When I was a groomsman in my twenties, I was too broke for gifts. The best I could offer was a thoughtful card and a colorful toast after the wine started flowing. Youthful charm more or less excused showing up empty-handed—along with overindulging in Champagne and making passes at bridesmaids. As I approach forty, however, it’s not quite as cute. Forgoing a gift is as tacky as staring at the bride’s décolletage.
Wedding gifts are often items for the couple: coffee makers, bedding, fancy soap dispensers. But leave such boring gewgaws to great-aunts, chums of the bride’s parents, or the family dentist no one expected actually to show up. As a groomsman, you have a duty to present your stalwart pal with loot he’ll cherish. A beautiful bottle of whiskey. A handsome watch. Perhaps some art for his (gentle)man cave.
If you’re too busy to mull over the perfect gift the next time you’re summoned as a groomsman, I’ve curated a cheat sheet of the best of the best.
BHAKTA Spirits – Bhakta 1928
I’m a Roaring Twenties type of fella. Hemingway, white dinner jackets, jazz clubs, gentlemanly swagger—the ’20s were the high-water mark of American civilization.
BHAKTA 1928 captures that Jazz Age élan in a glittering Art Deco bottle. The blend combines American rye with XO Calvados and vintage Armagnac, including a precious splash distilled in 1928. Bottled at 100 proof, BHAKTA 1928 jitterbugs across the palate with notes of Fuji apple, vanilla, and fresh gardenias. In your note to the groom accompanying the bottle, consider this cheerful observation attributed to Papa: “If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it.”
Volcán de Mi Tierra – X.A.
Born from an alliance between a blue-blooded Jalisco family and LVMH, Volcán distills in the shadow of Tequila Volcano. It stands apart among craft tequila producers for blending agave from both the Highlands and Lowlands. Additive-free is a slippery term in tequila, but Volcán truly contains just three ingredients: agave, water, and yeast. Not a drop of glycerin or vanillin—just pure agave ambrosia as clean as a Jalisco nun’s conscience.
X.A. blends reposado, añejo, and extra-añejo tequilas. The reposado lends sweetness, while the older spirits bring barrel spice and complexity. It’s far too delicate to defile with salt and lime. Sip this luscious beauty neat with an orange slice.
Silver Oak – 2022 Alexander Valley Cabernet
Silver Oak has enjoyed cult status among Cabernet connoisseurs since the 1970s. Their Alexander Valley vineyards yield rich wines brimming with blackberry, cassis, and cherry—a California beauty worthy of a Katy Perry song.
After two years in American oak, the 2022 Alexander Valley Cabernet emerges as garnet-hued nectar that practically begs for a marbled ribeye. You’ll want to keep the bottle afterward. Famed designer Sean Wotherspoon created the psychedelic Joyful Kaleidoscope label, the first artist collaboration in Silver Oak history.
Baldacci – 2022 Ruppert Coombsville Cabernet
2022 was a wild year in Napa. A scorching September heat wave tested even veteran growers, but the best wines emerged with concentrated fruit and barrel-chested structure. Baldacci’s Ruppert Cabernet ranks among the vintage’s finest. With polished tannins, fruits des bois, and a bouquet you can smell from down the hall, it’s a graceful bruiser—the Muhammad Ali of Napa wines.
This is a celebration bottle. At the last wedding I attended, I advised the groom to cellar it until his first anniversary—assuming, of course, the union survived that long. Pair it with aged Gouda, prosciutto, and a few squares of dark chocolate.
Compass Box – Orchard House
Scotch snobs once thumbed their noses at blended whiskies. Compass Box has spent 25 years making them eat crow. The iconoclastic London blender sources and matures exceptional single malts, crafting blends that stretch the boundaries of Scotch the way Hendrix stretched the possibilities of the guitar.
Orchard House highlights Scotland’s fruitiest whiskies. The blend includes whiskies from Clynelish, Linkwood, Glen Moray, and Caol Ila. Bottled at 46% ABV, it sparkles with notes of apple, pear, honey, ginger, wild strawberry, and vanilla shortbread. Imagine a Speyside farmer’s market in a glass.
Ardbeg – Trudernish 15 Year Old
I like my whisky like I like my lasses: bold, sweet, and redolent of the sea. On the windswept Isle of Islay, Ardbeg is the undisputed prince of peat. The 200-year-old distillery’s single malts—gloriously smoky and oozing notes of tarry rope, ocean spray, and fresh rubber—are the ne plus ultra for peat freaks.
Trudernish is Ardbeg’s first permanent 15-year-old. After a decade and a half in bourbon, new charred oak, and Oloroso sherry casks, it sings with notes of vanilla shortbread, baker’s chocolate, and orchard fruit. Pair it with Gorgonzola Piccante, a roaring fireplace, and an Ian Fleming novel.
French Bloom – Extra Brut
I usually need to give my liver a day or two off after a wedding, but I can’t deny myself the pleasure of wine after work. Fortunately, my cellar has a few bottles of French Bloom, an N/A wine that scratches my epicurean itch.
French Bloom’s Extra Brut comes from organic Chardonnay grown in Limoux, an ancient sparkling-wine region in the Languedoc. It’s dealcoholized to 0.0% yet still has the complexity and structure to titillate a discerning oenophile. Serve it ice-cold with oysters—or cheese and charcuterie from the next gift on the list.
La Tienda — Very Best of Spain Gift Box
A word of caution with this gift: the newlyweds will probably fight over it. La Tienda, a family-run Virginia importer, has spent 30 years scouring the Iberian Peninsula for exceptional artisanal foods.
Its greatest-hits box is a movable feast fit for El Cid: jamón Ibérico de Bellota, chorizo, aged Manchego, Marcona almonds, silky ventresca tuna, baby sardines, 50-year sherry vinegar, and extra-virgin olive oil. The last time I ordered one, the chorizo and conservas vanished within days. I’ve been more judicious with the olive oil, reserving the Andalusian gold strictly for fresh fish and salads.
Marc-Antoine Barrois — Aldebaran
Olfaction is deeply linked to memory and attraction, and every self-respecting boulevardier should have his signature fragrance. Skip the ubiquitous colognes; a scent from a lesser-known house piques far more curiosity.
French couturier Marc-Antoine Barrois crafts wonderfully idiosyncratic fragrances with master perfumer Quentin Bisch. Aldebaran takes tuberose, a vividly aromatic white flower, and roughs it up with paprika, maté, and tonka bean. Like a fine wine or whisky, the fragrance evolves over the course of the evening.
Fracture – Nested in Nantucket
In my thirties, the most potent upgrade to my dating game was sprucing up my apartment. I put serious thought into linens, plants, and tasteful art. Once little more than a whiskey-soaked cave, my domicile now looks like the sort of place a young lady might actually enjoy visiting.
My walls are much comelier thanks to Fracture. They print photographs directly onto glass, creating sleek, frameless prints with extraordinary depth and color. Above my kitchen table hangs Chelsea Victoria’s Nested in Nantucket. It’s the sort of New England idyll that makes you want to don a faded red blazer, stir up a Pimm’s Cup, and offer snarky takes on Yale’s ever-declining academic standards.
Sonic Editions – Rolling Stones, Oshawa
Continuing my quest to feather my nest for improved amorous prospects, I picked up two prints from Sonic Editions: a vintage Rolling Stones stage shot and a black-and-white image of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Sonic Editions mines photographic archives for rare images of rock stars, Hollywood legends, and sportsmen, then gives them the gallery treatment. The company prints each image on Fuji photographic paper, mounts it in a solid-wood frame, and sets it behind gallery-grade Perspex. The collection includes a few striking prints of Brigitte Bardot au naturel, but for a newly married man, I’d advise sticking to rock stars and sports icons.
Shinola – Silicone Purple Runwell
Shinola helped revive American watchmaking when it opened its Detroit factory in 2012. The handsome, utilitarian Runwell was the model that started it all. The Silicon Purple Subsecond is a Runwell that went to Burning Man. Its iridescent sunray dial is pure eye candy, shifting hues from violet to blue, teal, orange, and pink as the light moves across it. A polished steel bracelet keeps the psychedelia gentlemanly. I wear it as a splash of color with otherwise sober office attire.
TimeSavvy — Hybrid XL Cushion Sun Serum
At the last wedding I attended, I toasted the groom as an upstanding gent who was aging like fine cheese. His mother didn’t find it funny, but it was a fitting setup for the gift I got him: a luxury sun serum from TimeSavvy.
A man should start wearing sunscreen daily in his twenties if he hopes to preserve his money-maker into middle age. TimeSavvy’s lightweight formula delivers broad-spectrum UV protection, while niacinamide, centella asiatica, and aloe leave your hide as cool and fresh as an Alpine spring. A little goes a long way, and the compact fits easily into a blazer pocket.
WithLuv
Your newly hitched buddy is about to disappear. First he’ll leave the group chat on read, then start saying he has to “check with the wife,” before surfacing at one hang in April looking well-rested and slightly smug.
The app WithLuv, free to use, helps keep the boys top of mind. Invite the stags to write digital postcards for the groom, which WithLuv delivers one at a time, unannounced, throughout the year. The app allows you to add photos to the message and even send physical gifts. Consider it a year-long digital group hug, maybe with a bit of good-spirited ball-busting to keep him from getting too soft as a married man.
