It’s that time of year again. Time to consider gifts to give to your loved ones, and gifts to ask for from your loved ones. And of course, booze-centric gifts are always in order. The first time I bought booze in my life was a case of wine for my dad, to go with the wine-rack I got him for Christmas. Of course, I was seventeen at the time, but since it was a gift, the guy sold me it anyway. In fact, he suggested it. A different time….

Anyway, via the master-link-baiters at Gizmodo, the crazed maniacs at Needless Markup Neiman Marcus have unleashed their annual Christmas gift guide. As usual, it contains a number of fantasmic gifts in the booze-related vein. Things like a golden top hat champagne bucket, or their hand-blown glass ice bucket with a brass top shaped like an acorn by Oscar de la Renta. There is the Coravin wine vampire thingy that I posted about when it came out. (Due credit to Neiman Marcus, they only want one dollar more than Amazon.) There is even a Burberry dinner jacket in the catalog that I’d give up Bombay Sapphire for.

I’d give up gin entirely to have his hair….

There is also a Waterford Crystal caviar and vodka chilling set that ought to tempt the most high-end of boozehounds for the bargain-basement price of $3,500 dollars.

It ought to be the top tempter, but it is not. And it also really a bargain-basement priced item, compared to the mack daddy of this year’s catalog (if you don’t count the Maserati or the amphibious jet skis): The Tanqueray No. Ten Imperial Shaker, by Jason Crawley, as pictured atop this post. This gorgeous beast is about 280 pounds of cast iron, brass, and silver. It stands about the height of Gaz Regan, and works four Tanqueray No. Ten-inspired shakers at once, in an up and down motion (no… just, no) and an elliptical motion that is gorgeous. It makes the Waterford set seem inexpensive by ringing up an order of magnitude higher at $35,000, even. They have the good graces not to try the $34,599, “See? It’s inexpensive!” trick, though, so kudos again.

In addition to the machine, you also get four cases of Tanq Ten, which they are alleging is a year’s supply, and a private cocktail education class for you and nineteen of your ginniest friends with Rachel Ford (seen here operating the Imperial Shaker).

At any rate, there is s magnificent video from Neiman-Marcus that I can’t figure out how to embed, so until I find such a version, you’ll have to hit this link to watch it. and here it is:

Tanqueray Imperial Shaker from Pulse-Plus on Vimeo.

I want to open up a bar, just to build it around one of these…. That said, it has it’s important limitations. Despite being a Tanqueray No. 10-branded device, linked to a gin made for Martinis, you don’t shake Martinis. It shouldn’t be used for Martinis. More importantly, do not even think about popping a Manhattan into any of those lovely stainless steel shakers. I’ll cut you.

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