How to Choose the Best Cocktail Gift

There is a moment every December where you find yourself standing in front of a shelf of bourbon, trying to remember whether the person you are shopping for even drinks bourbon. We have been there. The good news is that the best cocktail gifts have almost nothing to do with picking the right bottle.

After packing several thousand of these, we have found it comes down to three questions. What do they already drink? How often do they actually make a cocktail at home? And are they drinking at all right now? Answer those, and the rest of it gets easy.

Start with the spirit they already reach for

Look at what is on their bar cart, or at what they order when someone else is buying. That one detail narrows the field faster than anything else, and it is the difference between a gift that gets used in the first week and one that sits in a cabinet until spring.

Bourbon and rye drinkers are the easiest people on your list. A Manhattan is three ingredients and one rule, which is to use rye if you want the spice to come through. The Classic Manhattan Cocktail Kit includes the Angostura bitters, a Hoffman barspoon, and crystal picks for the cherries, so all they add is the whiskey. The Old Fashioned Cocktail Kit is the same idea for someone who takes theirs with a sugar cube and an orange peel. If you want to see what you are giving before you give it, our guide on how to make a perfect Manhattan walks through the whole thing.

Gin drinkers split two ways. If they like a gin and tonic, the Ultimate Gin & Tonic Gift Set is our most component-rich kit: Liber & Co. tonic syrup, a Yarai mixing glass, gold-rimmed crystal highballs, Dave Broom’s Gin: The Manual, and dried lemon crisps that double as the garnish. If they lean drier, The Martini Bundle is the least expensive way into this category and still lands properly.

Aperitivo drinkers want the Negroni, and they usually want it more than they let on. The Negroni Bundle comes with Crude’s Sycophant orange and fig bitters, a sphere ice mold, crispy orange slices for the rim, and two Viski Negroni glasses made for this specific drink. Matt Hranek’s book on the Negroni is in the box too, which tends to be the part people mention when they thank you.

Match the kit to how often they actually make drinks

There is a real difference between someone who makes a cocktail on a Friday and someone who owns a jigger. Both are worth gifting well. They just want different things.

For the beginner, buy the whole experience in one box. A complete kit removes every reason not to try it, because the mixer is right there, the garnish is right there, and the glass is right there. The Espresso Martini Experience and the Bloody Good Bloody Mary Gift both work this way, and both are drinks people are curious about but rarely make at home. Give someone the espresso martini kit and you will hear about it within the week.

For the enthusiast who already owns the spirits, go narrow and go good. One bottle of small-batch bitters, a specialty syrup, or a single well-made bar tool is a better gift than a kit full of things they already have three of. The Spicy New York Gift Bundle does this well, and Home Bar Essentials is the one to send when someone is setting up a bar cart from scratch.

The honest test: if you can picture the box sitting unopened on their counter in February, choose the other thing.

Do not assume they are drinking

More people are drinking less, and a thoughtful non-alcoholic gift lands better than a bottle they will quietly pass along to a neighbor. This is not a consolation category anymore. The Monday Mocktail G&T Gift Set is built exactly like our alcoholic kits, with real botanicals and a proper glass, because the ritual is most of the point. Somebody who has stopped drinking has usually not stopped wanting something interesting in their hand at six o’clock.

The same applies to anyone doing Dry January, anyone who is pregnant, and anyone who simply prefers the drink without the drink. We have written more about what works in this category in our roundup of the best non-alcoholic gifts for the mindful drinker.

The details that make a cocktail gift feel personal

A few things we have learned from packing these by hand:

• Glassware raises the whole gift. A glass made for one specific drink signals that you thought about the drink, not just the category.
• Garnish matters more than people expect. Dried citrus crisps sit on the rim and look like something a bar would do, and they keep for months.
• A book turns a kit into a hobby. It is the item people still have after the bottle is gone.
• Ice is a real gift. A sphere mold sounds like a small thing until someone uses one, and then it is the thing they show people.
• Skip the spirit. Nearly every kit we sell is built so the recipient adds their own, which means you are never guessing at their brand.
  

What to spend

Under $75 buys a focused, complete gift. The Martini Bundle and the Spicy New York Gift Bundle both live here, and this is the right range for a coworker, a host, or a gift exchange with an actual budget.

Between $100 and $175 is where most of our cocktail gifts sit, and it is the range that reads as a real gift without any explanation: the Negroni Bundle, the Manhattan Kit, the Old Fashioned Kit, and the Classic Mint Julep Kit ($170), which has quietly been one of our best sellers all year.

Over $200 is the Ultimate Gin & Tonic Gift Set, which is for the person who genuinely cares about this and will use all ten pieces in the box.

Still not sure?

Start with the spirit and let everything else follow from there. If you would rather just tell us about the person and let us build the gift, that is what we are here for. Browse the full range of gifts for cocktail lovers, or call us at 877-426-4887 and we will work through your list with you.