This is when it starts to get real. No one says 50 is the new anything. It’s just 50. A half a damn century. It’s enough to make your head spin. Luckily for you, the gift buyer, there’s enough accumulated history in those 50 years to give you some ideas about what they’ll find humorous, useful, touching, thoughtful, or even just annoying, if you’d like to go that route. This is a big one, but don’t sweat it. We’ve got plenty of ideas.
Born out of our 100-year old family-owned restaurant supply business, Made In designs products to the exacting standards of the world's best chefs. They source high-quality raw materials and collaborate with multigenerational makers to create pieces that will last a lifetime. Made In Cookware is not only designed to the specifications of the world's best chefs; it is also used in their restaurants on a nightly basis. They can also be found in hundreds of thousands of home kitchens.
Get your favorite photo converted into a 3D laser engraved Brick Crystal for the perfect gift to celebrate memories with family and friends. Include a personalized message and complement your crystal with a lighted LED base to illuminate your one-of-a-kind work of art. With a variety of light bases to choose from, your 3D engraving will truly "pop," and your base's array of xenon-white LEDs will never burn out.
The Olive Oil Lovers Tasting Kit will help you discover your palate profile. Six small bottles of signature extra virgin olive oil, six tasting cups, and a tasting placemat are included, but more importantly, an innovative online companion app to guide you through your tasting. Using the app, you will conduct a taste comparison of the oils included in the kit to determine which type of oils most tantalize your palate.
Made by Rawlings, this chair is crafted in the form of a gargantuan baseball glove, upholstered entirely with the same exceptional leather as the mitts used by professional ballplayers. The leather for this chair is selected from the top 5% of steer hides in the Midwestern U.S.—the same as used in Rawlings’ acclaimed “Heart of the Hide” baseball glove. Leveraging Rawlings’ 125 years of experience making quality sporting goods, each chair is built to order by master craftsman in the company’s St. Louis facility, who assemble the all-wood frame by hand. The chair is upholstered front and back, padded with furniture-grade foam, and rests on a solid mahogany base. Authentic details add to the chair’s convincing realism, from the 34 aluminum grommets and 30' of leather lacing wound through the fingers, to the Rawlings name branded in the “heel” of the glove. An included removable 12" square armrest is made from the same top-quality leather. The outside of the thumb can be personalized with a name up to 16 characters.
This putting game combines the strategy and gameplay of billiards with mini-golfing skills. The game’s green felt surface and six “pockets” set up on a floor mimicking a pool table layout and challenges players to sink shots using clubs instead of pool cues. Players can practice their putting skills while competing in popular billiard variations such as 8 Ball, 9 Ball, or Rotation. Includes 15 regulation golf balls printed in the style of billiard balls, a white “cue ball,” triangle ball rack, and two carbon fiber putters.
Every dinner party needs a little edge. After the guests have feasted upon the fine fare laid out in front of them and warmed their innards with wine, brandy, or some other fine spirit, it’s time for everyone to be reminded that ill-considered choices can indeed have bad consequences. But you see, the trick of this game is that the actions mandated on these cards only seem like ill-considered choices. They are, in fact, carefully selected and annotated experiments fully backed by science and reason, engineered to titillate and elicit grins and guffaws.
Many of us rely on fortune cookies for guidance in everyday matters and major life decisions alike. Yet we never stop to think that we’re casting our fate into the hands of some anonymous pastry worker — or worse yet, some mindless, heartless industrial food processing machine — in a faraway land we likely can’t even pronounce. It’s time we begin taking our destiny into our own hands. Here’s to pulling ourselves up by the cosmic bootstraps.
It’s easy to forget that you aren’t the only thing that’s ever happened on your birthday. On the other hand, the New York Times keeps quite the detailed record, in case you’re ever curious. In fact they’re pretty much the best resource to hit up if you want to find out what kinds of epoch-making world events someone is linked to by pure coincidence. This birthday book collects all of the New York Times front pages for a given date in one handy hardcover volume, making it the ultimate gift for the historical narcissist.
Science is never better than when you can eat it. But you can’t safely eat most science, which is why this book is such a dang miracle. Technically all food is science, but the food in this book has more science than like a hot dog or something. And it’s no gimmick either — The New York Times Book Review says it’s “the one book you must have, no matter what you’re planning to cook or where your skill level falls.” Finally, a worthwhile use for chemistry.
Chocolate and chili peppers go together much better than one might suspect. But chocolate and intense pain? That’s definitely a niche combination, one that takes a special kind of nonstandard personality to relish. Chances are, you know at least one such pathological eater. Not everyone is looking to be “challenged” by their chocolate, but to some of our more adventurous mouth masochists, that probably sounds like heaven. Just don’t blame us if this turns out to be a gateway to snorting wasabi.
Who needs photorealism when you can have the charming warmth of skillful human error? There is something undeniably touching about having an artist recreate your image by hand using the old-time tools of long-gone artistic masters. After all, any old fool can press a shutter button and spit out a photo of your homely mug. It really means something that another person was willing to stare at that photo for hours while they painstakingly recreated your form by hand, imbuing it with all the personality and living charisma of your aura. Help someone you love celebrate a cherished moment the old fashioned way.
Hats have long been used as a means to hide a balding scalp, both from the painful effects of solar radiation and the equally loathsome fate of public judgment. But no longer are they merely for concealment. Thanks to the ingenuity of medical engineers, they are now also a means of treatment. What the hydroponic growth box is to the tomato, this cap is to the poor cranium suffering from thinning coverage. A dual-purpose fashion accessory if there ever was one.
A virtual cooking class with Gordon Ramsay is a chance to learn from a culinary master without the yelling and food punching you've seen on TV. His MasterClass lessons feature the seven-star Michelin chef in his home kitchen teaching everything from kitchen setup, buying ingredients, prepping, plating, and pairing restaurant quality recipes that wow guests. Crispy duck with red endive and spinach anyone?
Technology has been an ongoing boon to music makers and music lovers alike, but the downside is that anyone with a personal music collection has had a rough time keeping up over the last forty years or so. A 7-in-1 music player (AM, FM, CD, vinyl, cassette, bluetooth, and auxiliary in) allows them to get some use out of all that accumulated music without needing a room full of stereo equipment.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to learn from the best in the world? This is the idea behind MasterClass. A wide range of courses designed and taught by some of the most famous, renowned, and respected luminaries in fields as diverse as cooking, guitar playing, negotiation (hostage or otherwise), fiction writing, film making, and gardening, just to name a few. You can give a single class as a gift or a subscription for all of them.
There’s an old saying that goes, “Nobody wants to see how the sausage is made.” Well, beer isn’t sausage, though they do go very well together. And everyone wants to see how the beer is made. Brewery tours exist to prove that beer, despite all appearances, is not in fact a magical substance. It’s created by ordinary people with ordinary people hands and no magic wands or other supernatural interference. It’s just a bunch of natural processes that happen to be exceptionally awesome. Take a beer enthusiast behind the scenes to witness the (non)magic in person with this local brewery finder.
For all of the earth’s majestic wonders, nowhere will you find a geyser that spits melted chocolate. That’s why fountains were invented. This one may not have the impressive horsepower of Old Faithful, but what comes out of it tastes a whole lot better than sulfurous water. A chocolate fountain, in fact, can even transform the dull bounty of the earth (vegetables, we’re looking at you) into something that people will get excited about eating.
You could wow them with an elaborate pop-up card, but why stop there? Why not add lights and music? Birthdays are a momentous occasion worthy of a completely over-the-top birthday card like this one. These handmade cards can even be personalized with a custom message, or just let the card do the talking. We're hoping they add fireworks to next year's model.
Traditional golf pants are one of the most identifiable sartorial statements in the history of men’s fashion. This playful golf leg table captures the timeless style in a gloriously bizarre yet classic piece of furniture. Charmingly whimsical, dignified, and refined all at once, it makes a perfect addition to any man cave, vacation home, or course-side timeshare, and it’s bound to do as much for their reputation among other golfers as shaving ten strokes off their handicap.
The great conundrum of losing your glasses has always been that you’ve lost the one thing that you need to find the thing you’ve lost. That is, until technology stepped in. Now, through the magic of bluetooth, there’s one more layer of foolproof assistance to undo the errors of human carelessness. That is, until they lose their phone too. At that point, the only answer is super-gluing their belongings to their body. Even idiot-proofing has its limits.
Here's a gift for the older person struggling to keep up with all the latest texting lingo the young whipper-snappers are using. Much of it doesn't really apply to them anyway, unless they were to write something like "ROFL and can't get up" which should really be written ROFLACGU. Here's a set of senior texting codes that will make a whole lot more sense to them, conveniently printed as a cheat sheet on this handy coffee mug. They'll find plenty of useful shortcuts like BTW (bring the wheelchair), BFF (best friend's funeral), and WTFA (wet the furniture again).
As much as we love old people, we can’t stop laughing at how often they lose things. But alas, we really should take some pity on them. How many times can one person lose their reading glasses before they find that their sanity has vanished along with them? These portable, foldable reading glasses are the answer that elderly folk everywhere have been waiting for, whether they know it or not. Now if you can only find something to help them stop losing their keys…
In classier quarters this might be called a “decanter.” But the built-in stupidity of a decanter is that it’s really just a big glass you’re not allowed to drink out of. You see, in the genteel world of wine, “classy” consists of adding unnecessary steps to what should be a simple process. Of course, bourgeois society has attached all kinds of stigma to drinking straight from the bottle, so some kind of compromise is necessary. And that compromise is right here.
Experiences make some of the best gifts, but it can be a real challenge to come up with good ones over and over again. This birthday grab bag allows the recipient to choose any one experience from a list of over 300 options that range from relaxing dining experiences and laid-back ocean cruises to extreme sports adventures in far-flung locales. With experiences available in 100+ countries scattered across six different continents, this is an especially great choice for globetrotters in search of unique and thrilling activities in faraway lands.
Almost everyone has a bucket list. But if you talk to enough people, you’ll find that a lot of those buckets are kind of empty. The Bucket List Experiences Gift Box allows you to dump a whole bunch of stuff into someone’s bucket, and let them pull one of those things out for free. It’s simple: for a flat price, you buy them access to a whole list of unique activities and experiences at locations across the world, and they get to choose whichever one tickles their fancy the most.
Try as they might, those frozen cocktails they’re always making in the blender never quite come out right. It’s not because they got the recipe wrong (although by the fourth batch, that’s a good bet too) - it’s because the’ve been using the wrong tools. You wouldn’t let them try to cross a lake in their car, would you? So why are you letting them try to make frozen drinks in a blender? Making a proper beach cocktail first and foremost requires using the right contraption: a specialized frozen drink maker. It’s a small investment for the gallons of glorious delight it will produce.
So much of golf is a guessing game. They have to estimate the wind, take calculated risks to avoid water and sand hazards, and pace their beer consumption appropriately. A laser range finder at least takes club choice out of the equation. It’s also waterproof, which is great for those times when they feel like hurling it into a creek in a fit of rage. Armed with tools like these, it’s only a matter of time before they take the pro tour by storm.
The beer world has truly exploded with breweries over the last decade-plus, which is great for anyone who likes trying new things. However, this proliferation of choice has a dark side. Dyed-in-the-wool beer lovers now face overwhelming anxiety every time they go to pick up a six pack or fill up a growler. The Craft Beer Club removes this pain point by making the necessary choices for all involved, so beer time can go back to being the sweet revelation it used to be.
When you were a kid, your mom probably told you not to sit so close to the TV — at least, if you were born way back before parents gave up on that sort of thing. Well, here is the Oculus Go, designed to be the ultimate in sticking it to your parents. It’s also the perfect gift for someone who loves big screen movies but hates sitting next to other people. Pretty much the most immersive personal entertainment system available, designed for people who want to be in the movie, not just watch it.
A particularly good gift if you live far away and aren’t going to be seeing them in person to hand over that homemade cake you would otherwise have lovingly prepared (read, bought from the store at the last minute). If you’re feeling generous, how about giving them a monthly cupcake subscription?
If you’re looking for a truly one of a kind gift, you might consider commissioning a local artist to create a unique piece of jewelry. It will not only be cherished by the lucky recipient, but it’s also a gift to the starving artist, so it will mean a lot to everyone. Remember to plan in advance for this one, custom made artwork is not created overnight.
If you decide to do this, go all out. Show up at 5 in the morning dressed impeccably in a tuxedo. Proceed to handle all unpleasantness with quiet grace, never faltering, never betraying any emotion save unswerving loyalty to the person whom it your your honor to serve. Take care of them the way that they think they deserve. Really buttle them good.
So you’ve decided to get her a bomb kit? Scour the internet and you’ll find instructions for making the worst kind of gift imaginable. But instead of making one that blows up, why don’t you teach her how to make a bath bomb? No costly medical bills or long, drawn out criminal trials. Just an explosion of peace and relaxation.
According to research, a average woman spends 76 days looking for items in her handbag during her lifetime. That is downright silly. But you can help. She'll love this addition to her favorite accessory that will save her time finding keys, phones, and whatever else she squeezes into her cavernous purse.
Happy couple decides to go on vacation, finds quaint lodging belonging to complete stranger for a price that seems too good to be true. In the movies, they get hacked to pieces. So here’s one way you can be happy that real life never ends up like the movies. In real life, they just have a great time and never stay in a hotel again.
Every big shot needs a set of these to take their big shots from. Help them flex their drinking muscles or show their military/hunting roots. A perfect gift for that person who really goes in for the kill at the drinkin’ hour.
Craft brewing has definitely taken over the beer industry. But with so many microbreweries and so much competition, it sometimes gets hard to keep up. And who knows what to make of the bizarre varieties taking over liquor store shelves? Orange pickled hibiscus springtime lager? Porcupine quill Mongolian stout? Good lord. Time to look into the homebrew options.
Perhaps the best gift you could give is a well-earned day off. Watch their face light up when they kick back and enjoy a day of total relaxation as you take care of all the hard work for them. Just be careful not to do the job too well or you’ll find them asking for the same thing for every birthday and holiday to come.
The classic party game where everyone either reveals reputation-demolishing secrets about their past or shamelessly lies to save face. Depending on the temperament of the various participants, it can make for an hour or so of good-natured ribbing, or it can devolve into closet doors being flung open to reveal hideous skeletons beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. In other words, it’s rip-roaring fun. But depending on your own personal history, you may want to sit this one out.
Everyone, from Elon Musk to your next door neighbor, is straight-up terrified of the robot takeover, envisioning all kinds of post-apocalyptic horrors being visited upon us by our own creations. But then one of them offers to mow the lawn and everyone’s like, “Well, they can’t be that bad.” And it’s true - there might be a few bad apples coming down the assembly line, but you won’t find any in the lawn mower category. Just helpful, friendly, sort-of-intelligent mini landscapers who just want you to give them a place to lay low and recharge in between jobs. Nothing to be scared of here.
Know someone who’s had a lot of close calls? Celebrate it with this bullet-embedded shot glass. A strong reminder that you never know which direction the next shitstorm is coming from, and you never know what shape it’s going to take. You might as well live it up now while you can.
Hopefully, five decades into their life they’ve finally begun to mature into something that does justice to their vintage. With any luck, they’ve aged as well as the wine you’re about to uncork in celebration of their advancement. At 50, you’re firmly in the midst of middle age, and damn right they should be proud of it. Don’t be afraid to display it for the world to see. They’ve cracked a half century, and everyone knows they’re just getting started. Kick the next half century off in style.
The future of food is all about making weird shapes with your dinner. Or at least that’s what the modernist chefs will have you believe. And some of the things you can make with this molecular gastronomy kit are enough to make you feel like you’re eating with the Jetsons. Spheres, foams, and chocolate spaghetti are a few of the strange treasures that await inside this bizarre culinary kit.
People often have the illusion that their options are dwindling the older they get. The genius of a book like this is that it proves the opposite. As your experience and wisdom grow, so does your understanding of what’s possible. But that doesn’t mean they can’t use some guidance. Before you let Aunt Martha indulge her lifelong hidden desire of becoming a stripper, you may want to intervene with a little expert advice. This is a great place to start.
Speed is dangerous, but some kinds are more dangerous than others. This one is mostly just fun. But be careful: once they’ve experienced the feeling of flying around the track, the engine roaring like a wild beast, the smell of smoldering rubber in the air, they may never quite be the same.
Every birth is an incomprehensible miracle, and it’s a shame that we only allocate a single day to celebrate each one. Seems kind of lazy when you think about it. With Kindnotes, you can keep those good vibes coming for an entire month. Thirty-one little envelopes, each with a tiny note containing thoughts of inspiration, appreciation, and love. They’ll never get tired of opening these up every day and being reminded of how great they are. Choose from ready-made sets with messages already included, blank cards that you can fill in yourself, or Kindnotes will custom print your personalized set and jar.
A trip to the spa promotes relaxation, relieves stress, and contributes to their general wellbeing. It also gets them off your back for a few hours. This is what people call a win-win situation. Ship them off to a place of rest and rejuvenation. You’ll both be glad you did.
Generally speaking, the last person in the room who needs more wine is the person who’s already gone feet up. But as long as that posture signals relaxation and not unconsciousness, it’s probably fine. There may be a moral grey area, but that’s not your problem. This is the perfect gift for the most shameless wino you know.
Get them started on that Bucket List while there’s time and health to finish it, with a tangible, physical bucket. They can pick an adventure whenever life permits. It's a gift that gives them the opportunity to make memories, rather than giving them a reason to make more closet space.
Around birthdays, a person may start to think about their place in history. They begin to really contemplate what it means to someday join the long chain of human life that led to them and to their descendants. Help them get started on a journey of self discovery by starting a family tree based on their DNA.
Many studies point to a higher life expectancy for those that follow a Mediterranean diet. What looks like a humble bottle of olive oil could well be the elixir of youth. We can’t think of a better present to give to someone that's turning another year older.
Phones actually have more germs on them than a typical public restroom. This smart cleansing machine might not eliminate the dirty content sucking up the data on their phone, but it will be sure to return sterile swiping to their wired existence. Personal device hygiene should not be overlooked by today’s touch-screen fanatics. A high-tech disinfectant, this ingenuous accessory will decontaminate wireless communication and restore cleanliness to the digital age. Oh, and it also charges while it cleans!
This birthday, why not give them a bouquet of something they actually want – like the chance to win the lottery and retire early to travel the world in a super yacht! Plus, if they win, they’re sure to share their millions with you, right? Right?? Jon, can you hear me, you seem to be sailing in the other direction…?
Here’s some art that really grows on you. A hanging garden that can be placed on any wall in the house, it can add a bit of unexpected life to an interior space. The frame comes decked out with easy-to-care-for succulents, so you don’t have to worry about giving this to someone with a brown thumb.
Sure, it will be strange when you have to get that cheek swab from them without them knowing what you’re up to, but it will all make sense when you reveal this custom portrait that showcases their unique DNA. Or you could just give them the DNA collection kit as the gift if that’s easier. Or just swab your dog. They’ll never know the difference.
Some might consider it the ultimate display of human privilege to begin claiming faraway stars just because we have a few extra dollars in our pockets. But once you realize that the universe is far bigger than you think it is, you’ll cool off a little. There’s more than enough to go around for everybody. Several billion times over. So go ahead and give someone a little piece of the cosmic pie. Nothing to get all riled up about.
We can’t emphasize this enough: you ride the motorized cooler full of drinks to the party, you drink its contents, and then you WALK it back home. Nobody wants to be the guy on the news who got arrested for drunk driving an empty cooler. So stay safe.
Just give it to them. Don’t make a big deal about it, or give them diet books or a lecture or anything like that. They know. They have figured out for themselves that their body is not quite the well-tuned machine that it once was. Just give the Fitbit, and leave the rest to them.
3D printing technology is all the rage these days, but has anyone been able to explain to you what the point of it all really is? Well wonder no more! The point, as is so often the case with hi-tech gadgets, is pancakes. Design and print pancakes in shapes never thought possible before. What a time to be alive and hungry for breakfast.
Sure, we lived for hundreds of thousands of years without electricity, but that’s not the point. The next time they’re in the middle of baking a casserole and a squirrel falls in the wires at the power plant, don’t make them resort to eating lettuce and raw cookie dough for dinner. Every house needs one of these.
The first time they filled the basement with batteries was just before the Y2k crisis. Or if they’re old enough, perhaps during the cold war. In both cases, nothing really happened. But maybe three times is a charm. Even if the modern world doesn’t collapse on itself, you’ll be giving them peace of mind knowing that their 84 remote controls will always be well fed.
If you think that intoxicating substances and baseball don’t mix, consider that Doc Ellis once pitched a no-hitter while tripping on acid, and old time icons like Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, and Harry Caray were pretty much drunk all the time. This unique and meticulously crafted centerpiece is more proof of the divine intersection between the national pastime and…the other national pastime.
This is the perfect choice for their bedside reading lamp - a light bulb that actually promotes sleep. Typical bulbs emit a specific type of blue light that suppresses melatonin, but that wavelength of color is filtered out of this bulb that is used by NASA to help astronauts sleep in space.
You probably know someone who would like their own personal supply of organic produce but doesn’t have the time to manage a multi-acre farm. Or go to the grocery store for that matter. This is also a great gift for the healthy eater who’s too busy to garden or who tends to kill everything they lay their hands on.
In an ideal world, every home would have its own draft beer on tap. If that’s a gift you can afford, then by all means, please get them a draft beer tap. For the rest of us, there is the next best thing. This beer dispenser uses sound waves and pressure to transform any canned or bottled beer into beer you would swear came fresh from the tap.
Vacuuming will no longer feel like a chore with this powerful canister strapped to their back. Liberating and sporty, this dust-defeating, crumb-eating soldier of suction is strictly reserved for today’s most ambitious and orderly housekeepers. The latest in domestic fitness regimens, this lightweight apparatus will strengthen their core while reducing unsightly nicks on walls and unnecessary scratches on floors. Tidiness redefined.
mBerry tablets are a natural product derived from berries that temporarily alter your perception of taste by binding to your taste buds and tricking your brain. It’s a pretty crazy experience and would make a memorable gift that they’ll be telling stories about for years. The tablets make sour and bitter things taste sweet. You can chow down on a lemon and swear it tastes like an orange. Vinegar tastes like apple juice. Hot sauce and spicy foods become sugary and beer tastes like Kool-aid.
It used to be the only way to smell like your favorite alcohol was to get so drunk it came out of your pores. Although a few people have probably tried using whiskey as cologne, too. Thank god someone finally came up with a better solution. Beer soap uses real craft beer ingredients to make rich, fragrant soap that not only smells great but nourishes your skin with natural vitamins and nutrients.
The last thing anyone wants to do after a long day is wrack their brains trying to figure out what to drown their sorrows with. That’s really the last straw. With this beautiful, handcrafted set of drunk dice, the possibilities are endless—and so are the regrets. But hey, a party isn’t complete until things get a little dicey..
Along with abundance comes the responsibility not to bore the crap out of people by making the same silly casserole every night. The problem is that nobody wants to think that much about food. They just want to eat. Place the burden of creativity - and blame - on these ingenious foodie dice, and watch the possibilities multiply.
If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. If you know someone who has refined taste buds, this might even include cheese. But before you go buying a water buffalo, you should know that you can buy the enzymes and all that by themselves and then add milk later. The rest of the animal is incidental, inconvenient, and frankly dangerous.
Look, soap is great. Nobody’s denying that. But you have to realize that while it does make you clean, it doesn’t accomplish the one thing that so many people wish it did: cover them in chocolate. For obvious reasons, however, being covered in chocolate is a somewhat dubious goal. After all, they would have to wash it off right away to avoid getting it on the furniture. This chocolate soap is the perfect compromise: they get to cover themselves in chocolate and somehow get cleaner at the same time. And wow, it really smells good too.
