The 2022 Eater Dallas Holiday Gift Guide

Après Hours Collection
Cultivar Coffee
Rose Gold Rosé
Lakewood Brewing
Bonton Farms
Emporium Pies
Southern Recipe Small Batch
Perini Ranch Mesquite Smoked Beef Tenderloin
On the Rocks Cocktails
Molli Mexican Simmer Sauces
Rakkasan Tea Company
Dude, Sweet Chocolate

The 2022 holiday season is upon us and there are a lot of stockings to be filled. If you’re not sure exactly what to get all the amazing people in your life, the Eater Dallas gift guide is here to help — and to laude some of the best of our local and locally founded businesses. Because sending the gift of a little bit of Big D is always a nice surprise.

This year’s guide includes bottled cocktails, rosé, and a canned espresso martini from local entrepreneurs. There are chocolates and pies from Bishop Arts. Coffee, tea, and matcha from local artisans. Naturally, there are options for meat and beer lovers, and so much more.

Apres Hours espresso cocktails.

Après Hours Collection

Nicole Craven and Alexis Smith may be Dallas’s biggest fans of the insanely popular espresso martini. They liked it so much that they felt the canned drinks market needed a version of the drink. Enter the Après Hours collection, with original, salted caramel, and vanilla-flavored espresso martini drinks. It just launched in August of this year and sold out on the day it hit stores. This holiday season, order online and ship it to most states in the U.S.

Cultivar offers a variety of blends and roasts.

Cultivar Coffee

For the coffee lover on your list, give the taste of one of Dallas’s favorite coffee shops. The loyal following for Cultivar will confirm that few other cups can compete. It sustainably sources beans and offers a sourcing blog for each blend it sells. That’s a nice add-on piece of info for folks who are serious about coffee and the environment. Get them a bag to start or, for those who are already devotees, spring for the monthly coffee subscription.

Make any table look better with a bottle of Rose Gold Rosé.

Rose Gold Rosé

Dallasite Casey Barber launched this rosé, which is produced in vineyards near Saint-Tropez, France. This dry, traditional wine embraces Dallas high/low vibes by doing double duty as a great table wine for every day with a sophisticated enough bottle and profile to be served at a party or other event. Get it for the person with a rose gold laptop.

Lakewood Brewing t-shirts are always in fashion.

Lakewood Brewing

Unfortunately, one of Dallas’s leading breweries doesn’t ship its beers — you’ll have to hit a grocery store for that. But for those who want to support the hometown brand (and look cool), order a t-shirt that highlights a business that has been going strong for a decade and making some of the tastiest beers in the Metroplex.

Kassava’s boba tea kit.

Kassava

Vy Duong, the co-founder and chief marketing officer of Kassava, is a proud resident of Dallas and a Vietnamese immigrant. Along with her best friend Victoria Reyes, a fellow boba lover, Duong created the brand during the pandemic to bring the experience into people’s homes. Give the gift of a starter kit to someone who is already a fan of boba tea, or someone who would enjoy learning about it.

Jam made at Bonton Market.

Bonton Farms

Dallasites in the know will recognize the name Bonton Farms as the place that provides local goods to many of their favorite restaurants or might be familiar with its excellent farmers market and cafe. The farm reclaims unused land in South Dallas for farming, offering jobs and food programs to locals. Its jams are made on-site by workers learning how to test and source the ingredients, package products, and manage sales relationships.

The Drunken Nut is a holiday staple from Emporium Pies.

Emporium Pies

Nothing says holidays quite like a pie from Emporium. The Drunken Nut is its take on pecan pie with a shortbread crust, Texas pecans, and a sauce made from butter, bourbon, and brown sugar (absolutely no corn syrup). The pies are made and shipped fresh and there is often a wait around the holidays, so order early.

Southern Recipe Small Batch is not your grandpa’s pork rind.

Southern Recipe Small Batch

Low sodium, low sugar, small batch, handcrafted pork rinds? Heck yes! Dallas-based Southern Recipe Small Batch makes ‘em. Order a sampler with spicy dill, sea salt and cracked black pepper, pineapple-ancho chile, Korean barbecue, and pasilla chile-cheese flavors.

The beef tenderloin made by Perini Ranch.

Perini Ranch Mesquite Smoked Beef Tenderloin

Nothing says happy holidays like meat — from a Texan, anyway. Straight out of Buffalo Gap, a few hours south of Dallas, this ranch has catered a Congressional picnic and fed the Today show and GMA. It arrives fully cooked to, medium rare, and the ranch suggests ordering three days prior to serving so the recipient has time to properly defrost it.

Old Fashioned with none of the work? Yes please.

On the Rocks Cocktails

This bottled cocktail company started haphazardly in a garage on the M Streets as an experiment. A trio of friends with experience in local restaurants started the company and, after a period of trial and error, got their product on Hawaiian Airlines and at FC Dallas games. Put its bottled Old Fashioned, Mai Tai, and the whole cocktail crew at the fingertips of someone who needs them.

A trio of Mexican simmer sauces from Molli.

Molli Mexican Simmer Sauces

Rodrigo and Leticia Castellanos started Molli sauces while they were living in Lakewood back in 2013. The couple, who moved from Mexico, wanted to recreate the kind of sauces they were used to in Mexico City. This little sauce-that-could has come a long way from being at the White Rock Local Market every other week.

A plethora of tea options from Rakkasan Tea Company.

Rakkasan Tea Company

Brandon Friedman and Terrence Kamau are a pair of Dallas-based veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan in the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division — after which Rakkasan is named. The duo sources teas solely from “carefully selected estates in post-conflict countries as a way to promote peace and economic growth.”

Crack in a Box from Dude, Sweet Chocolate.

Dude, Sweet Chocolate

Katherine Clapner’s Bishop Arts chocolate shop doesn’t have to remain a Dallas secret — it can ship chocolate treats just about anywhere. The Crack in a Box chocolate bark is made from 72 percent South American dark chocolate and is chunked up with candied hazelnut, almonds, macadamia, and cocoa nibs. Dude, Sweet Chocolate also offers several nut-free options for folks with allergies.