Food & Drink

Some folks are difficult to buy gifts for, full-stop. But then there are folks who enjoy eating well, drinking well, and caring about what lands on their table. Those folks are, frankly, the easiest. Once you take the "fancy!" out of gifts and focus on the actual quality, that is. The philosophy behind this guide. We've selected gifts centered around food and drink because they’re the ones that get consumed. Not shelved. Not unboxed and admired. Consumed, finished, discussed around the dinner table, and then silently coveted when they're gone. Gifts that are enjoyed genuinely have an integrity about them that doesn't often come with gifts that linger. We tried not to think about the obvious gifts. The poorly-resourced hamper with three things you want and eight things you won't use. The bottle of alcohol that looks cool but isn’t necessarily something you’ll crack open anytime soon. The kitchen tools designed to help you apply mustard onto your schnitzel at fifteen times the effort it should take. We’ve spent many hours researching the best stuff out there and trust us when we say that the standard is greater than most gift roundups will have you believe. Each item here has been selected because it tastes amazing, comes from a producer who’s doing something really interesting, or is just the type of thing that a well-curated person would buy for themselves and feel legitimately good about. Quality is something we care about—a lot. If we feel like we're compromising on that to fill a category, it doesn't make the cut. We cover a lot of ground here. There are things for the wine aficionado and things for the breakfast-lover. Things that come in gorgeous packaging and things that are all about whats’ inside. We don't make it all look and feel the same because food and drink gifts shouldn't. You know the person you're buying for best. Gifts that fall into this category shouldn't have to pad their appeal with filler masquerading as fancy snacks. We've all been there - you buy someone a gift you think they'll like in this category and they smile, grunt “thanks” and immediately hide it under the cupboard. We’re trying to eliminate THAT from happening. Every item you see here we would hand over after packing it ourselves.

Baking

Some bakers do it for therapy. Some want to smell like they’re famous autumn spice company. Others love giving to others, and just happen to be exceptional at baking. Either way, the baker in your life is guaranteed to have boundless excitement about their hobby and an entire library of books on how to refine it. But what they might be missing is the tools to take it to the next level. The tin that heats completely evenly. The trusting scale that won’t let you cheat. The thing they’ve had their eye on for ages but haven’t purchased yet because…

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BBQ

Everybody has that person. The person who brines everything that hits the grill. The person who starts planning their meal the night before. The person who has strong opinions about charcoal and is going to tell you about them whether you want to hear it or not. Shopping for that person can be easy. You just need to know what they actually need rather than what looks cool on the shelf. This collection exists because we think BBQ gifts tend to lean towards one of two directions. There’s novelty. The gag aprons and the spoon rest sets that come with…

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Beer

Buying beer as a gift used to mean picking up a six pack on the way. If you think beer geeks deserve better than that, you're likely thinking the person buying beer gifts for them does too. We built this collection because beer is one of the most interesting, versatile and genuinely giftable areas around, and gift sites tend to cover it as an afterthought. We built it for one sort of person. Not the kind of person who'll drink whatever beer is put in front of them, but the person who'll get excited about that brewery they visited last…

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Cheese

There are wine people. Chocolate people. Then there are cheese people. The ones we trust. If there’s a cheese person in your life you know this already. A selection box from the supermarket just isn’t going to wow them. They have standards. Preferences. Feelings. About rinds and caves and milk temperature and leaving something on a cloth in a Somerset barn for months. Cheese people have opinions and they are a feature to be worked with, not a problem. Finding the perfect gift to match them is the challenge. We built this shop for that cheese person. The one who…

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Chocolate

Someone will try and tell you chocolate isn’t a valid gift. They are incorrect. The problem is that often chocolate marketed as a gift experiences does the job required of it and no more. A selection box from motorway services. Something wrapped in shiny foil that looks good for about four seconds before you realise it tastes of absolutely nothing. When it’s good chocolate can be one of the best gifts you can give. As long as it’s actually good. That’s our benchmark. Everything we’ve picked here has to taste amazing. Literally amazing. Not nice, not interesting, but amazing. The…

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Cider

If you ask most people what they think cider is, they’ll picture the stuff you pour over ice in a pint glass in the pub garden; sickly sweet, chilled, and entirely interchangeable. We don’t. After trying a single variety cider crafted from bittersweet apples grown in Herefordshire soil, or hunting down a bottle of wild fermented pear cider from a micro producer only farming enough fruit for a few hundred cases per year, you realise that for far too long cider has been wildly underrated. The difference between what people think cider is and what it actually can be is…

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Coffee

Some people like drinking coffee. Other people live around it. The morning cup isn’t optional. Neither is the afternoon. Before they know it it has quietly become one of the more ritualised things they’ll do all day. If you have a coffee person like this in your life then you already know that a bag of supermarket beans with a bow round it is not enough. We built this collection with that person in mind. Whether they’re the person who has strong opinions about extraction time and water temperature or the person who has only just started to understand that…

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Cooking

Anyone who cooks properly is one of the simplest people in the world to buy gifts for…in theory. When it comes down to it this is where most gift guides steer you wrong. Either you end up with a piece of kit that lives on your worktop for the first week of January before becoming relegated to a drawer until February, or you panic and buy something so cumbersome they own 3 already. We’ve received both gifts and never once hadeitherfeel good about receiving. What we wanted instead was items that actually improve how someone cooks.Prepared ingredientsantor instruments that aren’t…

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Gin

Gin enthusiasts are people too. They have preferences, strong opinions on tonic, and will absolutely know if you've purchased a poorly reviewed bottle from the bottom shelf and slapped a bow on it. This isn't meant as an insult, by the way. Consider it helpful context. If you impress the gin enthusiast you really impress them. At Kin we noticed that gin had become one of those disastrous middle grounds. You know the ones, where the difference between an amazing gift and a lump of coal is massive but half of gift guides don't know the difference. We did some…

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Rum

Rum is underrated. When people want to impress, they grab whisky. Rum becomes cola mixing at parties, or duty free buys hidden in plastic bags. It’s disappointing, because those cheap bottles aren’t what this spirit is all about. The best bottles in this collection have depth, age and tales that reach back generations across the Caribbean, Central America and further. The right bottle of rum is one of the most rewarding presents you can buy for a drinker. We’ve curated this collection because we kept coming across bottles like that; fantastic rum being overlooked by drinkers that would have loved…

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Tea

If you know a person who is serious about tea, you know the person we’re talking about. We’re not talking Bob’s Your Uncle serious. Although we’re not insulting that either. We’re talking about a person who has opinions about water temperature, who knows what a first flush Darjeeling is and how it differs from a second flush. Who will gently, but with great authority tell you you’ve poured your milk in the wrong way. Buying a gift for that person can be nerve wracking. So we did the research for you. We learned that tea gifts are a knife edge.…

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Tequila

Everyone knows the kind of tequila that tastes like a regretful undergrad night out. Most people never progress past that. That’s the tequila that makes people swear off for decades. We wanted this collection to showcase the other end of the spectrum. The añejos aged long enough to align themselves with whisky instead of shots, the small batch blancos with crisp minerality that garner a cult following among connoisseurs and the reposados that repay you when you slow down and actually taste them. Tequila is a really underrated gift. Most people fall back on whisky or wine because it’s easy,…

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Vodka

Most vodka gets purchased like gasoline. Pick up what you know or what's on sale, pay, get out. Which makes a well selected vodka such a great gift. Unwrapping it lets its recipient know you actually gave some thought to what you were buying, that you maybe know something they didn't, that you cared enough to do better than whatever brand happens to line the shelf at eye level at their local supermarket. That's why we put this collection together. Because vodka has a reputation it doesn't deserve. Folks tend to lump the entire category into one neutral flavorless bucket.…

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Whisky

Whisky is one of those gifts where bad can mean mundane and good can mean unforgettable. Most people recognise this gap when they look at it from afar, but are acutely aware of it when confronted with forty shelves of bottles wondering what to pick. We built this collection to do that proper part of the gap up. Every item has been individually selected by us for a certain kind of recipient. Not the person you’re trying to get into whisky. But the person who knows what they like, and deserves a surprise they didn’t know they were looking for.…

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Wine

Buying someone a bottle seems easy until you’re in the aisle staring at shelves sweating blood trying to remember Burgundy or Bordeaux. White? Wait. Do they even LIKE white? DOES THE £15 BOTTLE YOU’RE LOOKING AT MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE YOU TRIED OR LIKE YOU PURCHASED IT ON THE WAY? We’ve been there, panicked and sweating. Trust us, it’s not pleasant. So we built this with people like us in mind. People who want to gift wine properly. Each bottle here has been curated because it passes a threshold that most wine gifts don’t. It must be considered. It must…

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