Homemade Food Gifts for the Holidays

Fennel Grissini

Vodka Sauce

Spicy Vinegar with Lemon & Shallot

Gin & Vermouth With Martini Olives

These olives are the perfect gift for any Martini lover. Bursting with gin and vermouth flavours, they make a quintessential garnish for a gin- or vodka-based cocktail. The saltiness of the olive and the citrus essence create a perfectly plump flavour combo. They are also delicious as cocktail snacks or appetizers.

COMPLETE THE KIT
To complete a Martini cocktail kit, choose Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin, a unique gin made with gunpowder tea (a type of robust green tea) distilled with Asian and Irish botanicals for a distinctive taste. A dry, white French vermouth with floral and herbal notes like Dolin Vermouth de Chambéry Dry AOC provides the ideal accent, lending light and fresh notes plus a clean, dry finish.

Sparkling Wine With Elderflower Pearls

These “pearls” are tiny spheres that provide pops of flavour (think of caviar-like texture) to drinks, using a culinary technique. When made from elderflower liqueur, they taste just like the sweet, floral elixir; the agar agar used to “spherify” the liqueur has little taste on its own. This technique can be used for most liquids: try it with your favourite fruit juice for another fun sparkling wine add-in!

COMPLETE THE KIT
The pearls are perfect in a glass of bubbly. Champagne such as Veuve Clicquot Brut Champagne, with typical aromas of apple, pear, toast and brioche, is a lovely match for the elderflower flavour. Or gift or serve the pearls with a magnum of Bottega White Gold Spumante Brut, a generously sized bottle for a larger group!

Rum With Spiced Miso Brown Butter

Hot-buttered rum is truly a holiday classic; elevate it by gifting this unique homemade mix. Traditionally, butter and brown sugar are creamed together with spices like cinnamon and nutmeg. Here, browned butter (butter that is melted and darkened to bring out its natural nuttiness) meets Japanese miso (Japanese fermented soybean paste) for a modern flavour match with rum.

COMPLETE THE KIT
Mount Gay Black Barrel Double Cask Blend rum from Barbados is approachable and balanced, with notes of vanilla and toasted oak plus tropical and citrus fruit to meet the richness and caramel notes of the buttered rum batter. El Dorado 12-Year-Old Rum from Guyana has creamy butterscotch and candied orange peel flavours, for another decadent cocktail-kit option.

Vodka With Winter Extract

Extracts are ingredients concentrated for more intense flavours: vanilla, mint or lemon are a few common ones. Experiment with your favourite flavours at home to create your own personalized extract, which can be used to add flavour to cocktails, baked goods or whipped cream for topping holiday desserts or drinks.

COMPLETE THE KIT
Extracts ideally need several weeks or more to infuse the flavours of the ingredients fully into the base, making them the ideal make-ahead gifts. Add it as you would bitters to an Ontario vodka like Willibald Farm Vodka for a Crafty Winter Martini or a smooth and spicy Craft Vodka-Soda Highball. For a black tie–style New Year’s Glam Martini, add the extract to a black vodka like Hounds Black Vodka, which pours dramatically dark because it’s infused with fulvic trace minerals; the result is an inky cocktail that tastes as dramatic as it looks.