RAISE A GLASS

I’m nothing if not predictable. I always kick off my festive columns with gift ideas.

They’re to give you inspiration, but I like to leave this column “lying around” in unobtrusive places. Next to the milk in the fridge or Sellotaped to the toothpaste. Because I don’t suggest gifts lightly. They’re gifts I’d like people to buy me.

I’ve met the creator of this first gift idea, Victoria Fitzgerald, who was enthused to develop it because she once ordered a cocktail and it was missing the naughty, but moreishly nice, salty rim on the glass.

“If you are going to make a cocktail, for goodness sake do it well,” she told me. And so The Salty Rim Company was born. There’s a selection of salty or sweet “dips” in craftily designed tins to give the edge of your cocktail glass a finishing “brim trim”. It’s such a simple but fun way to bring a touch of expertise to a homemade cocktail.

New for Christmas is a limited edition festive Santa Baby red and white cocktail rim sugar (the cocktail pictured above is a Cosmo). Others include Classic Margarita Cocktail Salt; Citrus Cocktail Salt; Chilli & Lime Cocktail Salt and a Bloody Mary Brim Trim & Mix. They’re £9.99 a tin, from thesaltyrim.co.uk.

Talking of cocktails, the LAIBA Gift Set (RRP £59, online at laibabeverages.com, pictured) is an awardwinning range of bottled cocktails created by worldrenowned mixologist Michael Chen.

The gift set includes eight luxury bottled cocktails, including Twisted Negroni with gin, Campari, Cinzano and Cocchi Amaro (yes please, says my note in the fridge!!) and Cold Brew Martini with vodka, coffee, black rum and salted caramel.

You can’t go wrong with a gin, and for a bit of fun why not buy one in a light-up phone box.

Find the delicious blue gin, London No.1 Gin in its stand-out gift box livery at Selfridges (£42.99).

And you can never have enough glasses, in my humble opinion. My favourite selection is online at The Vintage List. There’s a range of handmade cut glasses, inspired by 19th and early 20th century English designs.

Prices vary, but my random note next to the toothpaste says nonchalantly “a set of six champagne saucers with a gold rim design”. They would be £72.

Happy gift hunting.