Valentine’s Day is usually about tokens of esteem and devotion. But where’s the fun in that?
Far better to use it for a bit of drinks-driven point-scoring. And remember, however much the gifts below irritate your other half, they’re going to give you that amount of pleasure times fifty. So, you know. Double win…
TCA de Chanel
Some people will hear not a word against cork. If you’re unfortunate enough to be married to or going out with one of these closure nazis then this TCA-scented perfume is ideal. A couple of sprays before you go out and voila! – they’re stuck with the delicate scent of wet dog wrapped in cardboard for the night. If they complain, you can always point out that since fewer than one bottle of perfume in 20 is corked they were REALLY UNLUCKY to get a duff one. There’s a male version with added pig-headedness, too.
Wine flavoured chocolate
Wine nerds are always blathering on about how great red wine is with chocolate. On closer inspection, however, these people usually turn out to be a) makers of red wine desperate for an extra sales occasion; b) sommeliers desperate for an extra sales occasion; c) journalists who’ve run out of ideas for their next column; d) idiots.
Either way, you can shut them up by buying them the new Chocowine range from Valrhone. The Toffee Chardonnay and Mocha Merlot are particularly grim, tasting respectively like a 1990s Riverland and Most Californian Red Wines Ever Made.
A ‘Screw You’
The ground-breaking ‘Screw You’ – revealed on Fake Booze last year – is designed to bring an element of theatre to the act of removing a screwcap. The invention of a thoroughly misguided French sommelier, it’s an unnecessarily expensive response to a problem that didn’t need solving in the first place. Hours of fun for you as they struggle to use it on a regular basis. The name says it all.
Pink gin
Flavoured gin is terrible. There is literally no debate about this. Even people who like it know it’s the drinks equivalent of Big Brother. Buying this for someone either says ‘you have no taste so it’s perfect for you’ or ‘you have some form of palate and I’m buying it in the hope that you’ll finish with me because I lack the guts to make the first move.’
Either way, expect to be back on Tinder within a week.
Fake Booze Subscription
A Fake Booze subscription has one major thing to recommend it as an anti-gift. Principally, that it’s free. It’s possible that your other half might think that by signing them up to a weekly email of cynical stupidity you are celebrating their sophisticated sense of humour. Actually, it’s just an elegantly vindictive way of showing them just how little they mean to you.
Anything from the I-heart range
Ah the irony. That you can give someone a bottle with a big heart on the label and mean the exact opposite.
‘I heart’ is a brilliant marketing concept wrapped around utterly boring wine. The recipient will see undying affection, when what you’re actually saying is ‘you are all glitz and no soul, and so emotionally retarded that you go googly-eyed over anything with a heart on it.’ Not so much ‘I heart’ as ‘I hate’.
Rose champagne
It’s pink, therefore it’s sentimental. It’s expensive, therefore it’s proof of depth of emotion. It’s fizzy therefore it’s fun.
All bollocks.
Does anyone really like rosé champagne? You could replicate it at home with tap water, food dye, a squeeze of lemon juice and a sodastream. Oh, and then stuffing a bag full of bank notes and setting fire to it.
Buying it on Valentines is an expensive but subtle way of putting two fingers up to your partner and savouring their misery. ‘Look how much money I wasted and NOW YOU HAVE TO DRINK IT. Ha!’ No wonder it’s the favoured drink of Bond villains. Probably.
