The Best Bar Gifts for the Holidays

The holidays are fast approaching and at Wired Gin, and that means an opportunity to consider bar gifts for friends and family. Whether you celebrate Christmas, New Years, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and/or Festivus, what could bring a more festive spirit to the season than a finely crafted cocktail using the best tools and knowledge available? Let your gin cool to just the right temperature, and ponder our well-researched list of the top cocktail gift ideas:

Encouragement for the Cocktail Beginner

Many potential bartenders are just starting to explore the possibilities, but without proper equipment to deliver the flourish and flavor. These people crave the Oggi Pro Stainless-Steel 10-Piece Cocktail Shaker and Bar Tool Set. It’s everything you need to produce brilliant cocktails in one elegant package.

A Cocktail Party Gift for People on the Go

For the cocktail lover on the go, the perfect bar gift idea is the Picnic Time Manhattan Portable Cocktail Party. It features everything you need for cocktails for two on the go, including space for two bottles of your favorite spirits. We’d recommend a high quality gin along with some Noilly Prat vermouth.

Bar Gifts to Equip the Talented and the Hopeful

The WMF Loft Boston Cocktail Shaker is the perfect choice for both the beginner and the advanced mixologist. The Boston style allows for theatrical and efficient mixing. It is perfectly designed for at-home use and will certainly bring delight as a gift to a cocktail enthusiast.

A Brainy Bartender Gift Idea

For those looking for a bar gifts that make you think, consider a good book.  To start, don’t miss Martini, Straight Up: The Classic American Cocktail, from Lowell Edmunds. It provides an in-depth and very readable history of the martini’s power to advance civilization from someone who clearly knows the subject. For those with a perspective beyond gin, check out Jason Wilson’s Boozehound: On the Trail of the Rare, the Obscure, and the Overrated in Spirits that wanders through the most esoteric and wonderful spirits you’ve never known. Also, don’t miss Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails: From the Alamagoozlum to the Zombie 100 Rediscovered Recipes and the Stories Behind Them. Although the recipes are a bit on the sweet side, they provide a brilliant insight into the cocktails of today.

The Best Bar Gifts are the Best Bar Supplies

Finally, despite some hesitation in today’s puritan times, a bottle of gin is always an excellent bar gift idea for bartenders with good taste. Choose unique premium gins like Oxley Gin or interesting locally-produced unique gins like Greylock or CapRock.

Finally, and the best gin gift of all from our perspective is the bartender’s GIN compendium. Of all bar gifts, there’s none better to understand gin and why it is the foundation for so many brilliant cocktails.