Photo © Graeme Yuill (cc-by-sa/2.)

And it’s all steeped in art. If you know your Greek mythology, you recall the Nine named Muses who represented the arts. The Tenth Muse had no name and “represents all that is unseen, not captured, defined or understood.” You’ll cleverly find the brand strap line under the waxed bottle top: ‘Plura Latent, Quam Patent’ (more is hidden than revealed). Nice touch.

It’s all rather beautiful, the bottle is stunning sculptural piece that plays with the light, the white wax and textured paper label all exude that feeling that this is not your average bottle of voddy. I doff my hat to the design and marketing teams involved, the brand story is exquisite. You can read more on their website.

But to the taste Fran! X MUSE is the first barley blended vodka, inspired by the Whiskey traditions of Scotland. Two heritage varieties of barley are used; Plumage Archer and Maris Otter, prized for flavour, distilled separately and combined to produced this luxurious, rich, smooth vodka. It’s one of the very few vodkas I would drink neat, and is surprisingly characterful/complex.

Taste profile: Citrus, apple, cereal and pepper.

I've reviewed a number of recipe boxes over the years with varying success, but on the whole, it's been a positive experience. The ones I've enjoyed the most though are those that bring a cultural edge, transporting me to a far flung edges of the World with unusual ingredients and lesser known recipes.

Aside from the nicely designed presentation (obvs), what made a particularly good first impression with The Kari Club, a new Brighton-based Indian recipe box subscription service, was the cooking sheet taught me a number of things on page one even before I turned on the hob:

• "Curry" is Anglicised from the Tamil work "Kari" meaning sauce. Noted for the next pub quiz.
• I've never washed basmati rice but you need to do it quite excessively, and it really makes a difference. Doh!
• It's best to scrape the skin of the ginger with a spoon rather than peeling/chopping it off it as the sweetest part is just under the skin.
• Blending cashews is a really easy way to thicken a curry sauce and add silkiness.

Another was that this particular recipe was based on one of Founder, Minesh Angihotri mother's. I think we can watch celebrity chefs on the TV until the cows come home, but you will learn the real gold from mums (my ex-mother-in-law and her Walkers crisps topped tuna bake aside, of course). There are also some well produced videos on their website, pretty much a cook-along, to help.



Recipes are written (when he's not pinching from his mum) by Minesh, who is behind the well regarded Brighton restaurant, Indian Summer. On the menu in this box was Mamaji's Chicken, Sweet Potato & Carro Thoran, rice and chapati.

I really enjoyed making this - I felt I learnt a lot and was slightly more challenging than some other recipe boxes. Not that that's a negative, it's just some don't really feel like cooking, just assembling and are very pedestrian. This showed good use of spicing throughout stages and the bread element was a new thing learned - I won't be impressing any Indian mammas with the shape anytime soon but bye bye supermarket chapati.

It took around an hour too cook with reading through all the ingredients and watching the videos (optional but really helps). I did cook the elements simultaneously but I cook a lot and imagine you'd get a bit flustered if you didn't. But there's no reason not to take it at a more leisurely pace and enjoy the process.

Only negative was the oil quantities you could possibly get wrong - you could tip the "remaining oil" in the thoran but you'd need some for the chapati and rice later on.

The design is really nice; simple, clear and the tips in red throughout the recipe sheets handy. Ingredients were excellent in terms of quality. Meat from Handcross butchers, tomatoes that smelt good and spices far more vibrant than your dusty supermarket versions. The kit came with a full recipe so you are free to recreate it yourself, which I will be certainly doing.

And the best bit. Darn, darn it was delicious. Certainly restaurant grade delicious. Cook it for a crowd and they'll be talking about it for weeks delicious. It was such a rich, luscious and fragrant thing to eat; all the elements worked perfectly. The curry itself was silky and you got a real sense of all the spices. I adored the textural crunch from the thoran and the fact it lightened a heavy meal.


Prices are not too bad for what this is; you can buy a one off for £20 for 1, £25 for 2 and £40 for 4 people and would make an easy dinner party option to impress for the latter - it's restaurant grade food and for £10 a head that's remarkable. You can also go for a monthly subscription.

Portion-wise this two portion box would feed two handsomely or three sensibly, so is very generous. Expect some left overs or next day if you can resist.

Let's face it, it's not a sustainable way to shop everyday, financially or environmentally (even though the packaging was almost entirely recyclable) yet the format of recipe boxes tend to prove popular for a number of reasons. Less food waste in many respects, but number one is that they tend to take you out of your cooking comfort zone, yet guide you through it, and it's pretty exciting unpacking a kit for a meal. Well for me anyway.

Delivery is nationwide. For more information visit thekariclub.com

I was sent a sample box for review. Word and thoughts, as always, my own.

But one other thing a hamper must do is impress. Lifting up that wicker lid you need to gasp. No gasp? That ain't no hamper. This one from Harvey Nichols, so big it came in two parts, certainly did the trick. It was so beautifully presented and the internal products were all stylishly packaged. I really appreciate it when a brand see beyond the gold and red of Christmas tradition - this is no less festive, exuding all of the celebration with none of the clichés.



I also adore the black wicker hamper itself too - somehow more luxurious than your standard straw one and beautifully lined in canvas with subtle branding. That will find its way onto my wardrobe for storage, as it would be criminal to dispose of.



The Crowd Pleaser, pictured here and priced at £300, is certainly that, getting the party started with a decent selection of festive cheer, including two bottles of Champagne Brut NV and a bottle each of Malbec, Treixadura, Late Bottled Vintage Port and Gin - they even included four individual bottles of Tonic Water With A Hint Of Cucumber And Lime.

And the rest is perfect for dipping into across the festive break; to healthily supplement gatherings or placed beside the sofa within reaching distance for that gout inducing Christmas film marathon.

I've written about Petit Ballon before, a wine subscription service that does things a little bit more beautifully. One of their USPs, along with some very well selected wine of course, is the nicely designed and considered Gazette.

Often with these food and drink services, the informative pieces are poorly executed or purely functional. Any subscription service is a lifestyle luxury so each element should contribute to the overall product experience. Le Petit Ballon's look, as with their ethos, is unstuffy, youthful and approachable - refreshing in the sector - but content is still very much key. Along with the Gazette, which is filled with wine features, recipes, interviews and music pairing (of course!), are some clear and realistic tasting note cards with plenty of useful information such as keeping potential, serving temperatures and food pairing.

Wines are also categorised into sensible and approachable labels, or cheat sheets as they call them. These make complete sense ie. Relaxed Reds are easy to enjoy and light whereas With-it Whites are complex and edgy. No-one needs an education in wine to understand that.

Each month the box is themed and I received the "Around The World" collection.


First up the red - Las Ninas Mapuche 2015

"Imagine summer at its most idyllic: warm weather with a light breeze; languid moments where everyday concerns make way for a flight of fancy; and long evenings that you never want to end."

And then you remember that you live in the UK. It's cold, politics are going down the drain and it's probably raining. But hey ho, it reminds us to appreciate the little luxuries we still have in life, right?

And one of these luxuries is indeed a box of Pierre Marcolini chocolates. My first encounter with this brand was years ago on a trip to Brussels. One of our friends living there was giving us a culinary (and ok, slightly absinthy) tour of the city and brought us to the Marcolini store there. This was my first taste of chocolate of this calibre. The shop looked like a jewellers; encased in large glass boxes was the spot-lit luxurious black packaging, and the row upon row of perfect jewel like chocolates, almost impossible to choose from. I ended up spending about 50 Euros on a box which seems ludicrous, but with more restraint than I ever thought I had, brought them home where I savoured them one by one over the course of a couple of weeks. Even though this was a good decade ago, I can still remember the taste of some of them. Money well spent.



And here I have a box of the 2017 Summer collection; Les Reves de Pierre. Once you slip off the raspberry card wrap, the familiar matt black packaging with a white foiled logo is revealed. The silky ribbon tab helps you lift the lid to reveal a beautiful selection of small cubes, in whites, blush pinks and lipstick reds. I'm a sucker for all this, and get a thrill out of the whole product experience and the brand story these details help tell. You may mindlessly rip the packaging off a regular chocolate bar and chomp away (what did the Milky Bar Kid know, eh), but these are for savouring not scoffing.

The collection is a series of smooth ganache and cereal pralines, with a base of either quinoa, sesame, spelt or barley and seasonal fruits. In the box you'll find:

• Crunchy chocolate quinoa praline and raspberry ganache, coated in dark chocolate
• Crunchy three cereal praline (sesame, quinoa and spelt), passion fruit and lime zest caramel, coated in milk chocolate
• Crunchy sesame praline, yuzu caramel, coated in white chocolate
• Crunchy spelt praline, vanilla and star anise ganache, coated in white chocolate
• Crunchy white almond praline, lemon and bergamot ganache, coated in white chocolate
• Crunch pearl barley praline, lemon and pink peppercorn caramel, coated in dark chocolate

These may be small but they really pack a punch. Unquestionable raspberry pings right through and its sweetness contrasted with fine dark chocolate and the most delicate quinoa praline, giving a light crunch. The textural contrast is lovely. Mouth-feel is a dreadful term, but this is what these chocolates are particularly successful for. Crunchy sesame praline, with a slight savoury sits underneath a really zingy yuzu caramel, the citrus is vibrant. Across the whole box flavours are bold, unusual and intense but always balanced and exciting.

I love them all as I expected to. At £19 for a box of 18 or £35 for 36 pieces, they are at the top end but for a treat to yourself or a gift, I couldn't think of anything more indulgent.





If you are passing one of their stores you can also experience their Esquimau choc ice bars where you can make-you-own bar, choosing from a collection of toppings and chocolate dips or a tub of their ice cream. Flavours include Matcha Tea Frisson; a matcha tea ice cream with yuzu coulis and candied orange or Rose Pistachio Frisson; rose ice cream, raspberry coulis with Garrigues honey and toasted pistachios. Heaven.

The collection is available from 11th May 2017 in-store and eu.marcolini.com

I received samples for review. Words and thoughts, as always, are my own.