5 Luxury Food & Drink Advent Calendars Worth Considering This Christmas

Introduction

Luxury advent calendars have quietly become one of the most interesting gift categories of the festive season. We spent time with five very different takes on the format: a premium Italian chocolate calendar, a grow-your-own seed calendar, a matcha tea calendar, a pre-mixed cocktail calendar, and a huge British food hamper-style calendar. All five sit in the higher price bracket, so the real question is not “is it nice?” but “is it worth it for you?”

Here is how they compare.

Venchi Chocolate Advent Calendar: Premium Chocolate Done Properly

Venchi is an Italian chocolatier with roots going back to 1878, when a 20-year-old spent all of his savings on two bronze cauldrons and started experimenting with chocolate. The calendar’s artwork is designed in collaboration with Australian artist Anna Higgie, and the box itself feels genuinely premium before you even open a door.

Behind the doors you get a variety of Venchi’s most popular chocolates, spanning dark, plain, milk, and nougatine, so there is real variety rather than 24 copies of the same praline. Standouts include a proper tiramisu chocolate and a cremino, and the overall impression is rich, high-quality chocolate where one piece a day genuinely feels like enough. That richness is part of the appeal: this is a savour-it-daily treat rather than a bar to demolish.

On the ethical side, Venchi claims sustainable sourcing with correct pricing for chocolate, planet-conscious packaging with Rainforest Alliance certification, and a 360-degree recycling programme working towards zero food waste. At 52 pounds, that works out to roughly two pounds a door, which is pricey but defensible for the quality. It is best framed as a self-treat or something you would love to receive, rather than a casual gift.

The Little Tree Bees and Seeds Company Grow Your Own Advent Calendar

This is the wildcard of the list: an alternative to chocolate for gardeners. Instead of sweets, each of the 25 doors reveals a gift-wrapped packet of heirloom vegetable, herb, or salad seeds, including varieties like amethyst dwarf French beans, tomatoes, squashes, courgettes, cucumbers, beetroot, micro cresses, and herbs such as lemon balm.

The package includes a grow guide with a rough planting calendar covering which months to sow what, plus five metres of jute rope and 25 wooden clips so you can hang the envelopes up and display the whole calendar from day one. Each packet tells you when to sow, plant, and harvest, spacing requirements, and days to maturity.

At 25 pounds, that works out to about a pound per packet of quality seed, which is genuinely good value. The clever part is what it does to the concept of advent: instead of ending on 24 December, the calendar opens up an entire year of growing. It works best for new or expanding gardeners who have recently gained access to a garden rather than seasoned growers who already save their own seed. The company’s mission is to help get Britain growing their own, whatever space they have.

Bird & Blend Matcha Advent Calendar

If you know someone curious about matcha, this is arguably the perfect entry point. Behind each of 24 doors sits a different tin of flavoured pure-grade matcha tea, with each tin making two cups, so the calendar covers 48 cups across December. The blends are positioned as a source of sustained, crash-free energy, and the tins themselves look great on a shelf.

The flavour range is wide and playful: Honey Bunny Matcha, Mint Choc Chip, Ice Cream Matcha, Toffee Apple Matcha, Super Matcha blueberry green tea powder, and more. In tasting, the pleasant surprise is how un-sweet and authentic these are; the flavours lean more on aroma than sugar, which keeps them tasting like real matcha rather than a synthetic novelty. Honey Bunny stood out as floral rather than sweet, and it softens the drying, tannic edge that puts some people off plain matcha.

There are also QR codes behind the doors linking to festive content and information about the company’s tea blending workshops and events, so the brand leans into tea education as much as selling tea. At 51.99 pounds for 48 cups of flavoured pure-grade matcha, the pricing is reasonable given how expensive quality matcha can be, and the tasting journey itself is genuinely fun.

NIO Cocktails Advent Calendar

NIO makes high-quality pre-mixed cocktails in Italy, and this calendar’s selection was handpicked by Patrick Pistolesi, owner of Drink Kong, ranked 16th in the world’s best bars. Each of the 24 doors holds a 100ml pre-mixed cocktail: a Winter Sidecar, Cosmopolitan, Negroni, Margarita, Espresso Martini, Christmas Margarita, Disaronno Sour, Cuban Negroni, Old Fashioned, Gin Proved, Revolver, Snow Daiquiri, and more, all with a festive twist on the classics.

The format is simple and satisfying: shake, pinch the corner, tear, and pour over ice. No scissors, no bartending skills, no bottles of liqueur gathering dust after one use. That last point is the strongest argument for the calendar: you get to sample 24 different properly made cocktails without buying a full bottle of every ingredient.

At 135 pounds it is a serious outlay, partly because UK alcohol duty is calculated on ABV, so high-percentage cocktails carry a lot of duty. The brand also sells individual cocktails that fit through a letterbox, which is a more affordable way to gift the same idea. As a full calendar it is best suited to a household or couple who will genuinely share it, rather than one person.

Cartwright & Butler Advent Calendar: The Big One

This is the showstopper. Cartwright & Butler, a British brand from Hull that began with two sisters making preserves and baked goods in a tiny terrace kitchen, has built a calendar that swaps tiny chocolates for full-size treats across 24 doors. We are talking raisins in milk chocolate by the 175-gram bag, popcorn and peanut brittle, cheddar cheese crumbles, mini bottles of sauvignon blanc, jam, tea bags, coffee beans and dark chocolate, a mini cherry loaf, fudge, demerara shortbread rounds, fruit jellies, rhubarb and custard sweets, marmalade, cheese biscuits, and a whole Christmas cake behind the final door.

The upside is obvious: an enormous quantity of genuinely classic British treats with no repetition, day after day. The catch is equally obvious at exactly 200 pounds. Realistically, an average-sized family cannot eat all of this within advent, and it is hard to picture buying it for an individual. Where it makes real sense is as a workplace or shared-household calendar, opened once a day by a group of people, or as a corporate gift. If you have the budget and the crowd to match, nothing else on this list comes close in scale.

Which One Should You Buy?

• Best premium chocolate: the Venchi calendar, for rich, varied, ethically sourced chocolate worth savouring.
• Best value and best alternative to chocolate: the Little Tree Bees and Seeds calendar, especially for new gardeners.
• Best for tea lovers and matcha-curious friends: the Bird & Blend calendar, with 48 cups and a genuinely fun tasting journey.
• Best for entertaining: the NIO Cocktails calendar, if you want bartender-quality variety without buying full bottles.
• Best group or corporate gift: the Cartwright & Butler calendar, a huge box of classic British treats built for sharing.

Conclusion

There is no single winner here because these five calendars solve five different problems. Venchi is the indulgent daily treat, the seed calendar stretches the joy of advent into a whole year of growing, Bird & Blend makes matcha approachable, NIO turns December into a tasting tour of classic cocktails, and Cartwright & Butler simply overwhelms with generosity. Match the calendar to the person, the household, or the office, and any of them can turn a daily door-opening into something to look forward to.