casings.

The trio of designs symbolise a ‘beautiful, rebellious spirit’, a narrative shared by both Joshua Kane and Crystal Head Vodka.

Just launched in Selfridges this very week, the hand-stitched patterns took Joshua six months to develop, with multiple prototype stages due to the challenging dimensions of Crystal Head Vodka’s skull bottle. The eccentric patchwork designs, consisting of Kane’s bespoke fabrics, are a limited run of 200 bottles, available in three styles – black and gold, black and red and black and white.

Kane said of the collab that the distinctive skull bottle represents the rebel – and ‘an affinity with non-conformists’ – that he identifies with. ‘I’ve always been a rule breaker…who enjoys pushing boundaries in the craft of tailoring,’ he says.

The Joshua Kane designs include a 70cl bottle of Crystal Head Vodka.

From £155 from Selfridges – London Oxford Street, Birmingham, Manchester Trafford and Manchester Exchange Square.

Magnum of Cotes de Provence Miraval rose

Be that guest – the one that rocks up with a chilled magnum of rose. A word to the wise: be sure to clear room in your own fridge and chill it down before you leave – most people hosting Christmas won’t have space in their fridge for a magnum.

Buy for £42.99 at Majestic

Little box of cheese hamper

A great selection of Paxton & Whitfield’s most popular cheeses- hard, soft, blue and goat – paired with some vintage port and sea salt fudge.

If you want to splash out a bit more, there are plenty of bigger boxes to choose from – right up to the lavish £300 Buckingham, or you can just visit the beautiful store on Jermyn Street, SW1 and pick out your own selection of cheeses that take your fancy.

Buy for £42 from Paxton and Whitfield

Crosstown Christmas Doughnut Selection

Almost too good to leave out for Santa (Picture: Crosstown)

For snacking on while the Christmas dinner cooks and giving mince pies a run for their money, these festive Crosstown doughnuts make a delicious present.

There are three varieties in the box; Black Forest, finished with chocolate soil and a homemade almond praline shard, vegan-friendly Chestnut and Brown Butter and Pear and Ginger, the latter of which is topped with Prana Chai glaze and a vanilla and candied stem ginger crumble.

Buy for £26.95 for six at Crosstown Doughnuts.

Negroni

Give these a shot (Picture: Lina Stores)

There’s Negroni, then there’s Negroni from one of London’s hottest pasta joints, Lina Stores. Only the best for your loved ones right? Right.

This is the perfect apéritif for any foodie fanatic who loves to have a bottle of something special under their sleeve incase the occasion for a communal tipple arises.

Buy it for £34 from Lina Stores.

Christmas Collection Gin Library

Let Christmas Be-GIN (Picture: John Lewis)

If gin is your giftee’s tipple of choice, you can’t go wrong with this huge tasting set from Edinburgh Gin.

It includes twelve miniature gins and liqueurs, including lemon and jasmine, rhubarb and ginger, apple and spice, and strawberry and pink peppercorn flavours.

Buy for £60 at John Lewis.

Merry Go Round Musical Biscuit Tin

Biscuits and a show (Picture: Fortnum and Mason)

Echo in the pageantry of this time of year with this swanky biscuit tin that plays La Traviata while it revolves like a merry go round.

Inside, they’ll find seven different flavours of biscuit, including salted caramel, pistachio, clotted cream, and chocolate and macadamia nut.

Buy for £25 at Fortnum and Mason.

Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label Champagne NV and Smeg Mini Fridge Gift Tin

Cold and sophisticated (Picture: Supplied)

Got loads of champagne and no fridge space to store it in? That old inconvenience, eh. Luckily, for your more extravagant friends there’s a 125cl solution.

Why not buy a bottle and a mini-fridge all in one? Turns out, you can…

Buy it for £58 from Clos19.

The Whiskey Thing Experience

An amazing experience for whiskey fans, featuring tasting and blending your own unique bottle (Picture: The Distillery)

Taking place in the newly launched Malt Room in West London’s The Distillery, guests at the three-hour Whiskey Thing Experience sip their way through a diverse selection of drams from around the world.

They are then given the opportunity to blend their own 70cl bottle of unique, ‘one of one’ whiskey to take away and enjoy at home.

Book for £122 per person at The Distillery.

he Meat and Wine Co E-Gift Voucher

Buying for a steak or truffle fan? (Picture: The Meat and Wine Co)

These digital gift cards can be used at all of The Meat and Wine Co UK locations, but we suggest you (or your gift recipients) give the steakhouse’s new winter truffle menu a go.

From the Truffle Aged Beef Tartare, to a beautifully crafted burrata topped with shaved truffle, or a creamy truffle and porcini mushroom risotto, there’s something for every gourmet lover to enjoy.

Buy from £50 to £500 at The Meat and Wine Co.

Kintsugi Workshop

Celebrating imperfections to come back stronger is one of the lessons Kinstsugi can teach (Picture: The Indytute)

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery in a mindful way that highlights the cracks with gold paint and is a soothingly slow-paced skill to master.

These two-hour workshops take place in Kensal Rise on a monthly basis and The Indytute will provide all the kit needed to take home a beautiful testament to patience.

Buy for £28 at The Indytute.

The Ginstitute Experience

Cocktails are also provided throughout the day (Picture: The Distillery)

One for the ginfluencers and the die-hard G&T purists, this experience – held at The Distillery on Portobello Road – lasts three hours, and takes guests through the history of the spirit followed by a tasting led by an expert gin instructor.

After this, they’ll be able to blend their own one-of-a-kind 70cl gin, the exact formula of which can be saved so they can reorder the bespoke bottle again and again.

Book for £120 per person at The Distillery.

Load More