Holiday Gift Guide: Drinks & Spirits
Bourbon, Amaro, Vermouth, Liqueurs, Spirit-Free, Ready-to-Drink...
This week on LAST CALL we’ll have you covered with Holiday Gift Guides focusing on Holiday Advent Calendars, Food & Provisions, Books & Cookbooks, The Spirit of Italy, and Stocking Stuffers. Today’s Holiday Gift Guide is devoted to Drinks & Spirits. This is a super-sized dispatch and will likely be truncated in your email, so be sure to click the “View Entire Message” link to expand.
Today’s LAST CALL Holiday Gift Guide is available to all readers thanks to the generous support of See the Elephant Amaro.
Produced in Agropoli near Salerno, See the Elephant Amaro di Rucola is made using local herbs and botanicals—including wild rucola (arugula)—and is considered a “zero kilometer,” farm-to-bottle amaro with all the key ingredients sourced from the Cilento Coast region of southern Italy.
It’s an ideal, Italian-born “gateway” amaro for those just starting to explore the amari category—flavorful, sweet, bold, and complex, with just a touch of bitterness. Rucola-style amari possess a distinctive, and quintessential bubblegum or eggnog note to them which really makes them stand out, and See the Elephant Amaro is a best-in-class example of this unique style. Try it neat, over ice, or in creative cocktail applications like a Black Manhattan, Espresso Martini, or a seasonal Flip.
If you’d like to pick up a bottle for the holidays, use promo code GIFT10 to save $10 off your online purchase at the See the Elephant Shop.
Drink now and command a common joy!
Holiday Gift Guide: Drinks & Spirits
Spirits
Wonderbird Spirits Gin No. 61
Wonderbird Spirits Gin No. 61 (45% ABV), founded in 2019 by Chand Harlow, Rob Forster, and Thomas Alexander, is the flagship release from Wonderbird Spirits, North Mississippi’s first distillery located in Taylor, Mississippi, a quick drive south from Oxford. Taking inspiration from sake production, they ferment Jasmine rice grown in the Mississippi Delta for their grain to glass base spirit, resulting in a clean foundation for layering flavors and aromatic botanicals. They have a number of other experimental gins in their portfolio, not to mention a very cool distillery cat named Koji!
$44.99 (Wonderbird Spirits)
High Wire Distilling Co. Jimmy Red Bourbon Whiskey Aged 7 Years
Charleston’s High Wire Distilling Company—founded by husband-and-wife team, Scott Blackwell and Ann Marshall—helped pioneer small-batch, craft spirits in South Carolina, focusing on a simple approach of using the finest ingredients available and developing recipes using a creative, culinary approach. Their flagship Jimmy Red Bourbon Whiskey made from Jimmy Red corn, a magenta-hued heirloom variety once popular with moonshiners that was rescued from extinction after only two cobs remained in existence. High Wire Distilling Co.’s latest batch of Jimmy Red Bourbon Whiskey (53.5% ABV) is a limited release from just 17 barrels, with a special wheated mash bill, resulting in distinctive notes of vanilla, spice, graham cracker, and caramel corn. A rare departure from their flagship mash bill, this is the oldest whiskey High Wire has relesaed ever released.
$129.99 (Potomac Wine & Spirits)
Pendleton 1910 Bourbon
Pendleton 1910 Bourbon (45% ABV), a brand new release from Pendleton Whisky, continues the brand’s tribute the spirit and tenacity of the American cowboy. Named in honor of the founding year of the Pendleton Round-Up, Oregon’s legendary outdoor rodeo that dates back more than a century. This robust 90-proof bourbon is a blend of high- and low-rye bourbons that are aged for 10 years in white American oak barrels whose spicy rye character is accented with notes of vanilla and caramel.
$49.99 (Pendleton Whisky)
Milam & Green Port Cask Finished Rye
Launched in 2019, Milam & Greene, founded by CEO and Master Blender Heather Greene and Master Distiller Marlene Holmes, offers a wide range of core and blender’s reserve bourbons from their distillery in Blanco, Texas. Their Milam & Greene Port Cask Finished Rye (47% ABV) is a 95% rye and 5% malted barley mash that’s distilled and sourced from Indiana then batched and finished in used Port wine casks from Portugal in their rickhouse, where the Texas heat plays a key influence on the finished product. The warm and spicy ruby-tinged blend delivers with notes of fig, black currant, blackberry, and dark chocolate—ideal for sipped neat contemplation or as the based of a Manhattan or Old-Fashioned.
$51.99 (Milam & Greene)
Bitters & Aperitivo
Kingbird Dry & Tropical Aperitif
Produced in the hamlet of Accord in Ulster County, New York, by Ben Howell and his business partner Xavier Armand, Kingbird Dry & Tropical Aperitif (20% ABV) is a newer entry to the category that comes on like a delicately bitter aperitif vermouth. It’s made with a base of white wine made from grapes grown in the Finger Lakes region of New York, that’s then fortified with neutral grain spirit, and infused with fruit and botanicals including fresh pineapple, grapefruit, lemon zest, cardamom, allspice, gentian root, and cinchona bark, achieving its garnet hue from all-natural carmine. It has an affinity for rum, agave spirits, and gin, and plays especially well in a Jungle Bird.
$31.00 (Kingston Wine Co.)
Amaro dell’Etna Etna Spritz
This past summer Amaro dell’Etna entered the crowded aperitivo/red bitter market with their Etna Spritz (11% ABV), a Sicilian blood orange liqueur perfect for a namesake spritz or on the rocks with soda. The electric red-colored liqueur is made with bright red, IGP-protected Sicilian blood orange varietals the brand grows and harvests at their compound near the slopes of Sicily’s Mount Etna where the extreme temperature and Mount Etna’s volcanic play a key role in the oranges deep color and robust bitter flavor.
$20.99 (Empire Wine)
Doladira
A collaboration between Meredith Erickson and Richard Betts, Doladira (22% ABV) was inspired by Erickson’s extensive time in the Alps researching and writing her book, Alpine Cooking. The transportive Doladira instantly evokes the crisp sensation of the Alps and its refreshing, round, and herbaceous profile is composed of rhubarb, gentian, rosemary, elderflower, plum, and pine, and its all-natural hue is courtesy of black carrot and rhubarb. It’s a low-ABV option for enjoying on the rocks, in a spritz, or countless cocktails such as a classic spritz.
$39.96 (Astor Wines & Spirits)
Stellare Primo Aperitivo di Vino
Stellare Primo
Produced by Antica Torino, the Piedmont-based producer of aromatized wine, vermouth and amari, Stellare Primo (17% ABV) is a low-ABV blend of fortified Italian white wine flavored with gentian, rhubarb, wormwood, germander, grapefruit and bitter orange resulting in a juicy and tangy aperitivo with bright notes of strawberry and citrus. Spritz me up!
$17.00 (Liner & Elsen)
Le Moné Meyer Lemon Apéritif
Le Moné Meyer Lemon Apéritif (16% ABV), the acclaimed all-natural wine-based apéritif made from a blend of Traminette and Cayuga white wine from the Finger Lakes region of New York state is infused with Meyer lemon peel, Persian lime, and a bit of Italian bergamot for a floral note of honeysuckle. It’s then gently fortified with brandy and finished with lemon juice and organic blue agave, resulting in a snappy acidity with a light sweetness and lemon-lime aromatics. It serves as light and lively foundation for a lower-ABV spritz topped with bubbly Prosecco and a splash of soda water, tonic, or ginger beer.
$24.96 (Astor Wines & Spirits)
Amaro, Vermouth & Liqueurs
Forthave Spirits Single Batch Four Floral Bittersweet Liqueur
Forthave Spirits’ co-founders Aaron Sing Fox and Daniel de la Nuez have been producing a portfolio of buzzed-about, botanical-driven spirits and liqueurs in their ever-expanding, cluttered yet artfully curated Brooklyn facility since 2016. With FOUR (30% ABV), the fourth release in their limited-edition Single Batch Series, they’ve created a an aromatic bittersweet liqueur of layered eaux de vie of genepi flowers, lavender, cherry blossoms, elderflowers, chamomile, and rose petals that gets a bitter kick from gentian root and rounded sweetness from raw cane sugar.
$29.99 (Astor Wines & Spirits)
Barbadillo Original Atamán Vermut
Produced by a family-run sherry bodega in the town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain, Barbadillo Original Atamán Vermut (17% ABV) is a favorite of The Long Island Bar’s Toby Cecchini, who spotlights it in his alternative take on his signature Boulevardier for its distinctive sarsaparilla and root beer like qualities.
$29.94 (Saratoga Wine Exchange)
Xila Licor de Agave
I’ve lost count of the times this past year when a bartender who wants to surprise me with an after-dinner sip slid a glass of Xila across the bar and each time I’m reminded of how unique and unexpected this Mexican apéritif can be. The mezcal-based Xila Licor de Agave (20% ABV) is made with roasted pineapple, ancho chile, cinnamon, black pepper, clove, hibiscus, and lavender. Founded by master distiller Hillhamn Salome, the women-run production team behind Xila, is comprised of ten women (“xila” is the Zapotec word for women), and prodcued at Flor de Luna Distillery, one of Mexico's only female owned and operated distilleries.
$36.50 (Bitters + Bottles)
January Spirits Genepy
Lot ‘23 of January Spirits’ annual Genepy (50% ABV) release hit shelves earlier this month, just in time to seek out a bottle of this aromatic, complex, French alpine-inspired liqueur to brace for the winter season ahead. This made in New York producer was founded by longtime New York City bartenders Jon Langley and Lucky Preksto.
$55.00 (January Spirits)
Fred Alkemil Ratafia Cherry Liqueur
Italian bartender, herbalist, and alchemist Federico “Fred” Cremasco has gained a following of devoted fans stateside with his Fred Jerbis lineup of gin, amaro, and vermouth, but he has expanded his portfolio with Fred Alkemil, inspired by 19th century recipes produced using unique modern techniques. I had the chance to sample these before they became available in the U.S. when I visited Fred in the medieval town of Polcenigo, Friuli, and the Fred Alkemil Ratafia Cherry Liqueur (25% ABV) was a standout among the offerings. The fruit liqueur is made with Italian red wine and cherry juice and achieves the perfect balance of sweetness and acidity with a richness with notes of macerated cherries and dark chocolate.
$39.99 (K&L Wine Merchants)
Amaretto Adriatico
I first tried Amaretto Adriatico (28% ABV) a couple years ago at a bar in Siena and was thrilled when it made its way stateside. While amaretto can get a bad rap, this is a quality affair produced in Putignano, Puglia, Italy, made with locally harvested Filippo Cea almonds and has approximately half the sugar of most amaretti. The roasted almonds are then macerated and distilled and combined with cinnamon, vanilla, coffee, cocoa, sugar cane, and sea salt.
$32.99 (Remedy Liquor)
Cardinal Spirits Songbird Coffee Liqueur
Thanks to the Espresso Martini, we’ve seen more coffee liqueurs hit the market, but Cardinal Spirits Songbird Coffee Liqueur, from the award-winning distillery located in Bloomington, Indiana, stands out just using four simple ingredients: fresh dark-roasted coffee beans, bourbon vanilla, cane sugar, and vodka. The signature coffee flavor is in perfect harmony with sweet notes of vanilla, chocolate, and caramel. Perfect over ice for night cap or shaken up for “Dude”-approved White Russian.
$29.99 (Cardinal Spirits)
Faccia Brutto Spirits Nocino
The annual release of Brooklyn’s own Faccia Brutto Spirits Nocino (22% ABV) is a seasonal favorite, but, trust me, this limited bottling sells out fast. So grab a bottle if you see one. It’s made with hand-harvested green walnuts from the Pacific Northwest that are macerated in neutral grain spirit with citrus peels, allspice, vanilla, roasted dandelion, and a few other proprietary ingredients for three weeks and then barrel-aged for one full year. As Faccia Brutto founder and owner Patrick Miller likes to say: “Imagine if maple syrup and vanilla extract had a baby… that's our nocino.”
$35.00 (Faccia Brutto Spirits)
Five Farms Single-Batch Irish Cream Liqueur
It wouldn’t be a BTP Holiday Gift Guide without Five Farms Single-Batch Irish Cream Liqueur, my favorite go-to bottle to keep on hand in the refrigerator during the holiday season (I also try to keep a few extra bottles on hand to bring to a dinner party or for a last-minute gift). The black glass bottle itself is quite attractive (they also come in cute-as-a-button 50ml bottles), and once you open the ceramic swing-top cap, inside you’ll encounter a rich and luxurious cream fortified by Irish whiskey with notes of vanilla, butterscotch and salted caramel.
$30.99 (Total Wine)
Ready-to-Drink
The New York Cocktail Company
While we can always post up for a drink at our favorite bar, having an elegant bottle from The New York Cocktail Company on hand is a way to have a beautiful world-class cocktail served at some of the best bars in town at the comfort of your own home. They launched with a quartet of bespoke Negronis, including a clean, bright, and bitter Classic Negroni that truly shines like a red-hued beacon for “la dolce vita” when served over ice in an elegant rocks.
$26.99 (The New York Cocktail Company)
Tip Top Proper Cocktails
Developed with acclaimed bartender Miles Macquarrie of Kimball House, Tip Top Proper Cocktails offers ready-to-drink quality cocktails for the modern drinker. Available in 4-packs, 8-packs, or 12-packs, each can is a single serving. Simply open and pour over ice or or serve up in a chilled glass. Whether you’re craving an Old-Fashioned, Cosmopolitan, Whiskey Sour, Espresso Martini, or a Jungle Bird, Tip Top has you covered. And be sure to take a look at their recent releases of modern classics developed by bartenders Sam Ross (Paper Plane, Penicillin) and Joaquin Simo (Naked & Famous).
Spirit-Free
Superclasico
Superclasico channels the spirit of the iconic Negroni by way of Italy’s sunset-hued, ready-to-drink, non-alcoholic sodas like Sanbittèr and Crodino. Like all of Casamara Club botanical sodas, Superclasico is made with real ingredients—no artificial flavors, no sugar substitutes, and no preservatives—and is sweetened like a real cocktail, with top quality Demerara cane sugar. Superclasico is ready to drink straight from the can, or pour it into an ice-filled glass garnished with an orange slice. And it’s the perfect companion for an at-home aperitivo spread of your favorite salty snacks.
$60.00 (12 cans) (Casamara Club)
St. Agrestis Phony Negroni
Launched in January 2022 by Brooklyn’s St. Agrestis, the Phony Negroni is the perfect option for when you aren’t drinking or just want the convenience and quality of a ready-to-drink, spirit-free Negroni. The St. Agrestis Phony Negroni is softly carbonated, sweetened with cane sugar, and made with 30 botanicals—including gentian, hibiscus, juniper, and seven different types of citrus—and can be enjoyed directly from the bottle or poured over ice with an orange twist.
$59.99 (12-pack) (St. Agrestis)
Our thanks to See the Elephant Amaro for underwriting today’s LAST CALL Holiday Gift Guide.
Recipe: Morning Glory
Wayne Cafariella, @drinkwithwayne
Espresso, amaro, Prosecco, and orange juice. It may not seem like these ingredients would play well together, but they do. This is a great way to have a spirited morning coffee drink with a little nod to a Mimosa. I’ve been binging some Oasis lately so I call this the Morning Glory. The combination is bright, citrusy, and delicious. I hope you’ll give it a try!
—Wayne
Makes 1 Drink
1 ounce room fresh espresso (chilled)
1 ounce fresh orange juice
1/2 ounce Vanilla Syrup (Recipe Follows)
1 ounce See the Elephant Amaro
Garnish: orange slice, fresh mint
Add the espresso, orange juice, vanilla syrup, and See the Elephant Amaro to a rocks glass. Fill the glass with ice and briefly stir to combine. Gently pour the Prosecco along the handle of your barspoon to top the drink without disturbing the bubbles. Garnish with an orange slice and fresh mint.
Vanilla Syrup
Combine 1 cup sugar and 1 cup in a medium saucepan over medium heat, bring the sugar and water to a simmer, stirring the mixture occasionally to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat and add 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise. Let steep for a few hours then strain into a glass jar or bottle with a lid. The syrup will keep in the refrigerator for up to a month.
Follow Brad Thomas Parsons on Instagram.
Links to some featured books and products are shared via affiliate programs.
LAST CALL logo and design by Ed Anderson.
Great picks, Brad! Thanks so much for including Forthave's 'Four'!