Searching for a gift for the foodie in your life? We have you covered with our Big Foodie Gift Guide
Follain 12 Days Gift Box.
IT’S a triumphant return for my annual Big Foodie Gift Guide packed with genuinely brilliant ideas to gift the food enthusiast in your life – or just because you are worth it!
This year, as well as collecting treasures from all around Cork, I have stumbled across one or two that caught my eye from a little further afield. As usual, there’s a great mix of things to eat and drink, but also books, experiences and kitchen tools that will last a lifetime. That’s Christmas gifting sorted!
I love this idea from Ireland’s smallest micro-brewery, West Cork Brewing, based in beautiful Baltimore, and perfect for the beer fanatic in your life looking for more than another brewery tour or gift pack.
You’ll get to glimpse first hand how beer is made from grain to mash to brew to bottle, and gain insights from a talented brewer. Booking is via link to an enquiry form on the brewery’s Instagram page: @westcorkbrewingco.
This premium Irish stout is the first in Original 7’s ‘barrel aged’ series available in limited quantities - only 1,000 bottles will be available to purchase online, ensuring each bottle is a treasured experience for those lucky enough to enjoy it.
The Extra Stout is made using Irish ale malt, flaked oats, malted wheat, roast barley, and dark crystal malts. It’s a full-bodied stout at 9.3% ABV with notes of strong coffee and winter berry with dark chocolate and coffee bean aromas, then matured for six months in six ex-bourbon Jameson whiskey casks for undertones of caramel, vanilla, nuttiness and a little spice.
Claire Keane has created a seriously addictive American-style Confectionery Gift Box for the festive season featuring her award-winning chocolate-covered Toffee Brittle. Her new Hazelnut and Peppermint flavours feature alongside Milk Chocolate Sea Salt and decadent Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Toffee Brittles in a four-pack Confectionery Gift Box that will have recipients excitedly ripping off the wrapping paper.
The funnest thing to happen to cocktails since paper umbrellas, Foxglove Cocktails have revolutionised at-home cocktail making with their simple to use mixes. This year, make it festive by gifting one of three ways to enjoy the Foxglove experience!
Bar in a Jar contains dried slices of lime, lemon and grapefruit ready for garnishing your creations you shake up in the jar! The Mulled Wine kit contains everything to need for creating the perfect festive drink.
Or book your place on Foxglove’s Christmas Jumper Cocktail Cruise on 22nd December leaving from Penrose Dock in Cork city for a two-hour jaunt about the Lee with cocktails and a DJ. €50pp with very limited spaces available!
A historical donut tour of Cork could be the most unique ways to experience this great city on the river Lee! This two hour two starts at Dulce Bun House and takes in three donut stops, including drinks, stories and sites. There is a special Holiday edition of the tour which also takes in some of Cork’s most festive sites until 7th January.
A great gift for an overdue get together with friends and family, or for the foodie looking for a contemporary take on Cork’s food scene.
Some of the nicest examples of handcrafted chopping boards I have seen in a long time are borne from the hands of brothers Donnchadha and Eamon O’Connor using Irish hardwoods and wood from storm-felled trees in their Listowel workshop.
Boards are available in beech and walnut in three sizes ranging in price from €40-60. Their beechwood egg cups are a wonderfully tactile design, also.
But if you bump into them at craft fairs this season, keep an eye out for stunning limited-edition boards not on the website.
Intrepid home cooks know that salt is a valuable tool in the armoury of building flavour. So how about gifting a subscription for year-round supply of award-winning Dingle Sea Salt’s new sustainable ‘Saltscription’ service for the gift that keeps on giving!
Made using a slow evaporation process, the award-winning mineral-rich salts deliver a robust tang and a sweet finish. A ‘Saltscription’ gifts a continuous supply of Dingle Sea Salt throughout 2024 by exchanging a ‘Saltscription’ E-voucher a chic reusable ceramic jar filled with 100g of handcrafted sea salt.
There are cherished pieces of Louth-based ceramicist, Sarah McKenna, all over my house – and that even extends to a couple of very special Christmas tree decorations. This year, Sarah has teamed up with mixologist and Schweppes Brand Ambassador, Michelle Mac Guinness, to design a range of porcelain cocktail-themed tree decorations each paired with a cocktail recipe! Whether you’re a martini, daiquiri, or marguerita kinda gal, there’s a tree dec just for you. Available individually or at sets of three and six.
This Christmas, diminutive raw-milk cheesemakers, The Lost Valley Dairy, are offering six different options of their Christmas Cheese Box. Mike and Darcie’s cheeses are produced by hand from the milk of their own micro-herd of Shorthorns and Droimeanns. They farm sustainably, so supporting their Christmas boxes, Cork consumers are also supporting both a local and sustainable Christmas. No plastic at all is used in the packaging.
Bean-to-bar chocolate maker, Exploding Tree, whole-ingredient approach, gifting chocolate has never been more interesting! Hampers include bars of handmade chocolates, husks for tea, nibs for everything from breakfast to salads, and hot chocolate stirrers. Gift boxes of mini bars are available in eight flavours including vegan friendly oat milk and unique goat milk bars as well as classic flavours of mint, chilli and sea salt. Santa’s helpers have been busy making a range of seasonal chocolate lollipops – perfect as stocking fillers.
For foodies, few gifts beat a well curated food hamper, and in Cork four of the best can be found at The Roughty Foodie (English Market), Urru Culinary Store (Bandon), Nash19 (Cork city), and Carewswood Garden Centre (near Castlemartyr).
The Roughty Foodie has a lovely Irish Sweet Box hamper (€85) featuring Lismore Chocolate Biscuits and Apple Thins, Mella’s Fudge, Cork Coffee Roaster’s Coffee, O’Conáill’s Milk Hot Chocolate and a large bar of milk chocolate, homemade Butterscotch Sauce, boiled sweets, and preserves.
Expect bubbles, a handcrafted board, cheeses, pickles and condiments, her famous plum pudding, fresh bread, smoked salmon, spiced beef, and more besides.
Ruth Healy is celebrating 20 years of Urru Culinary Store, so who better to know their way around a hamper! Three hamper sizes are available this year from €70, with the option of putting together your own personal favourites with Ruth on hand to guide you to hamper nirvana!
Carewswood Garden Centre offer a wonderful array of hampers to suit many different budgets. The Wine and Chocolates gift box starts from €29.95, up to the bountiful Family Christmas Hampers with 25 items fitted snuggly into a wicker basket at €319.
Folláin’s 12 Days of Christmas box contains 12 unique miniature preserves. Flavours included in this year’s yuletide edition include Whiskey Marmalade, Blackberry Jam, Raspberry Jam, Strawberry Jam, Passionfruit Curd, Christmas Spiced Marmalade, Mulled Wine and Winter Berry Jam, Winter Spiced Rhubarb Jam, Strawberry & Prosecco, Raspberry and Pink Gin, and Lemon Curd.
For a real festive blow out, the five-star luxury of Castlemartyr Resort awaits. Packages are for a two or three-night stay arriving Christmas Eve based on two guests sharing.
The experience includes mulled wine reception with freshly made mince pies on arrival, cocktail reception with carols, a five-course meal, and a visit by Santa – with gifts – on Christmas Eve.
After dinner relax in luxury, enjoy a selection of classic Christmas movies, get competitive with a selection of board games, or enjoy drinks in The Knight’s Bar with a delicious buffet supper served later that evening. On St Stephen’s night visit to The Hunted Hog for a night of revelry, with live music.
It wouldn’t be a foodie gift list without books!
Blasta Books, Season 3 The 2024 season of Blasta Books features to female Cork chefs, Caitlin Ruth (Funky) and Aishling Moore (Whole Catch), as well as Agak-Agak by Sham Hanifa and Socafro by Alistair Jeje. Caitlin’s book lands in January, with a book landing every three months for a year-long gift!
Spice Box, Sunil Ghai Sunil’s incomparable Pickle Indian Restaurant in Dublin’s Portobello serves really amazing food. Spice Box is a love letter to the magic of spice with truly authentic Indian dishes for replicating with ease at home. No-one ever truly master’s the art of spice, but even a little bit of practice makes for better food every time. This is the book to make that happen.
Flavour – Everyday Food Made Exceptional, Mark Moriarty It’s a bold claim, but one that Moriarty delivers on with ease. This is his first book and continues to deliver recipes we want to eat all the time. He offers up tricks and tips from his years in high end kitchens for use at home - these are the levers that move midweek meals and weekend cookouts from good to exceptional.
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