Meet the ‘Broquet,’ the new go-to gift of manly merchandise
Just in time for Father’s Day, flower deliveries and edible arrangements have met their manly match in Broquet (pronounced bro-kay) a new company that will deliver a curated bucket of grilling tools, a cigar box of shaving products or a first-aid kit full of hangover helpers to dad’s -- or any dude’s -- doorstep.
The 6-month-old San Francisco-based web retailer was born after Dan Hockenmaier came up empty while trying to find an appropriate gift to send to his friend Max Solomon.
“He was on the the East Coast for his grandfather’s funeral and I was on a business trip in Salt Lake City sitting in my hotel room thinking: ‘I’ve got to send him something,’ ” Hockenmaier said.
“I was looking online and all I could find were these kind of cheesy gift baskets. If it were a girl I could have easily sent flowers or something like that, but there just weren’t any options. So I ended up not sending anything at all -- and feeling bad about it.”
After returning to San Francisco, the two friends started talking about the lack of options in the gift-basket-for-guys category, a conversation that resulted in Broquet -- of which Hockenmaier and Solomon are cofounders.
And, while the “bro-” sobriquet may be an attention-grabbing play on “bouquet,” the curated collections of gifts, tools, implements and foodstuffs are definitely geared toward the guy a notch or two up from the bro on the evolutionary ladder -- American brands with the kind of niche distribution that makes stumbling across them at the local mall unlikely.
The Pioneer basket, for example, includes a Parker straight razor and badger-bristle shaving brush, Shark blades and a whiskey after shave from Portland General Store packaged in a reclaimed cigar box ($88), while the Woodsman ($78) consists of a Gerber ax, Wells Lamont work gloves and 50 feet of nylon rope in a Kodiak log carrier.
There are also toolkits to make old fashioneds (the Gentleman and Scholar, $69), galvanized buckets full of California-themed grill supplies (the Bonfire, $56), bacon six ways (the Smokehouse, $49) as well as the option of having the Broquet boys create a custom assortment.
While delivery dates depend on shipping method, Hockenmaier says non-custom orders placed by June 7 will make it to dear old dad’s doorstep (providing that doorstep is here in the U.S.) in time for Father’s Day.
Broquet’s gift baskets for guys, $29 to $127, at Broquet.co
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