5 food and drink gift ideas from Las Vegas and beyond
Some holiday gift suggestions for the food and drink enthusiasts on your list:
◼ Las Vegas Distillery, 7330 Eastgate Road, Suite 100, Henderson, makes local craft spirits. Among the releases are white rum ($29.99), vodka ($29.99), coffee liqueur ($34.99), spiced rum ($34.99) and a special overproof rum ($29.99). The swanky tasting room also offers LVD merchandise. Visit the distillery to purchase.
◼ The Mala Market, a mother-daughter importer, brings Sichuan pantry essentials to the American kitchen, some products for the first time. The Starter Sichuan Collection ($60) features Sichuan pepper, dried whole chilis for stir-fries, chili flakes for homemade chili oil, aged artisan chili bean paste, pickled mustard green and recipe cards for making dishes using the ingredients.
The kit is ideal for folks who want to expand their Chinese cooking repertoire. The market takes its name from málà, the numbing fiery sensation essential to Sichuanese food. Visit themalamarket.com.
◼ Ethel M Chocolates has six locations in the Las Vegas Valley, including its flagship store in Henderson. The five-piece Holiday Mendiants Sampler ($12), a perfect stocking stuffer, features chocolate discs studded with nuts and fruit. The Holiday Luxe Library ($34) showcases a quartet of flavored dark and milk chocolate bars enclosed with a limited-edition red band like a stack of books.
Custom Chocolate Boxes, with choose-your-own chocolates, come in 12, 24 and 40 pieces ($40 to $85). The Holiday Gingerbread Houses Tin is filled with 16 or 32 pieces of small-batch chocolates in various styles ($45 or $70). Visit ethelm.com/en-us for store locations or to order online.
◼ Azzurra Wine Bar, 314 S. Water St., Henderson, is offering a $149 gift basket that holds two stemless glasses, a board, an insulated wine bag, a wine key, Bibanesi breadsticks, salted caramel shortbread cookies, a bottle of ’23 Cescon pinot grigio from the Veneto region of Italy and a bottle of ’22 Black Magnolia pinot noir from the Willamette Valley.
The $199 gift basket holds two stemless glasses, a board, an insulated wine bag, a wine key, Bibanesi breadsticks, salted caramel shortbread cookies, a bottle of ’19 Tre Leoni Whitehall Lane cabernet sauvignon blend from Napa Valley and a bottle of ’22 Domaine Serge Laporte Sancerre from the Loire Valley. Create-your-own baskets start at $85.
◼ Tequila Casa Dragones was co-founded by Bertha González Nieves, the first female maestra tequilera certified by the Mexican Academy of Tequila Tasters. González Nieves has presented the small-batch sipping tequila on visits to Vegas in the past few years.
A Casa Dragones Sipping Tequila Gift Set ($188.99) offers 375-milliliter bottles of Blanco, Añejo Barrel Blend and Reposado Mizunara, with a downloadable tasting mat for step-by-step sipping. Casa Dragones 1.75-liter magnums are offered in Blanco ($194.99), Añejo Barrel Blend ($397.99) and Reposado Mizunara ($347.99). Details/purchase: casadragones.com/us.
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Beginning 6 p.m. Dec. 5, Lia Tolaini-Banville, head of Tolaini Estate winery in Tuscany and founder of Banville Wine Merchants, is presenting her wines at a four-course dinner at Toscana Ristorante & Bar in Eataly at Park MGM. Among the pairings are a porterhouse steak and crisp potatoes with a ’10 Picconero Super Tuscan red Bordeaux blend. Cost: $295. Details/reservations: eataly.com/us_en/stores/las-vegas.
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Through Dec. 13, Sienna Wings, a Black-owned Houston restaurant from former “Shark Tank” contestant Tyla-Simone Crayton, is offering its Sienna Sauce Lemon Pepper Wings at Public House in Luxor and Libertine Social in Mandalay Bay. The limited-time offer is part of the Pepsi Dig In Restaurant Royalty Residency that brings Black chefs from across the country to Vegas to drive awareness of and growth for their businesses.
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The Composers Room, 953 E. Sahara Ave., Suite E-1A, in the Commercial Center, is presenting a Boy Band Brunch with ’90s boy band hits, pancakes and signature cocktails; a Brunch of Broken Dreams with ’90s and early 2000s music and a small-plates brunch with mimosas; and a Carmen’s Love Brunch with gospel performances and classic Southern dishes.
The brunches begin at various times on various dates in December. For details and tickets, visit thecomposersroom.com.
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It’s hot cakes for dinner. Through January at its seven Vegas locations (not Henderson), Farmer Boys is featuring all-you-can-eat hot cakes after 4 p.m. for $5.99. Four hot cakes are served initially, then increased by two at a time. Visit farmerboys.com.
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