For the past few months we’ve been keeping our eyes out for booze and gardening gifts that we think might please YOU, our beloved reader(s). Here’s a collection of fine digging and swigging suggestions to inform your hasty, last minute purchases, each one a GUARANTEED sure-fire winner.
Just make sure you keep checking this page as we’ll be updating it with more suggestions as Christmas looms upon us.
Beer Me Now, Christmas Beer Box
Price £25
Every year a there are new beers subscription services added to an already busy market place and we do our best to test them all. Among the most recent launches that has impressed is Beer Me Now, a regular service that provides a good mix of popular classic beers with less well known bottles and cans (along with a salty snack for munching action). The Beer Me Now team has also put together a one off box of goodies just for Christmas, so you or a mate can enjoy their selection of eight ace beers as a one-off purchase (which we reckon might be enough to tempt you to signing up when all the Christmas beers have gone).
Available from Beer Me Now
The Ten-Minute Gardener: A month-by-month guide to growing your own
By Val Bourne
Price: £9.99
Val’s latest book comes packing top gardening advice, facts, history and folklore, and is the perfect pressie for keen gardeners strapped for time. We love it! In fact we love it so much we are going to steal the format. Ours will be called The Ten Second Gardener, which involves putting on a pair of wellies and taking them off again before skulking back to bed.
Available from: Amazon
Duvel Gift Set
Price: £15.12
Give the gift of Belgian booze. This punchy pack features a 330ml bottle of Duvel Belgian Golden Ale (8.5%), a 330ml bottle of Duvel Tripel Hop Citra (9.5%) and a top-notch Duvel branded tulip glass from which to sup. Perfect for easing the tension after a fraught game of family Monopoly.
Go get!
Interesting beer fact to throw about during Christmas dinner: The yeast strain used in the brewing of Duvel originates from Scotland.
Available from The Belgian Beer Company
Tool and Tuck Tin
Price £24.99
This sturdy tin is designed to keep your essential garden tools and lunch in one handy place as you roam around the allotment building up an appetite. Items such as hand forks, seeds and plant labels can stored in the main compartment while a sliding door in the lid can house your food and keep it protected from flying soil. We reckon there’s even room for a bottle of cider and a copy of Brew it Yourself (see below). Load up and you’re set for the day.
SAVE 10%: The good folk at Greenhouse Sensation have kindly set us up with 10% off code for this product– simply follow the link below and use the unique code: THIRSTYGARDENER18 – valid until 31st December 2018.
Available from Greenhouse Sensation
The 12 Ciders of Christmas
Price £35
Cider lovers are often overlooked at Christmas. While other boozes get thrust into the festive spotlight, cider usually receives little more attention that to be warmed up with mulled spices at a Christmas market. But we’ve spotted the perfect gift for cider drinkers, courtesy of Bristol Cider Shop. It’s a box of 12 fantastic bottles of golden booze, specially selected from the finest cider makers, the likes of which even the keenest cider guzzlers will have difficulty tracking down. Go on, treat your pal to something special this year…
Available from Bristol Cider Shop
The Glenlivet Founder’s Reserve
Price £34.25
If you’re hunting for a gift for a whisky fan but are not quite sure what they like then might we suggest this handsomely boxed bottle. It’s a classic Speyside whisky (everyone likes a classic Speyside) from one of the most popular Scottish distilleries, the Glenlivet. The whisky is named in honour of Glenlivet’s founder and is a smooth sipping delight, with some clean tasting floral and fruity notes and not a rough edge to be found. Perfect to ease away any Christmas chaos.
Available from The Whisky Exchange
Brew it Yourself
For the ultimate digging and swigging gift there’s always our book, Brew it Yourself. It’s rammed full with ace booze recipes – from beers, ciders and wines to more curious cocktails and infusions, and a few Christmassy boozes to boot – many of them using home grown ingredients. And don’t just take our word for its goodness – take a look at the five star reviews on Amazon for authentic tales of boozy glee.
Available from Amazon
Somerset Cider Apple Poster
And whilst we’re on an undignified, egotistic roll of self promotion, allow us to recommend this splendid apple poster, designed by Nick’s very own gnarled mouse-hand. It’s a typographic apple, beautifully constructed using the names of Somerset cider varieties. Ideal for bathrooms, sheds, kitchens and outhouses and just the ticket for covering up unsightly stains on walls.
It costs a mere £10 (including postage) and you can buy it from our Etsy shop, right HERE.
Fatty’s Organic Gin
Price: £43.64
Looking for a new groovy gin to gift (or guzzle)? Look no further – this Dulwich-born gin has been distilled with dill, the fish-loving, feathery-fronded herb. It’s a London Dry style with delicate herbal notes and was deemed tasty enough to grab gold at the 2018 Spirits Business Awards.As Claudio Ranieri would say: “dilly-ding, dilly-dong” (whatever the hell that means).
Available from: Masters of Malt
Stihl Retro T-shirt
Price: £30
Clad your beloved in one of these retro T-shirt from Stihl, our favourite German power tool peddler. Made from mottled grey cloth and sporting a groovy circular saw logo, it’ll cut a dash down both allotment and pub. We can confirm that the ‘medium’ will happily fit a short, bald, mis-shaped man pushing 50 years of age. Ja! Danke!
Available from Stihl
Drinks by the Dram Gin Baubles
Price: £39.95 for a pack of six
Deck the halls with boozy baubles, tra la la la la, la la la la. Each bauble contains a wax-sealed 30ml dram, filled with an exceptional expression. Hang them, admire them, drink them and embrace the festive spirit(s). Also available in whisky.
Get them here
Mead: The Libations, Legends and Lore of History’s Oldest Drink
Price: £15.28
No longer the domain of battle re-enactment societies and folks with twig-strewn beards, mead is officially HIP. Feed your need for info on mead with this ace new book by American booze legend Fred Minnick, featuring Mead-history, mead-making techniques, and 50 cocktail recipes.
Available from Amazon
