These Bitters Turn a Deadbeat Gift Into a Thoughtful One

This is Highly Recommend, a column dedicated to our very opinionated editors’ favorite things to eat, drink, and buy.

My go-to holiday gift has always been a bottle of alcohol. It's easy, it's scalable, and it's always well received. (Unless the person doesn’t drink, in which case: fancy pajamas.) But throwing booze under the tree also can also seem...a bit lazy. Like maybe you forgot to buy anything at all and, on Christmas Eve, hightailed it to the closest liquor store, grabbed the first dusty mid-range option you saw, and threw it into one of those Santa-printed bags they sell at the liquor store.

So now that I’m in my 30s and desperately trying to prove that I’m! not! lazy!, I give a 2.0 version: The ~cocktail kit~.

All you need to create a cocktail kit is the aforementioned booze, plus two things: a useful but not-too-pricey bar tool (this swizzle spoon is a good one, so is this mod trophy-shaped jigger) and a bottle of 18.21 Bitters. I love these bitters not only because they’re made by hand in my favorite city, Atlanta, but also because they’re extremely versatile, look très chic on anyone’s bar cart, and suggest far more advance holiday planning than that Angostura sitting next to the Santa bags. Plus, there’s a wide variety of fanciful flavors, so you can create a customized pairing based on your receiver’s favorite firewater. Bottle of gin? Earl Grey Bitters. Bottle of mezcal? Japanese Chili and Lime Bitters.

My personal favorite is the smooth-n-spiced Prohibition Aromatic Bitters, which smell like Christmas if your Christmas took place in a 1920s speakeasy full of buttery leather and sparkly ladies smoking clove cigarettes (dream Christmas!). Pair it with your favorite rye or bourbon for a very excellent Old Fashioned, or add an absinthe rinse to make a mean Sazerac. If you really love the person, you could throw in some rye AND some absinthe, and maybe an Allen Toussaint record and, well, look at you. You’re the Gift Giver of the Year, and suddenly that one time you bequeathed everyone stolen Heineken pint glasses wrapped in red ribbon is forgotten and no one can ever call you lazy again, as long as you all shall live.

Buy it: Prohibition Aromatic Bitters, $19 at 18.21 Bitters

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Originally Appeared on Bon Appétit