Gift Ideas: The Good Drinks This Year

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For the friend or family member in your life who enjoys a good bottle, take a look at some of these great gift ideas courtesy of The New York Times:

As the season draws nigh, the calls begin from friends asking what they should get their bibulous spouses. Gifting, as a verb, needs a strategy, of course, and the one at work here supposes that most people have a semi-bar at home, a bit of this and a bottle of that, but could use another well-chosen item to connect the dots, to add a dash of panache to the occasional drink. That’s what 6 p.m. was made for, right?

Rye
There are dozens of new ryes out this year, with a glut of microdistillers coming online. They each have to have a story, and Scott Bush’s is that he’s recreating his grandfather’s whiskey. First distilled during Prohibition in Templeton, Iowa, it was supposedly Al Capone’s favorite. But everyone’s got a story; what’s in the bottle? As it happens, Templeton Rye ($44) is a lovely, fully flush rye, nicely balanced between grain sweetness and a bit of structure, so it can stand up to cocktails. There’s more than a nubbin of the dill-like tang of new American oak in this, but it’s not intrusive, rather just the burnish of a nicely produced rye. I don’t normally find myself drinking rye neat, but this one I keep returning to.

Aged Gin
Brad Estabrooke’s vest-pocket distillery in Brooklyn has been in operation for only a couple of years, but his handmade offerings are expanding and getting more and more interesting. A case in point is Breuckelen Aged Gin ($33), a platypus of a spirit he produced on a mere whim, deciding to put some of his wheat-based white dog gin into barrels. What is it? Gin-ish whiskey? Whiskey made into gin? Sweet, spicy and delicious, it defies categories but makes for some gratifying sipping.

Read more at The New York Times