Gourmet Box Melancholy & Companion

Swabian melancholy and four fine companions

The Wehmut & Wegbegleiter (Melancholy & Companions) gourmet box is a gift for men containing five savory favorites: Wehmut apple vermouth from Swabia, Franconian liver sausage, tuna from Portugal, almonds with rosemary, and an alpine men's soap. Spicy moments for him, dry instead of sweet.

Gourmetbox Wehmut & Wegbegleiter is the name of our gift for men with character: the "Wehmut," an apple vermouth from the Swabian Jörg Geiger workshop, accompanied by a Franconian liver sausage in a jar, Portuguese tuna with chickpeas, Spanish almonds with rosemary, and a Tyrolean soap with mountain mint. Five items, savory and curated, in a gift box with a slip lid.

Nestled on light green and dark green sizzle pak, held together by a hand-tied red bow with white and red cord, ready to be enjoyed immediately. The box is intended for people who prefer savory to sweet – best friends, brothers, fathers, fathers-in-law, colleagues, and business associates. And honey, if he has character.

What's inside?

These five favorite items await in the Wehmut & Wegbegleiter gourmet box:

• Jörg Geiger Workshop – Wehmut Apple Vermouth – dry apple wine with wormwood herb from Swabia, in a clay jug
• Faber Feinkost – Franconian Country Liver Sausage – soft, spicy liver sausage in a jar from Bad Kissingen
• Briosa Gourmet – Tuna Fillet with Chickpeas – a small Portuguese meal in fine olive oil
• Finca la Rosala – Valencia Almonds with Rosemary – crunchy, savory roasted almonds from Spain
• Tiroler Reine – Mountain Mint Soap – a solid alpine soap bar with fresh mountain mint

Savory, dry, with character

At the heart of the box is the Wehmut, an apple vermouth from the Jörg Geiger workshop in Schlat near Göppingen. Bittersweet apples and wormwood herb are fermented in a used whisky barrel, and an apple and grape brandy brings it to 13 percent alcohol. It smells of honey, white flowers, and ripe apricot; it tastes deliberately dry with notes of dried herbs, and hints of anise and ginger emerge in the finish.

Served neat at 14 to 16 degrees, or over ice with an orange zest or as a long drink with one of the house's non-alcoholic Prisecco wines. The wormwood for it grows on the Sonnenhof in Bad Boll, and the apples come from the orchards on the northern edge of the Swabian Jura. The Wehmut & Wegbegleiter gourmet box carries this signature right into the wrapping paper.

Four companions from four countries

Four savory pieces frame the Wehmut, each with its own origin and character – together, they make for a snack board somewhere between a tavern and a tapas bar.

The Franconian liver sausage in the 200g jar comes from Faber Feinkost in Bad Kissingen, a sausage manufacturer since 1949, soft and savory with the typical depth of a good artisanal product. The tuna from Portugal by Briosa swims in olive oil accompanied by chickpeas – a small Portuguese meal that only requires a fork and is hand-packed in Cabedelo on the Atlantic coast.

The roasted almonds with rosemary from Finca Rosala come from Spain – crunchy, resinous, and savory, as if made for the Wehmut. And after eating, the soap awaits: Tiroler Reine provides a bar with mountain mint, clear and cool, an alpine scent for the hands after a meal of sausage and oil.

This is how it goes: liver sausage on bread, an almond on the side, a sip of Wehmut to go with it.

From five workshops, tied into one box

Every item has its own origin – the Swabian orchard, the Franconian sausage kitchen, the Portuguese Atlantic coast, the Spanish almond harvest, and the Tyrolean mountains. This creates a box from five houses that understand their craft and are approachable by their first names.

We tie the five together in a kraft cardboard gift box with a slip lid, nestled on light green and dark green sizzle pak, and sealed with a hand-tied thin red bow and white and red cord. If an item should ever be unavailable, we will replace it with an equivalent one, paying attention to its origin and character.

More savory gifts can be found in the gifts for men and the other gourmet gift boxes.

As a late afternoon snack

For a late afternoon snack, the box requires good bread, a sharp knife, and a simple tumbler in which the Wehmut sits on two ice cubes. This turns the gift into a small, savory feast. Well done.