5 Stay-at-home Valentines ideas
The idea of picking a sweetheart and showing them your love on Valentines Day spread through Europe in the Middle Ages. Some people believed that birds began picking their mates on February 14th. Nowadays, the tradition has grown beyond just sweethearts and is about showing friends and family, as well as partners, how much you care for them. This year, more than ever, is a time to reach out to loved ones and send them something special. Though it may not be possible to meet in person or go out to any fancy restaurants this year, there are still plenty of options to have a romantic, special day. Here’s a top 5 list of fun Valentines Day activities to do whilst socially distanced:
Journey into the old world's biggest names and best kept secrets.
A great bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape Rouge bursts with rich raspberry and plummy fruit flavours. As it evolves, you’ll taste notes of dusted leather, game, and herbs. The Francophiles – and the actual French – call this herbal play “garrigue,” after the region’s scrubland of sage, rosemary, and lavender.
As if that wasn’t enough, CdP Rouge often finishes on a sweet-strawberry tingle that glows in the back of your throat from elevated alcohol. The finish ranges from sweet to savory, depending on the vintage.
We loved this article from our friends at 'COCO Chocolatier' and wanted to share this with you.
Written by Calum Haggerty
As an independent business we decided to show our support for the outstanding work carried out by the NHS during the Coronavirus pandemic in our own way; merging artwork with single origin chocolate is what we do, and it felt right to dedicate a collection to our National Health Service. We paired up with artists Sir Billy Connolly, Andrew Rae and Portis Wasp to create the Thank You NHS Collection.
El Ron De Cuba!
Shaped by Cuban climate, geography, history, and people, rum is an essential part of the nation’s culture. As its finest expression, the Havana Club range represents this rich heritage. Produced by Maestros del Ron Cubano following traditional Cuban methods, enjoyed by Cantineros and rum drinkers around the world to the rhythm of the best Cuban music, Havana Club embodies the spirit of Cuba.
Crafted by Maestros Del Ron Cubano
The values of Havana Club are best represented by the Maestros del Ron Cubano. This is not a job taught in textbooks. As Don José Navarro, the premier Maestro del Ron Cubano put it, it is “a cultural heritage, passed on from Maestro to Maestro”. For 15 long years the aspiring Maestro undergoes through a rigorous training. Under the supervision of a senior Maestro del Ron Cubano he learns to select the best molasses, supervise their fermentation and distillation, pick the best casks to age the distillates and blend them to obtain the finest rums. A Maestro del Ron Cubano is a true master of his craft.
Moet et Chandon remains one of the world’s largest champagne producers, creating around 26,000,000 bottles each year. Their vineyards are classified as ‘grand cru’ (great growth), the classification given to vineyards which produce particularly high-quality grapes. The Moet et Chandon vineyards cover some 2,500 acres and the company ships champagne around the world.
You can find a deluxe selection of champagne gifts for nationwide UK delivery at the Hamper Lounge online store, sure to interest any Moet et Chandon fan, including our Champagne & Truffles gift box
At Hamper Lounge, we gather some of the finest items to add to our superb hampers and gift boxes from a range of carefully-curated suppliers. One of our favourites is the wonderful Harrogate Candle Company, who create stunning scented candles. Let’s take a closer look at the brand…
About The Harrogate Candle Company
The Harrogate Candle Company was founded by Fiona Carr and Deborah Wilson in 2012. The brand is based in Harrogate, North Yorkshire – and the range reflects these scenic surroundings, with colour palettes and packaging designed to help represent Harrogate to the fullest. The company had a clear purpose; creating the finest-quality scented candles on the market, using only all-natural, high-quality essential oils. Adopting this naturally-led approach, Harrogate Candle Company initially developed a range of candles in five signature fragrances, designed to inspire emotion: Happy, Inspire, Lovely, Divine and Dream. The brand later created a sixth scent for the festive season, Orange and Cinnamon, and has branched out to expand the scent range into a series of carefully curated collections which have won fans around the world. With a range of candle sizes available, it’s easy to find something to suit every space, and the company has now expanded their range even further to include Reed Diffusers, Gift Sets and Room Mists.
Our wonderful supplier of exquisite teas The Tea Makers of London are an established award-winning tea brand, offering a wide selection of authentically made speciality teas. All their teas are grown in the most respected tea gardens around the world, then carefully selected by their expert tea tasters. Working closely with local tea gardens and artisan tea farmers ensures that they deliver the very finest quality teas.
The founder of The Tea Makers has over 10 years experience as a tea planter, as well as years of experience supplying and selling quality loose leaf tea. His extensive knowledge and experience within the tea industry plays an important role in bringing their us a varied and high-quality selection of teas.
Few of us can resist the appeal of chocolate, and here at The Hamper Lounge we incorporate plenty of delicious chocolatey treats into our hampers and gifts! But what many people don’t know is exactly how chocolate goes from bean to bar…so for anyone who has ever wondered how chocolate is made, here’s our quick guide!
Chocolate’s Enduring Popularity
It’s not just modern civilisations which love chocolate – all over the world, chocolate has been enjoyed for millennia. The Mayan and Aztec cultures were both partial to taking cacao seeds and turning them into a chocolate beverage, and throughout the last five-hundred years, chocolate has begun to take on more popularity throughout Europe, thanks to increased trading links – first in liquid form, and later sold in bars and as a tasty ingredient in other dishes.
Converting Cacao Beans to Chocolate
The seeds of the cacao tree are far too bitter to enjoy as they are, but the process of converting them into chocolate helps to soften this taste and transform it into the modern and delicious chocolate we enjoy today. First, the Cacao beans are fermented to develop the flavour. They are then cleaned, dried and roasted. The shells are removed, and the remaining seeds are ground to create a cocoa mass – unadulterated by any subsequent production techniques. This mass is heated until it liquifies, which creates chocolate liquor. This liquor can be made into either cocoa solids or cocoa butter, and chocolate products such as baking chocolate use both these elements to create their distinctive, bitter taste before the addition of sugar.
What is the first thing you imagine when you think of gin?
At The Hamper Lounge we like to think back to the glamorous gin palaces of Victorian times, which gave rise to pubs as we know them today.
We also like to think of the Gin Craze before that, and the disreputable dens of vice and infamy in which the working classes gathered to drown their misery.
Unable to bear squalor and terrible factory conditions, many poor remained permanently inebriated and lived very short lives as a result. Gin shops obligingly offered competitive prices, promising to get you “dead drunk” for two pennies and even provided clean straw for you sleep the alcohol off there and then. Gin was especially favoured among women, who took it with warm water to “soothe the nerves”, which has lead to it being dubbed “Mother's Ruin”.
The debate over whether to pair cheese with wine or beer appears to have been raging for a very long time, and it’s a matter which every self-respecting food connoisseur has an opinion on.
The Battle Between Beer and Wine
It has long been assumed that wine is the perfect drink for serving alongside cheese – and furthermore, white wine often wins out over red. However, saltier or fattier cheeses could be better served by a drink offering more immediate refreshment, for which beer might just do the trick. The same applies to softer, richer cheeses with a buttery aftertaste. In recent years, beer has been growing in popularity as a valid choice to serve alongside even the most luxurious of cheeses. No longer relegated to serving simply as a refreshing cool-down after hotter dishes, beer could offer significant competition to its more refined rival.
ENTER YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS TO GET YOUR DISCOUNT CODE
