The way to win Secret Santa under 10 pounds is to give an activity rather than a joke. Four of our kits sit at £9.99 (price checked September 2026): the Gin Making Kit, the Colour Changing Gin Kit, the Spiced Rum Making Kit and the Hedgerow Wine Making Kit. Each one is a proper project with a bottle at the end of it, which is a very different object to unwrap in front of a room of colleagues than another pair of comedy socks.
The budget is the easy part. The hard part is the audience: you often barely know the person, everyone is watching them open it, and the gift has to be interesting without being personal. A kit does that neatly, because it says "I thought you might enjoy this" without claiming to know anything about their taste in mugs.
Why do Secret Santa gifts go wrong?
Two reasons. The first is that a novelty gift has one moment, the laugh when it is opened, and no second act. It goes in a drawer that afternoon. The second is that anything personal is a gamble when you drew a name out of a hat in November.
A kit avoids both. It is opened, it gets a genuine "oh, I've always wanted to try that", and then it goes home and becomes an evening. It is also very hard to get wrong: nobody has one already, and nobody has to pretend.
Gin Making Kit, £9.99
The Gin Making Kit is the safest pick on this list and the one people react to most. It turns a bottle of inexpensive vodka into a London-style gin by steeping juniper with coriander, citrus peel, allspice and lemongrass, and it infuses in under a week.
There is no distilling involved, no equipment to buy and nothing complicated to understand: add the botanicals, wait, taste with the pipette, strain, bottle. It was named a top pick on ITV's How to Spend It Well at Christmas, where chef Matt Tebbutt tasted it, which is a decent pedigree for a ten pound present. They add the vodka, and it is for adults aged 18 and over.
Colour Changing Gin Kit, £9.99
If the gift is being opened in front of a crowd, the Colour Changing Gin Kit is the one that gets the noise. Blue pea flowers and an Earl Grey botanical infusion turn a plain gin blue, and then tonic or any other acidic mixer shifts it to pink or purple in the glass.
The colour is natural rather than artificial: the pigment in blue pea flowers reacts to acidity, which is why the change happens the moment the tonic goes in. It infuses in about twelve hours and makes up to five 700ml bottles. They add a bottle of plain, uncoloured gin, since a coloured or heavily flavoured one masks the effect, and tonic to serve. Adults aged 18 and over.
Spiced Rum Making Kit, £9.99
For the colleague who orders rum when everyone else orders wine, the Spiced Rum Making Kit makes two 700ml bottles in two different styles, a Captain's Blend and a Jamaican Ginger with a real ginger bite.
It takes about seventy two hours to infuse, tasting as they go, then two to three days to settle and clear before the second filter and bottling, so under a week per batch. They add a 700ml bottle of inexpensive dark rum per batch, and it must be plain rather than already spiced, because the spicing is the kit's job. Adults aged 18 and over.
Hedgerow Wine Making Kit, £9.99
The Hedgerow Wine Making Kit is the ambitious choice, and the right one for the person in the office who grows things, forages or talks about their allotment. It makes a gallon of country wine per batch, about four and a half litres or six bottles, from blackberries, elderberries, apples, plums, rhubarb and much else besides.
Be honest with yourself about the recipient first. In the box are wine yeast, yeast nutrient, pectolase, finings, citric acid, a stabiliser tablet and steriliser, and the recipes, but they supply the fruit, sugar and water plus a bucket, a demijohn or second vessel with an airlock, and bottles. It takes eight to twelve weeks. For the right person that is the appeal; for the wrong one it is homework. The kit contains sulphur dioxide and sulphites, listed on the pack, and it is for adults aged 18 and over, for personal use at home.
How do you make a ten pound gift land properly?
- Add the spirit if the budget allows. Where the rules let you go slightly over, a supermarket bottle of vodka alongside the gin kit turns the present into something they can start that night.
- Write the "you add" bit on the tag. One line saying what they need to buy saves them working it out and makes the gift feel finished.
- Buy two and save on delivery. Standard delivery is free on orders over £15, so two kits for two colleagues on one order post without a charge.
- Send it direct if the office is remote. Enter the recipient's address as the delivery address at checkout and it goes straight to them.
One caveat worth remembering. All four of these kits ask the recipient to buy a spirit, so if you have drawn someone who does not drink, choose differently rather than hoping for the best.
Secret Santa FAQs
What is a good Secret Santa gift under 10 pounds?
Something with an activity attached rather than a novelty. The Gin Making Kit, Colour Changing Gin Kit, Spiced Rum Making Kit and Hedgerow Wine Making Kit are all £9.99 and each produces a finished bottle.
Do the kits contain alcohol?
No. None of our kits contain alcohol. They contain botanicals, equipment and instructions, and the recipient buys the spirit or makes the wine themselves, so the drinks kits are for adults aged 18 and over.
Which one is best if the gift is being opened in front of everyone?
The Colour Changing Gin Kit. The blue to pink change when tonic goes in is the most watchable result of the four and needs no explanation.
How long does each kit take to make something drinkable?
Colour changing gin takes about twelve hours, standard gin under a week, spiced rum about seventy two hours plus two to three days settling, and hedgerow wine eight to twelve weeks.
Is it legal to make gin at home in the UK?
Infusing is. Our kits steep botanicals in a spirit that has already been made and taxed, so nothing is produced in the legal sense and no approval is needed. Distilling your own spirit without HMRC approval is a different matter and is against the law.
Drawn a name you know nothing about? Our gift kits cover food and craft as well as drinks.
