Last-minute gift ideas: 9 local places to look for non-traditional foodie presents

Is there any more dreadful question than, “Are you ready for Christmas?”

Well, if you’re not – like most of us – and there are serious eaters on your list we have some suggestions that can make them merry and bright, sometimes for months on end.

Forget the funny pair of socks, the 30th sweater, the redundant tie, think instead about a subscription for weekly farm fresh eggs or raw honey or a wine of the month. Or you can opt for experiences like pasta-making lessons or a bourbon-tasting kit. Then there are the things that can enhance dinners at home: a wine of the month subscription, olive oil gift baskets or bundles of pasture-raised meats.

For younger people, or older people who’ve stayed in touch with their sweet tooth (teeth?) there are plenty of options, including fudge and cookie gift boxes, ice cream subscriptions and plans for a tea party.

This list and guide is a sampling of local Kentucky businesses offering a few last minute gift ideas for food, wine and bourbon lovers.

Things to cook, eat

Black Soil makes it easy to shop by clicking on the “winter gift giving guide” on its home page. There you can opt for 12 weeks of a dozen farm fresh eggs from Hills of Kindness Farm in Taylor County ($54) or 12 weeks of raw honey from a teenage beekeeper in Louisville ($108 or 8 ounces a week.)

Also in the farm-to-table category, Elmwood Stock Farm offers bundles of a wide variety of its pasture-raised organic beef, chicken, lamb and turkey as well as a sausage sampler, salsa, catsup and diced tomatoes from its summer crops and honey from bees that feed on the farm’s organic pastures.

For those who like to dress up a salad or simply experiment with new combinations, Stuarto’s Olive Oil Company has a range of gift baskets ranging in price from $17.25 to $89 with selections of their flavored olive oils, vinegars and sea salts. For the person who wants to learn more about how to make those gifts sing, Stuarto also offers monthly cooking classes at $56 a person that include a four-course meal with beverages.

Circling the Mediterranean diet, Pasta Garage also offers specialty classes where your lucky person can learn to make pasta. There are two or three “Pasta 101” classes each month ($86 a student) where guests learn how to make pasta as they enjoy appetizers, dinner and an Italian dessert and leave with fresh pasta to take home.

Things to drink

For an afternoon repast that doesn’t involve working for your food, Olive’s Apron allows you to make a gift of a tea that includes scone, sandwiches, clotted cream and jam for adults ($25/person) or choice of lemonade or milk (and tea) plus sandwich and cookies for the 12 and under crowd ($15/person.)

For those who want to learn more about a different kind of beverage, Wine+Market has a wine club that offers members different wines each month with “information on each bottle explaining technical data, winery and/or regional information.”

If bourbon is your person’s thing, Holly Hill and Co., an offshoot of Chef Ouita Michel’s group of restaurants, offers “Chef Ouita’s Bourbon Palate Tasting Kit” includes a selection of foods – including toasted hazelnuts, cheddar cheese wafers, dark chocolate and dried cherries – and four game boards for a group of friends to explore the interactions of different bourbons (you supply that, the kit is only $30) with the various tastes and textures. “We were fascinated by how the food items matched or brought out different notes on the bourbon,” one reviewer wrote.

Holly Hill offers an abundance of other foodie options, including a ham biscuit kit, a sorghum gift box and Wallace Station Bourbon Mustard as well as selections of cookies.

Things for dessert

Speaking, at last, of sweets, Crank and Boom offers a monthly subscription club ($175 for a pint each month plus a cooler, an ice cream scoop and a club member key chain) that includes special small-batch flavors in the upcoming year like cannoli crunch, magical marshmallows and maple bacon.

If that’s not enough sugar and cream, Dahlhus Fudge (“made with love in Lexington, KY in small batches for the highest quality fudge”) you can pick up gift boxes ($15 for one pound) of specialty fudges like Marilyn Monroe, Cruella and Ghostbusters or Wildcat (blueberries and white chocolate, of course.)