Savory Spice Shop (Picture and Text Heavy)

Last week this little thing followed me home and proceeded to live in my bathroom for two days until we found him a new home.

One of my friends over in St. Petersburg took him.  So, naturally, after my boyfriend and I dropped kitten off to his new home we had to stop and look at the little shops by the marina.  And that's how we came across this boutique called Savory Spice Shop.

It. Blew. Our. Minds.

The entire store is just walls and walls of spices.  Spices you've never even heard of.  They had big barrels just filled with cinnamon sticks and more varieties of salt than I even knew existed.  They also had all kinds of cocoa and sugar. 

You could buy your own small jar of spices, or you could fill these cute little muslin bags with different amounts of spice.  It definitely gave me some great ideas for  homemade Christmas gifts that I'm sure I'll share with you later this year!

 Each different kind of spice had suggestions on the label for how to use it.  They also had gift sets of various spices that they've paired for specific purposes.  Since it was just before Father's Day, I found the perfect gift set of coffee spices to give to my dad.  (He's replaced alcohol with coffee since he quit drinking.  Lol.)

What's cute about the gift sets, too, is that they separate each spice with Bay leaves and cinnamon sticks that can actually be used.  They also garnished the gift set with whole nutmeg, chili pepper and [insert something fancy that I forgot what it's called here] that can be used, too.

I wrapped it up and mailed it to him.  I also sent off a handmade card, but it was so ugly I couldn't bring myself to share it with you!  (P.S. The reason I'm just now sharing this post is because I didn't want to give away the secret before my dad opened his gift!)

Boy, was this a bugger to wrap!

And of course we had to get something for ourselves.  I picked out a chai mix.  They pre-selected all the different ingredients for you and put them in a bag with a recipe for you to follow.  Mmmm.

And Tyler, who loves baking chocolate chip cookies with lots of cinnamon, got this Ceylon "True" Cinnamon.  Did you know the usual store bought cinnamon isn't actually real cinnamon?  It actually comes from the cassia tree.  We bought this real cinnamon and haven't had a chance to use it yet, but it smells different (and more delicious!) than the kind of cinnamon we usually buy.

I was in heaven, and when I went home my fingertips smelled like spices.  My boyfriend and I rambled about how great the store was for about 15 miles on the interstate on our way back home.  I can't wait to visit again!

Hope you've been crafting up a storm while I've been off rescuing kittens and galvanizing in spice shops!

--CC


Note:  This post was not commissioned or prompted by Savory Spice Shop.  I actually loved it that much! :)