What's Inside the Greatest Gourmet Hamper: All Ten Items

The Greatest Gourmet Hamper holds ten things to eat and drink: five savoury, four sweet and one bottle of yuzu syrup. No alcohol, nothing that needs refrigerating on arrival, and only one of each job in the box. One cracker, one jar of olives, one bowl of nuts, one bag of chips.

Ten items, and why that is the point

Item counts get used as shorthand for value, and they are a poor one. A long list usually gets long by repeating itself: four kinds of cracker, three kinds of chocolate, two jars doing the same job on the same board. The list reads better than the board eats.

This box does not repeat itself. One cracker, one jar of olives, one spread, one nut, one chip, then the sweet half, then a bottle. Everything can go out at once, and when it does you have a finished board, not a plate with spares beside it. For a household of two to four, that is the difference between a gift eaten over a weekend and one rationed until March. The rest of the alcohol-free hampers range sits either side of it if you want the same idea at a different size.

The pistachio macarons are the outlier

Nine of the ten items are what you would expect in a good hamper. The tenth is a 90g box of pistachio macarons from Borgo de Medici, and a macaron is not usually something you put in the post.

They come boxed and travel at room temperature, which is what makes them possible in a parcel at all. Practically, they take dessert off the recipient: out with coffee, and the hamper has covered the end of the evening as well as the start. They are infused with real pistachio, so they taste of the nut rather than the colour.

The savoury five

The savoury half is a small grazing board that has already been edited for you.

Kangaroo Island Mediterranean olives are a mixed seasonal variety picked across the harvest window, so the jar does not read as a single note repeated. Drain them into a bowl and put them out first, because they are the only item needing nothing under them.

The VPC artisan pita with olive oil and sea salt is the only cracker in the box, which puts real weight on it. Oven baked in Australia and thicker than a water cracker, it carries a loaded spread without snapping and still holds its own dry beside the olives.

The spread is TRCC "G For George" tapenade, and it is roasted red capsicum rather than the black olive version most people picture when they read the word. Sweeter, brighter, and much easier to put in front of someone who has decided they do not like tapenade.

Mr Filbert's French rosemary almonds are roasted and lightly infused with the herb, savoury rather than sweet, and the bowl that lives beside the drinks. Hunter's Gourmet black truffle potato chips come in the small 40g size and are the one item nobody bothers to plate. If you want to build a bigger board out from them, we have written separately about what to serve beside truffle chips.

The sweet four

The VPC fig and almond fruit pyramid is the hinge between the two halves. Black Mission figs, caramelised and combined with roasted crushed almonds, it is sweet enough to eat with coffee and firm enough to slice onto the savoury board with a knife. If you are buying a cheese to go alongside the hamper, the pyramid is the piece it wants.

Kangaroo Island honey popcorn comes from the island whose Ligurian bees make its famous honey. It is sweet, but it goes out with the savoury half and vanishes at the same rate.

Then dessert proper: the macarons, and a 150g box of TCE Belgian chocolate truffles, cocoa dusted and soft. In an Australian December the truffles are the item to keep somewhere cool until people are eating, and the fruit pyramid and the popcorn are the two that hold their shape on a warm afternoon.

The bottle that outlives the box

The tenth item is 400ml of Bacanha Sirop Brut de Yuzu, a French syrup built on the East Asian citrus. Yuzu lands somewhere between a mandarin and a lime, tart and floral at once, and a splash of it in soda water makes a drink that tastes like somebody thought about it.

The 400ml is the detail worth noticing. Everything else in this hamper is gone inside a week. The syrup is still in the fridge door in February, going into soda, into sparkling water for a table where half the room is not drinking, or over ice cream. Our notes on non-alcoholic Christmas drinks take that further if the person you are sending it to is the one hosting.

The ten items, in the order to put them out

1. Kangaroo Island Mediterranean olives, 185g. Drained, in a bowl, first out.
2. VPC artisan pita, olive oil and sea salt, 100g. Broken, not snapped square.
3. TRCC "G For George" roasted red capsicum tapenade, 110g. Small dish, spoon in it.
4. Mr Filbert's French rosemary almonds, 100g. By the drinks, not the board.
5. Hunter's Gourmet black truffle potato chips, 40g. Opened last, gone first.
6. VPC fig and almond fruit pyramid, 75g. Sliced on with a cheese, and the board turns sweet.
7. Kangaroo Island honey popcorn, 80g. Out with the savoury half.
8. Borgo de Medici pistachio macarons, 90g. Held back for coffee.
9. TCE Belgian chocolate truffles, cocoa dusted, 150g. Out of the warm until people are ready.
10. Bacanha Sirop Brut de Yuzu, 400ml. Poured through the lot, and for weeks after.

How it arrives

Everything is packed by hand in Corio, on the northern edge of Geelong, into the French blue hamper box with its gold ribbon, and that box travels inside an insulated shipper carton. A personalised gift card is included at no extra cost. If a single line runs out we substitute something of equal or higher value, almost always from the same category.

Every item keeps in a cool, dry place and travels at room temperature, which is what lets this box be posted anywhere in the country in December. Only the yuzu syrup wants the fridge, and only once it is open.

Questions about the Greatest Gourmet Hamper

What is in the Greatest Gourmet Hamper?

Ten things to eat and drink. Five savoury: Kangaroo Island Mediterranean olives, VPC artisan pita with olive oil and sea salt, TRCC "G For George" roasted red capsicum tapenade, Mr Filbert's French rosemary almonds and Hunter's Gourmet black truffle potato chips. Four sweet: Borgo de Medici pistachio macarons, TCE Belgian cocoa dusted truffles, Kangaroo Island honey popcorn and the VPC fig and almond fruit pyramid. Then a 400ml bottle of Bacanha yuzu syrup, in the French blue box with a personalised gift card.

Does the Greatest Gourmet Hamper contain alcohol?

No. The only bottle is a non-alcoholic citrus syrup, so it suits a recipient who is not drinking, a workplace where you cannot send wine, and a household where you do not know either way. It sits in our alcohol-free hampers range.

How many people does it feed?

Two to four comfortably, as one grazing spread with dessert after it. Because nothing repeats, it works better in a single sitting than parcelled out over a fortnight. For a bigger room, the larger boxes in the Christmas hampers range are the place to look.

The Greatest Gourmet Hamper is one of the alcohol-free boxes people come back to, and it ships free anywhere in Australia on orders over $100. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day from our Corio, VIC warehouse, tracked with Australia Post.