A Little Luxury at Home

Inspiration for Hosting a Winter Tasting Night

Because delighting your guests shouldn’t require a reservation — just a little creativity and a beautifully set table.

Some experiences imprint themselves so deeply onto our senses that they become little bookmarks in our memory. During a recent stay at the Ritz-Carlton in New Orleans, one of those moments found me in the form of a chocolate-and-bourbon tasting — ginger warmth meeting silky cocoa in a dimly lit lounge, offered with the kind of relaxed elegance that whispers, “Slow down. This moment is for you.”

I still think about it — not just the flavors, but the reminder that tiny intentional experiences can turn an ordinary evening into something unforgettable.

And truly, a tasting night — whether formal or spontaneous — is one of my favorite ways to bring that little spark of luxury home.

This love of sampling, sipping, and savoring didn’t begin at the Ritz. One of my best friends, Amber, once showed up to a girls’ night with a full gin-and-tea tasting, completely unplanned and absolutely perfect. We passed around each bottle like a group of jubilant Victorian botanists, comparing notes, giggling, choosing favorites. Another night, I hosted the girls and couldn’t find a single jar of caviar anywhere — not even for ready money, as Oscar Wilde would say (and yes, the girlies who know The Importance of Being Earnest absolutely cackled).

So I improvised. I picked up several tins of gourmet fish — sardines, smoked trout, anchovies — and we had ourselves a makeshift tasting. It was outside a few comfort zones, but that’s the beauty of it: you get a tiny taste, no emotional commitment, no pressure to love it… and sometimes you surprise yourself.

Honestly, these moments always bring me back to one of my earliest memories of tasting culture — back in the 1900s (LOL) when I was in first grade. My teacher set up a class-wide taste test, little cups lined up on desks. A boy and I accidentally dropped our “did not like it” votes into the positive column, and we laughed until our tiny faces hurt because no one in the entire class had liked that mystery sample. It was simple, it was silly, and it taught me early that tasting is supposed to be fun — not serious.

And maybe that’s why, even as an adult, I treat tasting as play.
A chance to explore.
A chance to surprise yourself.
A chance to say, “Why not try everything once?”
We truly do only get one life.

Some of my favorite recent memories include tasting menus disguised as ordinary nights. There was a new bar my girlfriends and I went to that offered one-night-only cocktails — a limited menu we absolutely had to conquer. So naturally, we ordered all of them. People looked at us like we’d lost our minds, but we took one sip of each, passed them around, rated our favorites, and laughed the night away. It wasn’t about getting blitzed — it was about experiencing something new together.

And that’s the heart of a tasting night.
It isn’t about food.
It isn’t about drinks.
It’s about shared discovery.

You can build a tasting around anything — bourbon and chocolate, mustards and pretzels, seasonal candies, infused honeys, winter citrus, bread and butter, sparkling waters, even a spontaneous “pantry tasting” from the random things you have on hand. You can warm nuts on a sheet tray the way they do in first-class cabins. Pair samples with little cards describing each flavor. Serve sparkling water for palate cleansing. Add a candle, a linen napkin, or a bud vase just because it’s pretty.

There’s no wrong way to do it — only the joy of curating a moment.

A winter tasting night is also the perfect antidote to the heaviness of the season. When the days are short and the cold sinks into the edges of everything, gathering around a table of little delights feels like reclaiming a bit of wonder. The food becomes a bridge. The experience becomes a memory. And the evening becomes one of those soft, glowing moments that linger in the heart.

Whether you recreate a chocolate-and-bourbon pairing, host a tinned-fish soirée, or gather your friends for a themed girls’ tasting night, remember this:

It doesn’t have to be elaborate to be elevated.
It doesn’t have to be expensive to be luxurious.
It doesn’t have to be perfect to be meaningful.

All it needs is intention.
A willingness to play.
And the desire to savor something — together.

Who knows? Like so many of my own tasting nights, it just might become one of your favorite stories.