Prosecco – The Review Studio

Sacla’ Christmas Gifts

Disclaimer: We received these products free of charge for the purpose of this review and all thoughts and opinions are our own.

Christmas is the time of year when most people treat themselves to luxurious food & festive drinks. You may have heard of the Italian brand Sacla’ before as they make the most amazing pesto, but did you know that they also stock an amazing selection of Italian food & drink gifts, including sweet treats, hampers and drinks.

The company was founded in 1939 by Secondo and Piera Ercole in Piedmont, Italy. The area is known as ‘Italy’s garden’ and they wanted to share their delicious produce so started preparing fruit and vegetables and selling them. The company has gone from strength to strength and is now a very successful business, bringing the real flavours of Italy to the world.

We’ve been sampling a couple of products that will make fantastic Christmas gifts for any foodie. The Villa Domiziano Prosecco DOC is nice and fresh with plenty of bubbles that jump and fizz enticingly. With subtle flavours of citrus and apple it is everything you could want in a fizz, and more. Light, delicate and fruity it is an excellent accompaniment to Christmas lunch or Christmas drinks with friends. With an RRP of £15 it also makes a great Secret Santa gift too.

Chocolate as a Christmas present is hardly an original idea, but once you taste this magnificent Chocolate & Rum Torrone D. Barbero boozy Italian nougat you will see that chocolate from an artisan producer is a world apart from something from a supermarket or high street store. This torrone, made by family chocolatiers Barbero, is based on a family recipe that’s been passed down through the generations, each tweaking the recipe slightly. This variation is hand crafted and encased in dark chocolate with dark rum, Piedmont hazelnuts, Madagascar vanilla, honey and raisins. With plenty of filling encased in the chocolate, the bar is nice and moist and incredibly moreish. Whether you’re buying it a Christmas gift or as a treat for family over the Christmas period it is bound to be very well received.

RRP £14

Just Spices Coffee Kiss and Pumpkin Pie Spice

Autumn, Children, Christmas, coffee, Family Life, Food & Drink, Halloween, Home, Women

Disclaimer – We received this item free for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

You may not think of Just Spices as a company who produce ‘treats’ especially at Christmas time, but did you know that in addition to the spices and toppings they create, they also make sweet additions to your baking?

This autumn, Just Spices have two versatile blends to liven up your coffee, and beyond. Coffee Kiss and Pumpkin Pie Spice are as close as you can get to the barista-style toppings everyone loves to indulge in this time of year. We were sent both to try from the lovely people at Just Spices, who seem to come up with new ideas every week of how to improve cooking, baking and generally eating!

Coffee Kiss is a blend of spices which you add to coffee to enhance the flavour. Containing ground almonds, cocoa powder and cinnamon, it adds a winter spice to coffee to create a slightly sweeter, chocolatey taste to your morning brew. It can also be added to other drinks such as hot chocolate (as seen here), over ice cream, to smoothies and with fruit or muesli. It would also go very well with porridge on a cold day when you want to mix up the flavours slightly but don’t want to over do it with flavour. I like this mixture of the chocolate and cinnamon flavours because they not only complement each other, but they feel warming to taste and remind me of Christmas.

The Pumpkin Pie Spice mix is just as autumnal and so appropriate for this time of year! If you’re a lover of the pumpkin flavoured drinks in the famous coffee shop chains, then this is the spice for you. Containing cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, clove and nutmeg, it has that authentic autumn/winter taste to it with the mix of sweet and spicy. This is a spice not just for coffee but you can use it in hot chocolate too, or even with baking. If you’re making Thanksgiving treats such as pumpkin pie or even pumpkin soup, then the Pumpkin Pie Spice mix adds all the festive flavours without you having to gather all the ingredients yourself and try and get the right combination first time. It’s a treat for any coffee lover, or lover of autumn altogether.

Coffee Kiss currently on sale online at £3.99:

Pumpkin Pie Spice currently on sale online at £4.79:

Joy of Christmas Hamper Gift Box

alcoholic drinks, Christmas, Family Life, Food & Drink, Gifts for Her, Gifts for Him, Gifts for teachers, Gluten Free, Home, Vegan, Vegetarian

Disclaimer – We received this item free for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

Hampers are such a good idea at Christmas. I remember receiving a few over the years when I was a child as ‘thank you’ gifts at Christmas so that the whole family could enjoy them. I don’t particularly remember what was in them but it was so exciting rummaging through all the ruffled paper to find something else. Then there’s the obvious questions to my Mum, ‘What is this?’ It would turn out to be something like a posh chutney, or a type of Christmas dessert we never had in our house. I remember loose tea being in one hamper and my mind automatically thought you had to assemble your own tea bags from it. What was the point of that?

Hampers have come a long way since then but they’re just as popular as gifts and there’s so many varieties to choose from. The Goodness Project use lots of vegan and gluten free products for their gift boxes, and there are plenty of gift boxes available on their website so you’ll find one within your price range and suitable for any occasion.

We were sent their 2023 Joy of Christmas Gift Box to try out. This £28.50 box is deceptively full with treats for Christmas! There’s everything you need including:

A bottle of Bottega Gold Prosecco (20cl)
Angelic Chocolate and Orange Biscuits (vegan)
Love Cocoa Peruvian Dark Chocolate (71%)
English Truffle Potato Crisps
Filberts Flavoured Nut Mix
Lottie Shaw’s Deep Filled Mince Pie (70g)

The box is enough for one person to eat themselves or two people to share, but the bottle of Prosecco is probably only enough for 1 glass each! The Filberts Flavoured Nut Mix was a surprise with how lovely they were. There was a mixture of different nuts, but they were roasted and flavoured with herbs which made them different to what you can usually buy on supermarket shelves. The English Truffle Potato crisps from English Heritage have won the Great Taste award for 2023 probably due to the quality of the potato and then the delicious truffle flavour. If you’ve never tried truffle crisps before, then if I describe them to you as posh mushroom but not as strong, you’ll know that the taste is pretty tame and even children would enjoy it.

For the sweeter snacks, there’s the Deep Filled Mince Pie from Lottie Shaw’s. Bigger than the mine pies you get in the supermarket in packs of 6, this is deep filled and baked in Yorkshire to a family recipe. It’s great for the mince pie aficionado who loves to compare all the varieties on the market each Christmas! There’s also the Angelic Chocolate Orange Vegan cookies which are also dairy, nut and gluten free. The packaging says they’re safe for the top 14 allergens which is good to know if you’re buying the gift box for a teacher or family you don’t know that well. There’s two packets of biscuits in the box (which is all recyclable) and 4 cookies in each making 8 in all. Plenty for a snack throughout the Christmas period but also great for entertaining!

Lastly there’s the Peruvian Dark Chocolate from Love Cocoa. With a weight of 75 grams it’s about the size of tuckshop confectionary but at 71% it’s a dark chocolate from one of the best chocolate makers around. It’s very smooth and very strong so even if you’re a dark chocolate lover like me, you probably won’t want to eat all of it in one go.

The final item in the Joy of Christmas Hamper Box is the Bottega Gold Prosecco which is also organic and vegan. A light, sparkling wine which compliments the mix of Christmas flavours in the other items in the box, it’s a welcome alcohol addition to round off Christmas. It is 11% though so best keep it away from the children!

Rather than buy another ever-decreasing size box of chocolates and the dreaded Panettone

for your neighbours or family friends this Christmas, splash out on a bit more and send a Goodness Project gift box and forget about having to wrap it – their gorgeous ribbon box is sent directly to them for you!

Available online for £28.50 at: https://thegoodnessproject.co.uk/shop/joy-of-christmas-hamper-gift-box

Joe & Seph’s Prosecco Popcorn & Prosecco Caramel Sauce

Birthday Gifts, Food & Drink, Gifts for Her, Gifts for teachers, Stocking Fillers, Summer, Valentine's Day Gifts

Disclaimer: We received these products free of charge for the purpose of this review but all thoughts and opinions are our own.

Joe & Seph’s are a gourmet popcorn company with a range of over 80 different flavours of popcorn. With both sweet and savoury options, they have something to suit every taste and occasion and with National Prosecco Day just 2 weeks away we have been sampling some of their Prosecco treats.

Some sweet popcorns are coated in such thick caramel to the point that you lose the popcorn flavour, Joe & Seph’s popcorn isn’t like this, their popcorn is hand made in small batches, using the finest natural ingredients and their light, fluffy popcorn is packed full of flavour.

The Prosecco popcorn is available in either a 75g re-sealable pouch or a 30g gift box. The gift box is pyramid shaped with a gold ribbon on the top and makes a lovely gift for friends and family.

The popcorn is more sophisticated than standard popcorn and just the thing for a girls night in – with or without Prosecco!

Pouch RRP £4

Gift box RRP £5

We also tried the Prosecco Caramel Sauce, which we drizzled over vanilla ice cream and also bowls of strawberries. The sauce is lovely and rich and the caramel flavour is heavenly, the prosecco flavour isn’t especially strong but it is there and it made a simple pudding feel incredibly indulgent! It is best to heat the sauce a little in the microwave make it easier to pour – or you can just eat it straight out of the jar!

RRP £5.99

Cranes Cranberry & Blood Orange Liqueur

alcoholic drinks, Birthday Gifts, Christmas, Drinks and Mixers, Father's Day, Food & Drink, Gifts for Her, Gifts for Him, Valentine's Day Gifts, Vegan, Winter

Disclaimer: We received this product free of charge for the purpose of this review but all thoughts and opinions are our own

Love is in the air at The Review Studio this week and we are currently surrounded by a fantastic selection of Valentine’s products and looking forward to sharing our favourites over the next few days.

One present that always goes down is alcohol and this delicious Cranberry and Blood Orange Liqueur from Cranes will make a lovely gift for the special person in your life.

This striking red liqueur has been created by the founders of Cranes – twin brothers Ben & Dan along with one of the UK’s top mixologists. Made from Wisconsin cranberries and infused with blood orange juice and orange rind, this double award-winning liqueur is sweet with underlying, but not overpowering, sourness – imagine a ‘sour’ candy sweets but add a 17% alcoholic kick!

The bottle comes with minimal cardboard packaging and the distinctive square glass bottle is nice and chunky and is the type that look good on a drinks trolley.

The liqueur can be drunk neat, on the rocks or why not add some Prosecco to make a delicious Cranbellini cocktail.

Talking of cocktails there are a couple of ideas on the box to try

Cosmopolitan (Cranes Liqueur, Cranberry juice, Vodka and lime)

Lemon Berry (Cranes liqueur, Limoncello and Sicilian lemonade)

Shaddock’s G&T (Cranes liqueur, Gin, Tonic water and Pink Grapefruit Juice)

Cranes Spritz (Cranes liqueur, Soda water, Prosecco)

It a sweet, fruity liqueur but there is a hint of sharpness, and like any liqueur is best drunk slowly so you can savour every sip. It also goes well in cocktails and having tried all the ones above (well someone has to!!) we decided that the Cranes Spritz was our favourite, it’s a light and refreshing cocktail and the accompaniment toa Valentine’s Afternoon Tea.

It makes an ideal Valentine’s Day gift or why not buy a bottle and make some delicious cocktails to accompany a romantic night in.

RRP 50cl £19.99 from Cranes

Other Cranes drinks we have reviewed are

Cranes Cider

Cranes Cranberry Gin

Cranes Cider Gift Sets