WITH the festive season well and truly upon us, we have to start planning the drinks for Christmas Day. Quite apart from the wine to go with the meal, you have to think of something fizzy for the morning, a bottle of Croft Original Sherry for Auntie Mary, and (of course) gin. Lots and lots of gin.
Gin is still enjoying its boom, with more and more new expressions being launched (it seems) every week. They can be deluxe and very expensive, although there are a few surprisingly good examples at "house gin" prices. They can be flavoured with herbs and other botanicals both before and after the distillation. Some of them even change colour when you add tonic. You really are spoiled for choice.
The clever folk at Pickering’s Gin have had the most festive idea of producing baubles for your tree filled with gin. They come in a variety of seasonal colours and are boxed in sixes (Inverarity One to One, £28.50 per box) with each bauble containing 5cl of delicious, refreshing spirit. Just make sure you hang them high enough on the tree that the wee ones can’t reach them, but low enough that you can in case of festive gin emergencies.
We are down to our last few cases of the current batch of the 121 Gin (Inverarity One to One, £23.99) which is bottled at 46 per cent ABV and is remarkably good value. This will certainly help to boost your Christmas spirit on December 25.
And so to the fizz. Champagne sales go through the roof at this time of year, and it’s worth shopping around to find the best price on your favourite bottle. The supermarkets will quite often do a special promotion for a week (or even just a few days), so keep an eye out for big discounts. I love Laurent Perrier, Pol Roger and Veuve Clicquot, all three of which are good quality and very consistent. At the time of writing, Waitrose had the Pol Roger Brut Reserve NV on offer at £34.99. Also, you should definitely snap a bottle or two of Veuve Clicquot Brut NV from Majestic at just £29.99 if they have any left.
If the softer fizz and fruitier approachability of Prosecco is more your thing, try the Conte Priuli Prosecco (M&S, £9). The saving you will make on Champagne prices can be clawed back in to the gin budget.
Pete Stewart is Glasgow director of Inverarity One to One, 185a Bath Street, Glasgow www.inveraritymorton.com
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here