# Blue Bottle Holiday Gift Guide: James Freeman's Picks

## Our founder and CPO shares a few of his favorite things

_Not unlike the_ [_Blue Bottle Holiday Collection_](/content/store/gifts/index.html) _, James Freeman's gift list comprises a world of delight._

**For the French mechanic who has fixed my eccentric French cars since the early 1990s**: a holiday mug illustrated with a charming drawing of a [Peugeot 505 wagon](/content/store/holiday-mug/index.html), and [coffee](/content/store/oakland-lights/index.html) to go with it.

**For all my cocktail-loving friends who go to Tokyo, and then return morose because they are 6,000 miles from perfect ice**: An [ice mold](https://wandpdesign.com/products/clear-ice-mold?variant=28962461955) that gets you very, very close to perfection. My friends can then enjoy the ice they make with a finger or two of Hibiki twelve-year poured into a perfect, delicate [Hario tumbler](https://umamimart.com/products/hario-thin-rocks-glass) with sides as thin as a dragonfly's wing.

**When I realized I will never be Francis Mallman**: a really good [meat thermometer](http://www.thermoworks.com/Thermapen-Mk4?gclid=CjwKCAiA9rjRBRAeEiwA2SV4ZQHUxEHxKXtGUzoFtbg7Xz-CoUTEH9ut8YXkahQucajlGpyufiblgxoC6YEQAvD_BwE).

**There is a pepper mill that supersedes all the thinking I have ever done about pepper mills, a pepper mill that is so laughingly superior to any other pepper mill I have seen or used that it inspires a haunting thought every time I pick it up**: Why, after so many years of education and striving, is a pepper mill the most perfect object I own? And how did it come to be called the [Unicorn Magnum Plus](http://www.unicornmills.com/Magnum-Plus-0/)?

**For a couple of friends who own record players and are heading up to Portland, Maine, this spring and need a reason to stop at a great cafe**: The Tandem Coffee [Vinyl and Coffee Subscription](https://www.tandemcoffee.com/products/the-good-thing-coffee-vinyl-subscription).

**There really is a** [**Cap of Courage**](https://www.bestmadeco.com/products/cap-of-courage?option_values=1062&taxon_id=1164) **.** And it really works.