The best souvenirs to buy in Georgia (and what to avoid)

The souvenir problem with Georgia

Georgia presents a specific souvenir challenge that few other countries do: the things most worth bringing home are heavy (wine bottles), perishable (fresh cheese), or require explanation (spices nobody outside the Caucasus has heard of).

The tourist shops throughout Tbilisi’s Old Town and on Rustaveli Avenue solve this problem by selling things that travel easily and require no explanation: refrigerator magnets with Georgian script, miniature khinkali models, shot glasses with Cyrillic-to-Georgian translation guides, and bottles of industrial wine dressed in traditional packaging.

These solve the souvenir logistics problem but miss the point entirely. Georgia’s most distinctive and authentic products — the ones that capture what makes the country genuinely extraordinary — require a bit more effort to find, carry, and explain.

This guide is about doing it properly.

Buy things that taste of Georgia

The best souvenirs from Georgia are edible and drinkable. The country’s food and wine culture are so distinctive and so hard to replicate outside Georgia that bringing back things you ate and drank is the most meaningful and useful form of souvenir buying.

This does not mean there are no good non-edible Georgian crafts — there are excellent ones. But start with the food and wine.

The best food souvenirs

Churchkhela — unique and excellent

The walnut-grape candy strings are one of the most distinctive Georgian foods and genuinely unavailable outside Georgia in authentic form. Made by repeatedly dipping walnut or hazelnut strings into thickened grape juice (tatara), then dried to a firm, chewy exterior with a nutty, sweet-tart interior.

They come in various colours based on the grape variety used: deep purple from Saperavi, golden from white varieties. They keep for weeks at room temperature and months in the fridge. Buy 5–10 pieces from the Dezerter Bazaar or Wine Factory No. 1.

Price: 2–5 GEL per piece at the market; 4–8 GEL at tourist shops.

Spice blends — the secret weapons

Georgian cuisine relies on a set of spices and spice blends that are very hard to source outside Georgia. Bringing home bags of:

• Utskho suneli (blue fenugreek): The most distinctive Georgian spice — no exact substitute exists. It appears in dozens of Georgian dishes.
• Khmeli suneli: The Georgian spice blend (literally “dry spices”) — a mixture including blue fenugreek, coriander, dried marigold, and other herbs. The flavour base of Georgian cooking.
• Adjika paste: The fiery Georgian pepper-herb paste. The authentic handmade version from Adjara guesthouses and markets is completely different from supermarket versions anywhere.
• Dried marigold petals (zafrana): Used as a colour and mild flavour agent. Unique to Caucasian cooking.

Buy at the Dezerter Bazaar spice section for the lowest prices (3–8 GEL per 100g bag).

Wine — obviously

Georgian natural wine is the most significant food-related souvenir you can bring from Georgia, and it is significantly cheaper here than anywhere abroad.

Best buying locations:

• Wine Factory No. 1 (Kostava Street, Tbilisi): Widest selection, knowledgeable English-speaking staff, competitive prices
• Winery direct: Cheapest prices, most authentic experience
• Dezerter Bazaar’s wine section: Local table wines at very low prices — good for Georgian drinking culture curiosity, less reliable for fine wine

Budget 20–40 GEL per bottle for quality natural wine. Pack in checked luggage with wine bottle protectors (sold at Wine Factory No. 1).

Matsoni and fresh cheese — for the journey home

Fresh imeruli cheese and sulguni can be vacuum-packed at the Dezerter Bazaar and keep for 2–3 weeks refrigerated. They are genuinely different from anything available abroad and make excellent gifts for food-interested friends. The Dezerter Bazaar dairy vendors will vacuum-seal on request.

Tklapi (fruit leather)

Georgian fruit leather — dried plum, cherry plum, and berry varieties — is a traditional snack and excellent for travel. Found at markets and health food shops. Keeps for months.

Non-food souvenirs worth buying

Georgian wine accessories

Georgian drinking culture produces excellent traditional drinking vessels that are genuinely beautiful and functional:

• Ceramic wine pitchers (kanteli): Traditional clay pitchers used for serving wine from the qvevri. Functional as well as decorative. Available from potters in Tbilisi’s Old Town crafts area.
• Drinking horns (kantsi): Made from actual horn; a genuine cultural artifact. Prices range widely — from 30 GEL for a small tourist version to 200+ GEL for a handcrafted large horn from a specialist maker.
• Ceramic cups (churi): Simple traditional drinking bowls. Functional and beautiful.

Svanuri salt (Svan salt)

The distinctive spice blend from Svaneti — a mixture of dried garlic, hot pepper, dried fenugreek, caraway, and other regional herbs. Unlike anything else. Available in Mestia shops and at Tbilisi specialty shops that stock highland Georgian products.

Namedliani textiles

Georgian traditional wool textiles — particularly the geometric patterns of Svanetian and Tushetian wool — make excellent gifts. Handwoven pieces from cooperative producers in the mountain regions are the authentic version. Tourist shops sell machine-made approximations.

The Tbilisi Ethnographic Museum shop and the Dry Bridge flea market both have genuine handmade textile pieces at various price points.

Silver jewelry

Georgian traditional silver work — particularly the filigree and niello techniques used in Kakheti and central Georgia — is excellent. The Dry Bridge flea market has antique pieces at negotiable prices; contemporary silversmiths in the Old Town make new pieces using traditional techniques.

What to avoid

Fake antiques: Some dealers sell items misrepresented as antique. Unless you know Georgian antiques, buy from established shops with receipts and guarantee of authenticity.

Magnetic/keychain tourist tat: Available everywhere, made nowhere interesting. Skip entirely.

“Georgian wine” in tourist shops on Rustaveli Avenue: These are typically commercial wines in tourist packaging at inflated prices. Buy wine from Wine Factory No. 1 or from wineries.

Mass-produced churchkhela from airports: Low quality, high price. Buy from markets during your trip.

Where to shop

Dezerter Bazaar: Food souvenirs, spices, churchkhela, fresh dairy. The best prices in the city.

Wine Factory No. 1 (Kostava Street): Wine, wine accessories, churchkhela, some spices.

Dry Bridge flea market (weekends): Antiques, Soviet memorabilia, handmade jewelry, traditional textiles.

Old Town crafts area (Leselidze and side streets): Ceramics, drinking vessels, silver, textiles. Prices are negotiable; quality varies — inspect carefully.

Mestia and mountain region markets: Svan salt, local wool textiles, handmade items from the mountains. Buy here rather than in Tbilisi tourist shops for better prices and authenticity.

Gifts for people who haven’t been to Georgia

Not everyone at home will appreciate a bottle of amber wine or a bag of blue fenugreek on first encounter — but the right gift introduction can create a new Georgian wine convert. Some suggestions by recipient type:

For food enthusiasts: A bag of khmeli suneli (Georgian spice blend) and a bag of blue fenugreek (utskho suneli), with a handwritten note about what they flavour. These two ingredients are genuinely impossible to replicate outside Georgia and transform any dish that uses them. Pair with churchkhela as an edible demonstration of the flavour profile.

For wine lovers: A bottle of Pheasant’s Tears Rkatsiteli (available internationally through specialist importers) or a bottle from the Dezerter Bazaar’s natural wine section (if you are packing carefully). Include a note about qvevri winemaking and skin-contact tradition. This is the gift that most reliably converts recipients into Georgian wine enthusiasts.

For people who don’t drink wine: Tklapi (fruit leather) in various varieties — plum, quince, berry. These are genuinely excellent snacks with no equivalent in Western supermarkets, keep well, and require no special knowledge to appreciate.

For design-minded recipients: A good ceramic kanteli (wine pitcher) from an Old Town Tbilisi ceramics studio. The traditional forms are beautiful objects regardless of whether the recipient knows their cultural meaning.

For children: Georgian sweets — churchkhela is basically candy and reliably popular with children. A variety of churchkhela types (different fruit/nut combinations, different colours) makes an excellent and distinctive gift.

The souvenir conversation

One of the most useful things about Georgian food souvenirs is that they open conversations about the country. A bottle of amber wine at a dinner party, a bag of churchkhela at the office, a jar of adjika paste at a family barbecue — these are objects that invite the question “what is this?” and allow you to tell the story of Georgia: the 8,000-year wine culture, the flavours that have no European equivalent, the hospitality tradition that makes all of it personal.

The best souvenir from Georgia is the one that makes someone else want to go.

Packing wine for the return journey

The most common question: how do you get wine home safely? Wine bottle protectors (foam or inflatable sleeves) are sold at Wine Factory No. 1 for about 5–8 GEL each. Pack bottles in your checked luggage surrounded by soft clothes. Declare wine if required by your destination country’s customs regulations (typically: EU limit is 2 litres duty-free from non-EU countries; UK is similar; US is 1 litre duty-free). Georgian wine shipping by post is legally complex and usually not worth the effort.

For the wine itself, see our best Georgian wines guide for which bottles to prioritise, and our amber wine guide for the background on why these wines are worth the space in your luggage.