When I began stocking my home bar a couple years ago, I was on a tight budget, so I started by focusing on one cocktail at a time, buying just the components of that drink. If you have friends or relatives who are looking to expand their mixed drink horizons, use this strategy to give them a thoughtful gift they'll appreciate: make them a cocktail kit.
Instead of giving just a bottle of liquor, buy all the ingredients needed to make a specific cocktail and wrap them together, along with your favorite recipe for the drink. To dress up the gift, you can also include glassware specific to that drink, or a bar tool you know they don't have. I've been both the giver and recipient of these types of kits, and they are always appreciated.
Here are a few ideas for cocktail kits:
• Old Fashioned: Rye or bourbon + Angustora bitters
→ Optional: Old fashioned glasses, homemade maraschino cherries
• Moscow Mule: Vodka + premium ginger ale, such as Fever Tree or Q Tonic
→ Optional: Copper mugs
• Gimlet: Gin + homemade raw lime cordial (must be kept refrigerated)
→ Optional: A cocktail shaker
• Hot Buttered Rum: Rum + a jar of homemade hot buttered rum mix (must be kept refrigerated)
→ Optional: Mugs, a jar of pumpkin butter + recipe for hot pumpkin buttered rum
• Hot Toddy: Bourbon + spices + local honey
→ Optional: Mugs, Meyer lemons
Do you have any ideas for cocktails that could be translated into kits?
Related: Cocktail Supplies for the Traveler: A Mini, Flight-Friendly Bitters Set
(Image: Nancy Mitchell)
Soda Recipe: Homemade Ginger Ale
Recipe: Spring Fruit and Nut Tabouli
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
TW Salt Mill by Wil...
The Ultimate Used Furniture Cleaning Kit
Ana Creates a Community at Home
Bloody Mary. Vodka---McClures Bloody Mary Mix and something pickled this summer!
This year, we're going with kits of bitters accompanied by cocktail recipes!
My husband has gotten into hand-crafting cocktail ingredients (and as long as this means I get greeted with a drink when I get home, I'm totally on board with this!), and when our holiday presents list climbed over 25 (eeek for the budget...), we just mixed up a few big batches of our favorites (currently steeping) and ordered some small bottles.
I definitely love this idea!
Is there something in the water? At Thanksgiving I dropped off a gift for my parents: they have all the booze, but lack things like boozy cherries, Rose's Lime Juice, fancy (boozy) cocktail onions, bitters, etc. I'm kicking myself that I forgot Jamaican ginger ale. I thought I was so original. Then again, I'm glad to see the idea isn't totally off the wall.
I hadn't heard of this until a neighbor did it for my birthday this year. Knowing that I order whiskey sours when we go out, he gave a bottle of bourbon (better than I usually buy), a bag of lemons, a citrus press, and homemade simple syrup in a cobalt blue bottle (which I collect). Just crazy thoughtful and very much enjoyed.
Back when I only drank girly drinks, my brother's girlfriend got me a cocktail recipe book, cocktail shaker, set of martini glasses, and all the fixins for cosmos. It's still one of the sweetest, most thoughtful gifts I've received.
really cute idea