From the folks next door came warm joy in a basket – all of the essentials for hot buttered. rum.  Talk about a great hostess or neighbor gift.  It is not only homemade, but seasonal and delicious.

In the basket:

Jar of spiced butter – Butter mixed with dark brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and orange zest.  Our neighbors are too cool to measure.  Put in lots of spice. It is so decadent we want to spread it on toast.  * Note coconut oil can be substituted for butter.

1 bottle o’ rum

Cinnamon sticks for garnish.

Instructions.
Spoon 1 – 2 Tbs in a standard sized mug.
Add 2 ounces of rum.
Top with boiling water and stir.

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Tasting Pour was asked a really great and really hard question this week.  “What type of wine should you get someone for a Christmas gift when you don’t know what they like?”  Combining a difficult to please person, with limited information on his/her tastes, plus the pressure of Christmas shopping is like the trifecta of gift giving dilemmas.

Consider including a recipe for a Mimosa, Bellini, or Tasting Pour’s Christmas Eve with your gift.  Better yet, give ingredients to make a sparkling wine cocktail.  Include a bottle of Cassis Liqueur (we like Clear Creek Distillery from Oregon) and the grateful recipient can make a Kir Royale for the holidays.

While there are some very expensive sparkling wines, there are many nice bottles in very affordable ranges and this is the time of year when wine stores run sparkling wines on special.  These more affordable bottles also tend to have fresher, fruitier flavors and clean, crisp, dry finishes that make them suitable for a wide range of palates and for mixing.   Gloria Ferrer Sonoma Brut or Blanc de Noirs from California, Clos de Nouys Vouvray ( a Loire Valley sparkling wine made with Chenin Blanc),  Domaine Carneros by Taittinger from California, and Scharffenberger Brut from California are all fine examples of bottles ranging from $15-30, and all are made using the same methods as sparkling wines from the Champagne region in France.  For an off- dry style consider a Prosecco or Risqué from Toad Hollow.  If planning to include a mixer, consider an even less expensive but quality sparkling like Toso from Argentina (~$10).

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