Stock the bar
For more gift ideas, check out our Purple and Gold, Go, Go Gadget or For the Foodie gift guides.
A good home bar deserves not only respectable wine and spirits but also glasses and equipment that rise to the challenge. As you start holiday shopping for friends and family—particularly those with a home bar to stock—resist the temptation to source items solely from national homewares stores, and look to local shops for hidden gems. Here are a few interesting items available this fall and in time for the holidays.
WRITE IT DOWN
Chalkboard wine glasses
You’ll never lose track of your wine glass—or what kind of wine you’re drinking—with these whimsical vessels. With or without stems, chalkboard wine glasses allow you to write your name, your varietal or anything else you care to scribble down as you imbibe with friends.
Available at: The Royal Standard (Location 1 Location 2). $9 each.
OPEN UP
Reproduction beer opener
Interior designer and entrepreneur Greg Vernice grew up watching the men and women of his family pry open beer bottles during family functions with small openers worn as neck medallions. When he opened Studio C Provisions for Living in Mid City, Vernice hired a New York City jeweler to create a cast and mold for one of the old openers, which had been sourced originally from a defunct beer company. Sleek, trim and suspended on a leather chain, the Studio C opener looks like a mini work of art, and it’s got enough heft to handle even the most recalcitrant import.
Available at: Studio C (Map it!). $16.
TEST YOURSELF
Hide a Wine Blind Tasting Sleeves
Martin Wine Cellar features a wide range of well-priced wines for your bar, and while you’re there, you can pick up a few new gadgets. Martin carries the ever-popular Vinturi, the tube-like contraption that aerates red wines quickly from bottle to glass. The store also has snifters, wine glasses and Hide a Wine Blind Tasting Sleeves, which allow you to test your friends’—and your own—knowledge of wines around the world. All of us get stuck in a wine rut from time to time, and sampling wines blindly is a great way to ditch the comfort zone.
Available at: Martin Wine Cellar (Map it!). $13.
KEEP POURING
Vintage pitcher with glasses, Good Grief cocktail glasses
Who says barware has to be new? Sleuth around Baton Rouge’s specialty or antique stores for offbeat and classic glasses that make department store homewares look ordinary. This vintage cobalt blue pitcher and set of six glasses at The Foyer can handle sake, wine, shots and anything on the rocks. Decant your favorite beverage in the pitcher and get to pouring. Elsewhere in the store, merchants feature antique bar tools, affordable beer steins and Good Grief cocktail glasses that measure your current condition: “Denial” corresponds with a full glass, and “Acceptance” is at the bottom.
Available at: The Foyer (Map it!). Pitcher set, $189; Good Grief glasses (set of two), $28.
