Char’s 2023 Christmas Gift Guide
Words: Shamim de Brún
Images: Instagram
‘Tis the season to be both eating and gifting, so if you are a food fiend or have one in your life, this is the curated list for you.
First Things First
No chilli oil. This is not a tip or a suggestion. It is a rule. Stick to this harder and faster than your first time. Even the fanciest chilli oil sucks. Either they will already have it if that’s their vibe, or if you’ve just bought a countertop dust catcher, they’ll feel too guilty to regift.
People who are nerdily, obsessively, or passionately into food probably spend way too much money on their weekly shop. It may have started as sriracha, but it processed to White Mausu; and now there’s definitely someone telling them they need to cool it with the spenny preserves. That is where you come in.
What you want to get is the fancy, almost-ridiculous stuff you’d never buy for your own pantry. That’s what everyone loves to receive from someone else. Fussy jams, expensive salt, the chocolate that’s four times the price of a Cadbury’s bar at the checkout aisle. Things you don’t “need” but always want. The home cooks in your life will appreciate them, but so will your friends who can barely boil a can of soup.
There is no one-size-fits-all shopping list. So we’ve broken our gift guide into an edible and inedible food-oriented list.
TOP TIP: When in doubt, stick to the local Irish classics. We’re talking Harry’s Nut Butter, Tara Gartlan Chocolates, a cheeseboard from Sheridan’s. You literally can not go wrong with any of these. They come in at all kinds of price points to suit all kinds of budgets, and the team behind all of them are supremely helpful.
However, if you’ve been buying pressies for the gastronome in your life for a few years and want to level up, go in on the not-so-basics. Consider these your next-level flavour enhancers — not strictly essential but the welcome-if-you-can-get-’em ingredients that chefs name-drop on their curated menus to add depth, spice, tang, or zip.
If you don’t know where to start or want a consolidated list of all the stuff we’re coveting this year, this is the edible gift guide for you.
Coffee
Look, you can never go wrong with coffee. Especially if it’s locally roasted Irish beans. But there are so many options out there at the moment that it can be hard to know which to choose. But the word on the street is that Upside Coffee is currently the best in the biz. Many small independent shops are adding it to their rotations. Their Christmas box set is a particular beauty that would melt the cockles off even the snobbiest barista’s cold dead heart. Bonus points for all the sustainable packaging they use!
Click here to view the whole range.
There’s also roasters like Calendar Coffee, Farmhand, Lucid and Pinecone to look out for. Really the best thing is to hit up an actual third-wave coffee shop and get one of their full bags. Places like The Morning, Bang Bang, Proper Order, Laine My Love, Copper + Straw, Nick’s or any of your local independents will know their naturals from their anaerobics too.
Texture Boosters
Bean Crisp: Everyone has tried the peanut rayu from White Mausu, but their other options are just as good, if not better. But it’s always so hard to veer from your go-to that people rarely do. If you have a texture seeker in your life, the other two are just as good. They add a spicy, garlicky, crunchy kick to everything from rice to veggies to chicken and fish.
Sidebar: you can also try the cashew nut one over vanilla ice cream. Sounds weird but is wonderful.
Granola that’s a perfect ten: Every hipster café worth its salt makes its own granola. And nearly all of them are hot shit. My personal favourite is Tang’s granola. It can sound lame getting someone cereal for Christmas but remember that shit is expensive, and food people love it. Get them some coffee if granola doesn’t feel like enough as a present.
Fermented and Pickled Things
Kimchi is the obvious one. It is the instant flavour enhancer of most people’s dreams. Sauerkraut is also faultless in the eyes of many culinary custodians. But you wouldn’t think to give either as a present sometimes. The beautiful handmade selection by My Goodness is tasty, gorgeous, and made by hand. They also use only locally-sourced ingredients. It ticks every box, including the affordable one, with this set coming in at around twenty-two euros.
All things pickled have had a reclamation moment I have been waiting on all my life. Justice for the pickle is sweet and savoury. Many people have seen the light and know that pickles are the best part of burgers and sometimes even charcuterie boards. One Irish pickler makes the best pickles in all of Éire: Lolo’s Picklery. They’re a small Irish pickled onion producer making jars of the zaniest pickled onions you could imagine. The perfect pantry stocker for the flavour-seeker in your life.
If you’re looking to homemaker your Christmas and have a food connoisseur in your life, then may I suggest preserved lemons. They last forever, add a cured citrus brightness to stews, curries, grain dishes, and more, and are easy to make.
Cured Meats and Irish Seafood
Tinned fish: Shines of Killybegs, Co Donegal, are a family-powered operation that have been producing a range of Irish canned and jarred fish for a good while now. Their sardines are a particular joy. Sardines have been gaining traction with an Irish food audience for a while now due in part to their ubiquity on small plate menus in wine bars. If you have a devout food adventurer in your life, this is the gift for them.
Charcuterie: Listen, sometimes meat is the right choice. Irish cured meats get better every year. With places like The Wooded Pig producing Michelin-level meats, they are the spot to hit if you have a carnivore on your list. They do excellent hampers, and their website has some really lovely pig pictures to peruse. It’s a win-win for everyone in the audience.
Sauces
We are a saucy people, and we love a little sauce to smother everything in. And sure why not? This year has been a banner year for Irish sauces, so if you go to an independent-focused shop then you can find something cool. We think the banana ketchup from Bahay is the new sauce of the year. You can pick it, and their book, Masarap, up at Warehouse Market in Harolds Cross. There’s also a limited edition collab with Foxes Bow whiskey and Chimac doing the rounds this year and it promises to be a winner.
Hot sauce is always a good gift; but it’s excellent if it’s an Irish-made, Japanese-inspired hot sauce from Holly Dalton‘s Conbini Condiments. Each of these sauces is a winner, but as a set, they are what Christmas dreams taste like.
Chimac, Mic’s Chilli and Scarlet for Yer Ma all make an array of differently spiced hot sauces. And if you’re looking for a wild card Rí-Rá have a sriracha beer that’s spicy and super limited so would make a good once off.
Fancy Dairy
Gifting cheese is a truly selfless gift, because you probably won’t get to have any of it. Irish cheese has been on a massive upswing over the last few years, and it’s so hard to go wrong that I could legitimately name over a hundred cheeses to include here. Instead, I’m recommending you go to Loose Canon and pick up a curated selection.
Kevin Powell, the chef behind Loose Canon and its former sisters Meet Me In The Morning and Table Wine, has a special relationship with Irish cheesemongers who send them whatever they think is particularly special. So if you pick up a selection here, you know it’s what the cheese lover in your life will enjoy. It can run a bit expensive, but one good cheese is worth more to a cheesy chappie than a whole heap of meh ones ever will be.
Next-Level Seasoning
Finishing salt: Maldon salt is the fancy salt you see name-checked on menus and on the tables of fancy restaurants, and it is expensive if you just see it as salt. But to food freaks like us, there are many types of salt that are used for dishes. Maldon is for purists, so stick to it if you have an OG who likes to feel fancy at home.
There is Irish Atlantic sea salt if you want to be modern, Irish and interested. It comes in four flavours that have a massive impact on dishes with just a little sprinkling. Be warned though: they may never be able to go back to bog standard table salt after you give them this set. It is the definition of game-changing.
The Sweetest Thing
Chocolates are an international language. They say “I love you” by default. But nothing says more intimate appreciation for you in my life than the hand-painted, labour-of-love chocolates. This year, the branch out that is the most exciting is Tara Gartlan. Leaving the two Michelin-starred Chapter One to create and pursue her own line of chocolates is a brave move, but the treats actually speak for themselves. They’re available in two different collections for €26. Tara now ships nationwide, so you can get them no matter where you are in the world.
Merch From Their Local
Local merch is just as cool today as Rolling Stones tees were back in the ’60s. Everyone is wearing them. They exist in the creative ether where your favourite illustrators team up with your favourite restaurants, coffee shops and bars to create fashionable t-shirts, hats, and sometimes even scarves.
This is another thing that many food fiends love but would maybe not actually buy for themselves. They’ll go in on the reg and then keep saying ‘ah I’ll get one next week’ and then never do. So it makes for the perfect prezzie.
Some spots with particularly good ones are: Chimac, Nomo, Big Fan, Bang Bang, Harry’s Nut Butter, Bambino; and new to the game is White Mausu who just launched theirs this week.
For The Whiskey Aficionado
If you’re not one, buying for a whiskey nerd is one of the single most difficult shopping experiences you can have. I do not envy the loved ones of #CaskStrengthCrusaders. But as one of them, I am here to help.
If you want to blow the bank, the phrase you need to go to Celtic Whiskey Shop, Mitchell & Son or Dublin’s newest whiskey retailer Palace Bar, armed with is “single cask.” This is whiskey speak for limited edition. There are only so many bottles in a cask, so there can only be so many of this whiskey. But they never run cheap. Ever! So be emotionally prepared if that is the theme.
My top pick for under a hundred euros has been Blue Spot for the past two years, and until a new banging Cask Strength Single Pot Sill is released, it will stay so. They are hard to get, so go straight to the source and hit up Mitchell & Son. I have it on good authority that the Christmas batch is landing imminently, so get in touch and secure yours.
Easier to source winning products Blackpitts Cask Strength from Teeling. You can never go wrong with a classic Green Spot or Jameson Black Barrell.
A more interesting present for a whiskey whizz is actually a bottle of Olorosso Sherry. Most of Ireland’s favourite whiskies are sherried whiskies, but the average whiskey nerd hasn’t tried OG sherry. Pair it with a heavily-sherried whiskey like West Cork Sherry Cask, and you can’t go wrong.
Elsewhere on CHAR: The Dublin 100 Guide
