Spirits of Christmas Past

When faced with the challenge of what to buy someone for the holidays, many people look to curated gift boxes that cater to their recipients’ tastes — and this idea isn’t new. In the early 1900s, the Hudson’s Bay Company produced Christmas hampers with liquor and smoking supplies for refined gentlemen. 

The HBC Museum Collection includes a number of these wooden boxes that are now empty, their contents having been thoroughly enjoyed. Two sizes were advertised in the 1910 fall-and-winter catalogue. A smaller hamper sold for five dollars and contained one bottle each of rye, Scotch, brandy, sherry, and port along with a box of twenty-five fancy cigars. The larger hamper sold for ten dollars and included the same items plus a bottle of Irish whisky, some Jamaican rum, six bottles of lager, and more cigars. 

In today’s prices it would cost upwards of $380 for the small hamper and $580 for the large version. Either option definitely would have been a festive-season purchase for someone very special.