Approachable Luxury for Father's Day

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bloomberg Businessweek

Episode: Approachable Luxury for Father's Day

Hosts: Carol Massar & Tim Stenovec
Guest: Chris Rouser, Editor-at-Large, Bloomberg Pursuits
Air Date: June 19, 2026

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Overview

This episode focuses on curating “approachable luxury” gifts for Father’s Day—unique, thoughtful ideas that dads will genuinely use and appreciate, rather than cliché or high-ticket items. Chris Rouser, Bloomberg Pursuits Editor-at-Large, discusses how his team reimagined the Father’s Day gift guide by tapping into personal traditions, practical preferences, and a range of dad “types,” from the kitchen enthusiast to the adventure seeker and the tech-loving geek. The conversation is filled with personal anecdotes and smart, everyday luxe picks.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Rethinking the Father’s Day Gift Guide

[01:44 - 03:21]

• The show kicks off with Chris Rouser sharing the origins of his own gift-giving traditions:
  • As a kid, he and his brother would buy their dad practical gifts with their allowance. The staple: handkerchiefs/bandanas.
  • "We tried to think of, like, what his most precious item was, like, what he reached for the most. And when we watched him, that was his handkerchief." (Chris Rouser, 02:23)
• The nostalgia and practicality of gifts that get daily use are spotlighted, setting the tone for the episode.

2. Types of Dads & Gift Curation Logic

[03:21 - 05:16]

• Chris broke the guide down into “Culture Dad,” “Kitchen Dad,” “Adventure Dad,” and “Geek Dad”—and admits he identifies as a mix of “Geek Dad” and “Culture Dad.”
• A deliberate move away from often expensive, routine gifts (like fancy watches or “whiskey rocks”) toward accessible, genuinely useful products.
  • “What dad needs more whiskey rocks? Like, the correct number of whiskey rocks to have is zero." (Chris Rouser, 04:15)
• Example: Tennis ball subscription—a gift that’s useful, affordable, and consistently relevant to tennis players.
  • “If your kids get you a subscription...it comes once a month...$36, 12 cans. That’s like an amazing gift that dad will love and constantly use.” (Chris Rouser, 04:51)

3. Standout Gift Picks by Dad Type

[05:20 - 07:55]

Sports Dad

• Quality cycling glasses:
  • “They’re $200, which is a lot for a kid, but it’s something that will make your dad happy, and you get to choose the color...” (Chris Rouser, 05:46)

Kitchen Dad

• Pepper Cannon:
  • “It is a pepper cannon because it has this spinny top that’s weighted, so it just blasts out so much pepper. So much more than you use with any other grinder. It’s $200, but it is the most popular thing in our kitchen.” (Chris Rouser, 06:18)
  • “If you buy...at the grocery store, the ones that come with the pepper in it...they get sticky. It’s super easy to reload...the burrs are so smooth that it just spins and spins and spins.” (Chris Rouser, 07:10)
• Pizza Ax:
  • For dads who love backyard pizza ovens—a fun, curved chopper instead of a rolling slicer.

Geek Dad

• Laser Measurement Tool (from MoMA Design Store):
  • “If you want to measure a room, to redo a room, you can just take the measurements really quickly with the laser tool...Then you can redesign it using AI.” (Chris Rouser, 08:13)
• Sharper Image Surround Sound Shower Speakers:
  • “I could just have a much richer experience...I feel like Sharper Image, we forget about, but they have a lot of stuff like that.” (Chris Rouser, 09:01)

4. Luxury, But Practical: Travel Alarm Clock

[09:47 - 11:26]

• Balmuda Analog Travel Alarm Clock ($500):
  • “Balmuda is this Japanese company...it is the most gentle alarm. Not only does it sound really gentle and slowly light up and slowly dim when you need it to, but also...the numerals light up and the minutes light up. So...it’s not a big, rude digital display, and it’s also not a clock that you can’t read the hands at night.” (Chris Rouser, 10:11)
  • “If dad is traveling a lot, you know, he could use his iPhone as an alarm clock. But why not use something that reminds him of you?” (Chris Rouser, 10:47)

5. Personal Favorites & Sentimental Gifts

[11:26 - 11:55]

• When asked what he would want, Chris says besides the fancy clock, “...what I want is a nice drawing...art project that was made at school. That and to be woken up by the kids on Sunday morning. That’s what I want.” (Chris Rouser, 11:28)
• “Breakfast in bed is pretty nice. Breakfast in bed followed by being left alone.” (Chris Rouser, 11:44)
• Acknowledges the unique dynamics of a two-dad household, making Father’s Day even more special.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The correct number of whiskey rocks to have is zero.” (Chris Rouser, 04:15)
• “We tested a bunch, like, this is...certainly the best [pepper grinder] I’ve ever tried.” (Chris Rouser, 07:47)
• On sentimental gifts: “What I want is a nice drawing...That and to be woken up by the kids on Sunday morning.” (Chris Rouser, 11:28)
• “Breakfast in bed followed by being left alone.” (Chris Rouser, 11:44)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:44 - 03:21] – Family traditions and the birth of practical gift-giving
• [03:21 - 05:16] – How the Father’s Day gift guide was structured
• [05:20 - 07:55] – Sports, kitchen, and geek dad recommendations
• [09:47 - 11:26] – The $500 analog travel alarm clock, luxury meets daily use
• [11:26 - 11:55] – Sentimentality and what dads really want

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Tone & Style

The conversation is fun, relatable, and a bit tongue-in-cheek—especially in the banter about what makes a great dad gift (often small, quirky upgrades to daily essentials) and the implied critique of generic gift-giving. Chris Rouser’s recommendations are delivered with warmth and a dash of irreverence, making the episode approachable and packed with genuinely useful ideas.

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Takeaway

Rather than luxury for show, the focus is on finely made, practical items that will become staples—showing thoughtfulness and daily impact. The ultimate message: the best Father’s Day gifts may be the ones that are used, enjoyed, and even make life a little easier or sillier, with a bonus point for gifts that spark a smile or a family memory.

Transcript

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[Bloomberg Radio Host]

You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Massar and Tim Stanvac on Bloomberg Radio.

[Chris Rouser]

Chris Rouser is a dad with a little kid. He's also a guy who knows what to buy. Dads, we're not talking about a regular gift guide. We're talking about a gift guide that dads will use every day. Chris Rouser is Bloomberg Pursuits editor. Larch. He joins us from New York. Chris, before we start with the gift guide, which is great, I got to say, I love the way that you start this story because you write about your own tradition that you had with your brother and your dad, because you guys would get him something each year that he'd actually use each day. It's really sweet. Talk about what, what you remember from your childhood.

Well, I don't know if it's really sweet or just cheap.

It's really. No, it's totally sweet.

When we were little, my brother and I would try to figure out what to get our dad with, like, our allowance money for Father's Day. And we tried to think of, like, what his most precious item was, like, what he reached for the most. And when we watched him, that was his handkerchief. I don't know about your dad's, but my dad always had and still has a handkerchief in his back pocket. So we decided that's what we would get him for Father's Day. And every year, we got him different bandanas, so, you know, he'd think of us every time he sneezed. We'd be with him when we weren't around. Yeah. So it just became a tradition. And actually, recently I started getting him handkerchiefs again, Chris.

[Carol Massar]

Oh, man. Same for my family. My dad. Both my mom and dad had cloth handkerchiefs. And it was like. I remember as a kid, right. Like something happened and you would get their handkerchief.

[Chris Rouser]

Like, it was just great for wounds. It was good for colds. It was good for making a sock puppet in the case of an emergency. Like, I. What else is like that?

[Carol Massar]

Ah, so sweet. Well, so what kind of a dad are you in terms of, like, this list that you guys have because you broke it up into categories.

[Venture Global Representative]

That's good.

[Chris Rouser]

Yeah, we broke it up into, like, culture dad and kitchen dad and adventure Dad. I think that I'm a mix of geek dad and culture dad. I wish I was kitchen dad, but I am not. Uh, and maybe. Maybe a little bit of adventure dad. Although I feel like Tim is maybe more of an adventure dad.

Definitely adventure dad. Although the kids aren't quite old enough yet to go on the adventures that I, you know, we. We. I'd need to, like, get one of these vests that carries everything.

Yeah, go ahead. That's a thing. That's like a. That's for my dad, who's like a hunter, you know, I mean, hey, come on.

We have hunting in Brooklyn, you know, Prospect Park. Okay, talk a little bit about some of the other of gifts that stand out on the list here and the way. And why you chose to arrange it this way.

Yeah. So we were taught all the dads on the pursuit scene were talking, and we were thinking, like, all right, a lot of these Father's Day gift guides end up being quite expensive things like fancy watches, which, as you know, I love. And like, whiskey rocks. And like, what. Dad needs more whiskey rocks. Like, the. The correct number of whiskey rocks to have is zero. So we were like, all right, what. What are little things, like my dad's hankies that actually, like, dads would use and be like, oh, this is maybe not expensive, but like a part of my daily life. And immediately James on my team said, tennis ball subscription. And I said, what is that? He said, when you play tennis, you. You use a new can every time you play. Which as a non tennis player, I didn't even realize. And like, maybe you play tennis a lot, but a lot of dads aren't good at keeping track of Stuff like that. So if your kids get you a subscription, just literally a subscription on Amazon. So it comes once a month. You know, $36, 12 cans. That's like an amazing gift that dad will love and constantly use. So it was a lot of stuff like that.

I love that. I just need the tennis court time to actually go and play.

Yeah.

Right now.

But anyway, yeah, for sports dad, there was also the. These bike glasses. So, like, I. I used to be a biker. I once biked across the country, and I biked with these, like, crappy plastic sunglasses I got at the gas station. And another dad on the team was like, no, no. You can get really good glasses that have. That are a single frame. They go from day to night. They don't get dark. And it's, you know, they're $200, which is a lot for a kid, but it's something that will make your dad happy, and you get to choose the color, so. Because you're the one that's going to have to look at them as they're. As the kids. So that was also a good sports dad item that I didn't think of. You can.

You can be a cyclist again, Chris.

Yeah. Okay.

That is pretty cool.

[Carol Massar]

Hey, listen, my. My husb. Definitely a kitchen dad, and my daughter has definitely bought him different cooking items. What. What's kind of cool this year?

[Chris Rouser]

Okay, well, there are two things on this list that I am very excited about. One I already own, which is the Mon. Kitchen pepper cannon, which is not a pepper grinder. It is a pepper cannon because it has this spinny top that's weighted, so it just blasts out so much pepper. So much more than you use with any other grinder. It's $200, but it is the most popular thing in our kitchen. I gave it to my husband a few years ago for his birthday. And then I also love the Pizza X, which is if dad is, like, into his ooni pizza oven out in the backyard and, like, loves to cook pizzas for the family. It's a. It's a pizza slicer, but it doesn't roll. It chops. It's an ax, and it's curved, and it's just like, a little. A little bit of fun. You know, you could be a little adventure dad while you're a kitchen dad.

What's so great about this pepper shaker?

I am.

[Carol Massar]

I want this.

[Chris Rouser]

It just bl. Like, if you love pepper, it just blasts pepper the volume. Okay.

I mean, it so crazy. And it doesn't get caught. You know, if you Buy, like, at the grocery store, the ones that come with the pepper in it, it just. They get caught, they get sticky. You run out. It's super easy to reload. And it's almost like you're not grinding anything. Like, the burrs are so smooth that it just spins and spins and spins. And it has a cap where it can collect a ton, so you can just spin a bunch, and then you just have this, like, bucket of pepper.

[Carol Massar]

All right, I'm lost.

[Chris Rouser]

Someone needs to cut off Carol's Internet access.

[Carol Massar]

I've, of course, had a Google search,

[Chris Rouser]

and it's like, is this the world's

[Carol Massar]

best pipe pepper grinder? I mean, all these people showing, like, how it shoots off its pepper, basically, right?

[Chris Rouser]

Oh, yeah. And we tested a bunch like, this is this. I really believe. I mean, I haven't tried all the pepper grinders in the world, but this, I. This is certainly the best I've ever tried.

[Carol Massar]

This is a great gift.

[Chris Rouser]

All right, the. The geek dads. What do geek dads want?

So geek dads for us is kind of a broad category. It's like, maybe gadget guys, maybe it's someone who plays Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe it's someone who's just, like, tech. And one of the things that I always recommend to people is if you're at a loss for gifts, go to the MoMA Design Store. It has gifts for everyone. Go in person, go online at all price points. And there's this hotel laser measurement tool, which is very simple. But if you want to measure a room, to redo a room, you can just take the measurements really quickly with the laser tool. You can upload it, you can read. It'll map out the room for you. Then you can redesign it using AI. It's just a very cool sparker for invention. And there's also these Smarter image stereo, surround sound, surround sound stereo items that you can stick in your shower, which I certainly am a person who I lean my iPhone on the sink counter and blast the podcasts that I listen to during the shower in the morning, and I could just have a much richer experience. And I feel like Sharper Image is. We forget about Sharper Image, but they

[Kel Penn]

have a lot of stuff like that.

[Chris Rouser]

I think it's the Bloomberg businessweek daily podcast that he listens to every day.

[IBM Representative]

Who?

[Chris Rouser]

Chris?

[Carol Massar]

Oh, do you answer carefully?

[Chris Rouser]

It's you guys, of course. Of course.

Yeah, of course.

In the bathroom. So everyone in my family has to listen.

[Carol Massar]

You know, I'm so glad you brought up Sharper Image, because remember, like, there Was a time where, like, it's so true for dad for even like Christmas or like Father's Day. Like you'd go there because they always had just like these kind of, kind of fun gifts and you knew that

[Chris Rouser]

he'd get a kick out of was hit or miss. That's the thing. You need a good recommendation from the Sharper Image catalog. But there are a lot of cool things. And it's another one of those places to go that gives you a lot of inspiration because there's just so many different ideas that you're like, oh, yeah,

I could get that you're a watch guy, Chris. But there's a travel alarm clock on here that is a $500 travel alarm clock.

I have it here.

You have it here. Okay. What's so special about this alarm clock? Chris is holding up a. He's holding up a palm sized, less than palm sized analog clock. It looks very nice.

Balmuda is this Japanese company. They make homewares. They make this like incredible toaster that everyone's obsessed with. And they just came out with a travel alarm which is chargeable. And it is. I've been using it. It is the most gentle alarm. Not only does it sound really gentle and of slowly light up and slowly dim when you need it to, but also the way it tells time. The numerals light up and the minutes light up. So you're not like, look, it's not a big, rude digital display, and it's also not a clock that you can't read the hands at night. It's just like so soft and it's really nice. And if dad is traveling a lot, you know, he could use his iPhone as an alarm clock. But why not use something that reminds him of you?

[Carol Massar]

Does it wake you up? Does it work?

[Chris Rouser]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Carol Massar]

I'm always wondering about, like, these subtle, like, clocks that kind of, you know, wake you up at the sunrise. Like, does it really work?

[Chris Rouser]

It does, yeah. It doesn't. It doesn't like, shine so bright in the room that it's like daylight, but it does have like a really gentle sort of slowly accelerating sound where sometimes you're like, in your dream, you're like, oh, I hear something. And then you realize it's the outside world and you wake up.

[IBM Representative]

Yeah.

[Chris Rouser]

Tim, what do you mean it's just not the iPhone ring that everybody has?

[Carol Massar]

Which, like.

[Chris Rouser]

What do I want from this list?

[Venture Global Representative]

What do you want from this?

[Chris Rouser]

I think I actually want the clock, but it's $500. But really, what I want is a nice drawing. Yeah, I was gonna say like art project that was made at school. That and to be woken up by the kids on Sunday morning. That's what I want. Chris, what do you want?

I mean, breakfast in bed is pretty nice. Breakfast in bed following followed by being left alone.

You gotta be got to be a little careful with that request on Father's Day.

Very it's very delightful. I'm in a two dad household, so Father's Day is just like a day we're working on that we're picking up.

So it's extra special for you guys. It's always extra special when Chris Rouser joins us here on Bloomberg businessweek Daily. He's the editor at large over at Bloomberg Pursuits. Check out his story, his gift guide and everything that he has written on the Bloomberg terminal [e-mail].

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