I’ve always enjoyed making lists. As a child I’d spend hours alone in my room meticulously recording my preferred bands, movies, and sports stars, just to name a few. As I grew older, lonelier and, shall we say, more lugubrious, I’d often enumerate such things as favorite natural disasters, most despised historic figures, and hideous afflictions matched with people I wished suffered from them. Eventually, my parents got me on medication, and most of the “dark stuff” went away. But my fondness for lists and pills endures to this day, which is why I love being a journalist during this ho, ho, hokiest and list-crazy time of the year! In fact, I just popped a few Xanax and am ready to get this yuletide party started right with some gift ideas for the imbibers in your life: Mumm Napa Brut Prestige: At $18 a bottle, this California sparkling wine is a great value that is sure to impress at holiday get-togethers should anyone choose to hang out with you. Mumm Napa’s winemaker, Ludovic Dervin, is a rising star in the industry and with good reason: His wines hold their own against many higher-priced competitors.
Crown Royal Personalized Bag: Visit www.crownroy-alstore.com to order a bag emblazoned with a message of your choosing ($9.95). Then head down to your local liquor store, buy a bottle of Canada’s best-known blended whisky ($25) and stick it in the bag. It’s the sort of gift that says, “Hey, I give a crap” — in fact, that’s precisely what I had written on the bag I ordered for my mother.
A Barrel of Jack Daniel’s: If one bottle of whisky just won’t cut it, how about 240? That’s how much hootch is contained in an entire barrel of Jack Daniel's Single Barrel Tennessee Whiskey, available now for a limited time. For $9,000, you get the bottled whiskey, the empty barrel in which it was aged, a brass plaque and a framed certificate of ownership. For more information about the barrel offer, call 888-551-5225. (Thirsty for more Imbiber? Pull up a barstool at www.TheImbiber.com)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 23, 2005. Read the original PDF.