Lounge Essentials: Holiday Gift Recommendations 2012

Gifts for the Home Bar

The Loungerati staff share some of our Lounge Essentials holiday gift wish list:

For The Home Bar (pictured)

Home Bar Basics and Not-So Basics by Dave Stolte ($12.75) nominated for Best Cocktail Writing Spirited Award at Tales of the Cocktail 2012, this must have pocket cocktail guide is a welcome addition to any home bar. Stolte provides recipes, insightful commentary and even illustrations. 

Tuthilltown Distillery Barrel Aging Kit  ($12.50) - don't have room for an entire barrel to age booze? No problem, mimic the process with this home aging kit from the folks behind Hudson Whiskies which include honeycomb barrel staves that adds a charred wood flavor to pre-made cocktails. (cocktail not included)

Umamimart's Yarai Mixing Glass and Trident Bar Spoon gift set ($50.00) - The Japanese beaker shaped heavy bottom mixing glass and iconic trident fork bar spoon up your home bar game.

Cocktail Kingdom stocking stuffers: Lewis Ice Bag - perfect way to make crushed ice for juleps ($3.95), CoCo Ultra Premium Fine Strainer - essential strainer for citrus cocktails ($6.95), Cocktail Kingdom Steel Julep Spoon Straw -25 5" spoon straws set pack ($37.95) - no need to swipe them from Little Branch anymore!

Other great home bar gifts available at the Loungerati Home Bar Store!

Lounge Enhancements

Iconic Images of Josephine Baker, George Gershwin, Audrey Hepburn, and more - 

Condé Naste, publisher of such classic magazines as Vogue, Vanity Fair, and the New Yorker, offers a selection of fabulous photographs from their archives at very reasonable prices — these are obviously not vintage prints, but it's still a treat to be able to have access to such iconic images—as well as many relatively unknown but equally stunning shots. Particularly recommended are images by Edward Steichen, Cecil Beaton, Horst P. Horst, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, George Hoyningen-Huené to name just a few. The prints are available framed or unframed and in a number of sizes and finishes—just please don't insult the medium by ordering one on canvas!! 

Vinyl Mania, ($59.95) at Taschen web store - a two-volume book set—album-sized at 11.8 x 11.8" of course, and 556 pages—is packed full of the coolest, craziest jazz album covers from the 1940s to the 1990s ("the decline of LP Production" *sigh* ). Included are record covers from Sara Vaughn, Stan Getz, Cannonball Adderly, Duke Ellington, and Quincy Jones to name a few. 


The Postcards Age ($45.00) - 

Published to accompany a show  at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, The Postcard Age presents an incredible collection of postcards created during the early part of the 1900s, when,as the museum describes it, "postcards were Twitter, e-mail, Flickr, and Facebook, all wrapped into one." Also check out Posters: Irony, Imagination and Eroticism in Advertising 1895-1960, ($75.00) which offers a tantalizing dip into a pre-Mad Men world of the art of advertising and seduction. l

Threads/Gear  
The Rita Cocktail Dress from Bettie Page Clothing ($102.00) - knock them dead at the office holiday party with this killer turquoise dress that would make Joan Harris proud! Bonus: The Bettie Page Clothing just opened a NY location at 303 Bowery - 2013 will be a dynamite year!

Red and Navy Stripped Sock Garters from Fine and Dandy ($19.00) - Besides being a very personal fashion statement, sock garters are actually functional. I don't know about you but I have yet to meet a modern sock who elasticity survives more than a few months. Eliminate the risk of sock bunching around your ankles with a smart pair of sock garters. While you are at it, pick up some classic shirt garters too. Garters for men, no longer geezer but geezer chic!

Navy Cocktail Pocket Square also from Fine and Dandy ($39.00) - this silk work of art will be a hit for any well dressed cocktail man in your life. In other words, every male lounger you know. 

Holiday Bonus
Minetta Tavern Gift Certificate - opened in 1937 in Greenwich Village, the Minetta Tavern is a landmark and an old haunt of the Loungerati. When restauranteur Keith McNally  took over the location in 2009, he made it a food and cocktail destination. The best Cote de Boeuf in New York is worth the wait!

~ Happy Holidays!