What Do You Buy Someone Who Has Everything?
The hardest people to buy for are often the people who don't really need anything. They have the things they want, and if they need something new, they tend to buy it themselves.
A good gift for someone who has everything usually comes down to three options: give them an experience, give them something they can consume, or introduce them to something they haven't discovered before.
Give them an experience
Experiences are an easy way around the problem of buying more stuff. A restaurant, concert, tasting, class or weekend away gives someone something to look forward to without adding another object to their house.
It can be even better if it's something you do together. Dinner, tickets or a tasting gives you an excuse to spend some time together as well.
Give them something good that will get used
Food and drink work particularly well because even someone who owns everything can still enjoy something exceptional.
Good coffee, chocolate, cheese, olive oil, wine or spirits can all work. The trick is choosing something specific enough that it feels considered. A whisky drinker probably doesn't need another set of whisky glasses, but they may enjoy discovering a drink or producer they've never encountered before.
This is also where mead makes a surprisingly good gift.
Give them something they probably haven't discovered
Mead is alcohol made by fermenting honey. It has been made for thousands of years, yet modern Aotearoa mead remains relatively undiscovered.
That makes it an interesting gift for someone who already knows their wine, whisky, gin or craft beer. You're giving them a premium bottle to enjoy, but also something new to explore.
Mead is also much broader than many people realise. It can be dry or sweet, light and refreshing like a white wine, or rich and strong enough to drink slowly like a whisky or port.
Why Aotearoa mead makes a good gift
Honey gives New Zealand mead a strong connection to place. The flavour of honey changes depending on where the bees have been feeding, which means mead can carry the characteristics of very different landscapes and plants.
Aotearoa gives us some particularly interesting honeys to work with, including mānuka, kānuka and South Island forest honeydew. They produce distinctly different drinks and give a bottle of New Zealand mead a story that is easy to understand when you hand it to someone.
You can explore our mead collections to see the different styles we make from New Zealand honey.
Premium doesn't have to mean expensive
Another advantage is price. Premium spirits can easily cost $80, $100 or considerably more. Small-batch Aotearoa mead can offer many of the same things you want from a premium alcohol gift — provenance, unusual ingredients, craftsmanship and a good story — while most bottles remain around the price of a good bottle of wine.
That makes it particularly useful when you want something more interesting than the usual bottle of wine, without spending premium-whisky money.
Choose something with a story
A useful test for someone who has everything is whether you can explain why you chose their gift.
"This is from a little producer we found on holiday."
"You like whisky, and this is a mead made from kānuka honey that you drink on the rocks."
"You've probably had mānuka honey, but I bet you've never had it fermented into mead."
That little bit of context makes the gift personal. It doesn't have to be expensive or elaborate. It just needs to show that you thought about the person receiving it.
And if they genuinely don't want anything, take them out for dinner, cook something good or bring a bottle to share. For someone who has already discovered most of the obvious things, something new to taste can be a very good place to start.
