The Best New England Food and Drink Subscriptions
The gift that keeps giving: regular shipments of gourmet coffee, spices, butter, cheese, and more.
Vermont’s Ploughgate Creamery at Maplebrook Farm offers butter subscriptions. / Photo illustration by Camille Dodero / Courtesy photo / Background via Getty Images
When one gift just isn’t enough—or when you want to treat yourself to a monthly shipment of something delicious—try one of New England’s best food or drink subscriptions. Wine connoisseurs, cheese lovers, cookie fanatics: There’s something for everyone.
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Cooking and Baking
A selection of spices from Curio. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal
For the avid home cook, there’s nothing better to stir up inspiration than regular deliveries of surprise ingredients. Two of our favorite New England subscriptions? Spices and butter. For the former, Cambridge-based Curio Spice Co. offers to “unlock a world of flavor” with its Secret Spice Society for a very reasonable $14 a month, which includes one or two spices or blends, recipes, and other perks, like product and class discounts. Give it as a gift here.
As for butter, we can’t get enough of Vermont’s Ploughgate Creamery, which offers a a monthly trio of eight-ounce butters: coarse sea salt, Vermont maple, and a rotating monthly flavor (or swap the maple for a second sea salt). Gift a three-month subscription for $84 or six-month for $168.
As for the main course? Meat. Steak tip icon Dom’s Sausage Co., based in Malden, offers a variety of meat subscription boxes that you can gift, starting at $129.99 for a monthly combo that includes four hamburgers, one and a quarter pounds of sweet sausage, and three pounds each of steakhouse chicken and original steak tips. The largest option, $285.99, appropriately dubbed “Wicked Carnivores,” goes big with three pounds each of four different steak tip varieties, a couple 12-ounce sirloin steaks, and eight hamburger patties.
Sweets and Treats
A Levain cookie. / Courtesy photo
Nothing brightens a day quite like a regular shipment of something sweet. Greater Boston has a variety of cookie subscriptions available, including:
- Dorchester-based Top Shelf Cookies—a dozen cookies a month in rotating flavors like Green Monster Mint, PB Supremes, and Boston Lager Chocolate Chip. $16 per month, available to be shipped or to be picked up at the bakery.
- Levain Bakery is New York-based but has become a Boston favorite and just opened a second location. Subscriptions to the monthly cookie club (three months for $132.30, six for $264.60, twelve for $529.20) include a rotating assortment of flavors of Levain’s huge cookies. (We love the seasonal dark chocolate peppermint in the colder months.)
- Maca, the macaron shop at Somerville’s Bow Market, offers a monthly subscription that includes a shipment of a dozen assorted classic and seasonal flavors each month; there’s a gluten-free option available, too. $114 for three months, $228 for six, $456 for 12.
- Medford-based Sweet Botanical Bakes offers a quarterly subscription ($80) for its elegant flower-topped shortbread cookies in rotating flavors, such as passionfruit punch or black sesame and calendula. Each seasonal delivery includes three six-packs in various flavors, a recipe, and a few non-cookie surprises. Gluten-free options available.
There are options for the chocolate lover, too:
- East Boston-based Petrova Chocolates offers a chocolate club for $58 per month, which typically includes a delivery of a 16-piece box of curated bonbons, although some months might mix bonbons with seasonal chocolate bars. Recent bonbon flavors have included espresso martini, pear anise, tamarind peanut pie, and walnut chai latte.
- Wellesley-based ChocAllure, another purveyor of gorgeous bonbons in unique flavors, offers a chocolate-of-the-month club that starts at $45 for a 12-piece box but also offers a larger box and a monthly special add-on. Past flavors have included salted caramel cheesecake, caramel kisses, pecan pie, s’mores, and lots more.
Other Foods
Runamok honeys. / Courtesy photo
Curdbox is the cheese subscription counterpart to Brookline’s Curds & Co. shop, shipping monthly cheese-and-more boxes around the country. Each box includes a themed selection of cheeses with food pairings, wine suggestions, a Spotify playlist, and access to the “Curdcast” podcast. Subscriptions start at $80.99 per month.
Naturally, Formaggio Kitchen gets in on the cheesy fun, too. One of the local shop’s subscription packages includes cheeses with optional wine and charcuterie add-ons, starting at $60 per month and available for pickup at Formaggio’s Cambridge and Boston locations or delivered locally. Meanwhile, available for shipping, there’s a $130/month package that includes four cheeses with crackers, a condiment, access to virtual learning events, and, with your first shipment, a cheese knife and notebook.
On the sweeter side of things, Vermont’s Runamok—maker of the sparkly syrup mentioned above—offers syrup and honey subscriptions. The maple syrup “bottle of the month” club is $19.95 for a 250-ml bottle, a mix of limited releases and fan favorites. The honey club runs every other month—one jar for $12.95, again a rotating (and surprise) selection.
Restaurant Supper Clubs
Eastern Standard’s butterscotch bread pudding. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal
The company Table22 enables restaurants to run monthly subscription packages—essentially takeout/delivery supper clubs that let subscribers regularly enjoy their favorite restaurants’ food at home, often getting exclusive sneak peeks at test menu items and other perks.
Here are a few of our favorite Greater Boston restaurants that use the service and, as of press time, are not sold out; visit each link for more details on pricing, delivery radius, sample menus, and more:
- Bar Vlaha in Brookline (starting at $95 for two people)
- Comfort Kitchen in Dorchester (starting at $125 for two people)
- Eastern Standard in the Fenway (starting at $95 for two people, with optional add-on cocktail pairings)
- Little Donkey in Cambridge (starting at $90 for two people)
- Myers + Chang in the South End (starting at $115 for two people)
Browse other participating restaurants here.
Coffee, Tea, and Mocktails
A latte at Pavement, a local chain of coffeehouses that offers a monthly subscription for various whole bean and ground coffees. / Courtesy photo
A number of Greater Boston coffee roasters offer subscription packages. Here are a few we love:
- Barrington Coffee Roasting Company: Weekly and monthly subscriptions available for a number of Barrington’s roasts, starting at $16.95/12-ounce bag.
- Boston Common Coffee Company: Single-serve cup and 12-ounce bag monthly subscriptions available, starting at $59 and featuring a variety of roasts.
- Central Perk Coffee Co.: Boston’s Friends-themed café offers subscriptions for its various roasts (such as “How You Doin’?” medium roast), delivered every 15, 30, 60, or 90 days. Single-serve pods, whole beans, and ground coffee are available. Pricing starts at $11.69/10-ounce bag or $13.49/12-count box of pods.
- Gracenote: Get coffee biweekly or monthly, starting at $15/shipment; choose the “roaster’s choice” option for a “curated journey” through Gracenote’s single-origin selections.
- Night Shift: Did you know Night Shift Brewing makes coffee, too? Gift a three-month subscription to one of the company’s roasts (such as Lady Java, a single-origin medium roast with chocolate and citrus notes). Subscriptions start at $57, depending on the roast.
- Pavement Coffeehouse: Choose medium roast, single origin, or Pavement Dark; choose the grind; and you’ve got yourself a gift subscription, starting at $28.79 monthly.
More of a tea person? Mem Tea, based in Davis Square, offers a $20/month subscription that includes three teas, each in a half-ounce bag. (This comes out to about 15-20 servings total.) You or your giftee will enjoy a mix of fan favorites and unique finds.
And for fans of mixed drinks minus the booze, Raising the Bar is a themed monthly kit that shows how creative mocktails can be. Each kit includes ingredients and instructions for a cocktail, a playlist, and accoutrements like bar tools and seasonal garnishes. Pricing starts at $60.75/box.
Alcoholic Beverages
Gray’s Hall. / Courtesy photo
Wine clubs abound in Greater Boston; here’re a few to consider:
- Ball Square Fine Wines: The “6 for $66 Wine Club” is pretty much what it sounds like—a six-bottle sampler for $66, available every other month for pickup (716 Broadway, Somerville) or delivery.
- Gray’s Hall x American Provisions: The sibling businesses offer a monthly wine club starting at $90 (with optional cheese add-on) that explores “natural, organic, and just downright fun” wines, available for pickup in Dorchester or South Boston.
- Neighborhood Wines: Three bottles per month for $90, available for store pickup (619 Tremont St., South End, Boston) or delivery; adorable dog not included.
- Social Wines: Get three or six bottles per month—it’s $75 either way, but if you choose the three-bottle option, you’ll get “extraordinary” selections, while the six-bottle option is tailored to “excellent value.” Available for in-store pickup only (52 West Broadway, South Boston). (Here are more adorable dogs.)
- Upper Glass: Try four new bottles each month, curated by a sommelier from rotating top Boston-area restaurants, for $85. Available for shipping or local delivery.
- Urban Grape: Choose from “easy-drinking, everyday wines,” European classics, and “elevated essentials,” starting at $50/month for two bottles; all packages come with extra discounts for online and in-store shopping.
Is your giftee more of a cocktail lover? Everett-based Short Path Distillery is the answer. Its monthly cocktail club, dubbed “The Nest,” makes four cocktails for two people and includes a mini bottle of the featured spirit, other ingredients, and a surprise. Available for pickup (71 Kelvin St., Everett) or local delivery, starting at $45/month.
