Gift ideas for the spirits aficionado in your life.
For high-end liquor aficionados, the holidays are all about breaking out the most celebratory bottles of hooch. It’s when we give (and get) top-shelf stuff: fine cognacs, wellaged whiskeys, limited-edition and collectible bottles. So, let’s savor the moment and pour two fingers of the best your liquor cabinet or bar cart has to offer. Here are some new and memorable spirits — available at Total Wine, Spec’s and select liquor stores — that could make great gifts for that rosy-cheeked drinker in your life.
For the Texanist: Sotol was first fermented by American Indians more than 7,000 years ago. Today, Driftwood-based Desert Door is making an earthy, vegetal spirit distilled from Texas-grown evergreen sotol; $50. For the rye catcher: Knob Creek’s new Twice Barreled Rye is a Straight Rye Whiskey that is secondarily finished in new, charred oak barrels. Think of it as an amplified rye with spicy, toasted wood flavors and a honey-gold touch of oak; $45. For your Dudley Do-Right: The recently released Canadian Club 41 Year Old is the classic whisky brand’s oldest aged expression. Batched and barreled in 1977, it was blended with additions of cognac, rye and sherry; $300.
For the globe-trotter: Buffalo Trace Distillery’s Old Charter Oak Bourbon has launched a series that explores the role different oaks play in aging. First up is Mongolian Oak Bourbon, matured in barrels made from trees grown in Mongolia. Spicy, woody and maybe even Oriental; $70. For the elegant orator: Choose you words: nutmeg, caramel, cocoa, spice, oak. They all apply to Rhetoric 25-Year-Old, a new Kentucky straight bourbon from Orphan Barrel Distilling Co.; $140.
For the gin aficionado: Beam Suntory’s new Roku Japanese Gin is made with six Japanese botanicals (including cherry blossom flower, green tea and yuzu) with eight traditional gin botanicals for a truly new gin expression; $28. For your brandy boy or girl: Hennessy Master Blender’s Selection No. 3 is a limited-edition, single-batch cognac with a nose and flavors of sweet pastries and toasted hazelnuts; $110. For the Lone Star purist: The Dripping Springs-born Waterloo Antique Gin from Treaty Oak Distilling is built on traditional Dutch genevers but aged for up to 24 months in American white oak barrels; $30.
For Nobel Laureate admirers: Heaven’s Door Spirits’ 10 Year-Old Tennessee Straight Bourbon, with notes of vanilla and almond, is the first limited-edition release from a brand fronted by Bob Dylan. Yes, that Bob Dylan; $130. For your best whiskey connoisseur: The fifth and final bottling of John Walker & Sons Private Collection limited-edition scotch whiskey collection is 28 Year Old Midnight Blend, offering notes of citrus, apple, toffee and vanilla wrapped in Islay smoke; $750.
From your secret Santa: Released this month, Basil Hayden’s 10 Year Old Bourbon is a high-rye bourbon, aged in American oak, with flavors of caramel, oak and spiced rye — perfect for holiday toasting; $60.