EATING FOR BRITAIN: BOOZE ON THE BORDERS

Welsh Whisky and British Cassis? What gives?

It is, one would imagine, like saying Italian efficiency and German improvisational comedy.

However, as my trip is proving, life is full of little surprises.

To be honest, Welsh whisky was not that great a surprise, having encountered Penderyn Single Malt on offer at Heathrow close to five years ago. I bought a bottle on my way to the US, more for its comedic value than for suspicion that it might be any good and produced it to much giggling at a the end of a dinner party hosted by one of my New York based chums.

The giggling stopped however when we began to taste as Penderyn’s light colour and subtle flavours began to win us over as new converts. It was not the best whisky we had ever sampled, well of course it wasn’t but for a spirit that was barely old enough to bear the name, it showed definite promise.

Move on those five years and I braved sheeting rain at the Head of The Valleys to make my way to the small distillery in the town from which the whisky draws its name and the place from which the whisky draws its water, filtered down through the Brecon Beacons.

They owners are certainly not playing at making whisky here and as Sian Whitlock, the commercial director showed me around the plush new visitors centre and tasting room, you could clearly see that they wanted to mount a serious challenge to the skirt wearing distillers North of Hadrian’s wall.

They have taken a different tack to their process, spending considerable time and money creating a still for a single distillation process as opposed to the double used in Scotland and the triple used in Ireland and their malted “beer” is made to their own recipe and brought in from the nearby Brains brewery.

With the help of Dr Jim Swan, arguably the most famous name in whisky making, they have come on in leaps and bounds since my first tasting and, after my short tour, Sian was kind enough to offer me a few (well within the limit, I hasten to add) sips to try not only their signature “Welsh Gold” single malt, aged in Buffalo Trace barrels, but also two other expressions, one aged in Islay barrels and one in sherry barrels.

The former slightly too mellow for me, but perhaps ideal for those who find the peat driven Scotch of Islay too much. The latter, my favourite of all of them and I was delighted when Sian gave me a bottle to take away with me.

Across the borders in Herefordshire, I had been invited to visit Jo Hilditch at her farm, where she told me she offered “the only cassis made in Britain” I have to be honest, given that cassis is not always in huge demand in the DH household, that I wondered how such a niche business could keep going in the U.K and in the current economic climate.

I wondered, that is, until I climbed out of my car and into Jo’s and she explained that her farm was over 600 acres and supplied chickens to the supermarkets and blackurrants to everybody’s childhood favourite, Ribena.

Ah, blackcurrants. Jo is a bit of a proselyte for Blackcurrants, working closely with The Blackcurrant Foundation who are fiercely promoting the health benefits of this home grown super food over the imported blueberry.

Jo grows acres and acres of the things and if is from these that her sideline of making British Cassis, a cordial made from the berries, arose. It may be a sideline and production of this and an accompanying Framboise (raspberries) may be small scale, but Jo treats it with extreme seriousness and is keen to build it into a recognisable brand.

Small (again legal) tastes confirmed that it is very good stuff, fermented with champagne yeasts until it reaches 15% ABV and would make the basis of a excellent Kir or Royal.

A stop for Welsh Whisky and British cassis may seem like an odd diversion for a trip around Britain, but good is good wherever you find it and both of these are well worth a try.

SUNDAY LUNCH: A SLAB OF WELSH BEEF

Although we have posted many Sunday lunches on DOS HERMANOS and a good chunk of them have been in honour of the cow, my return from Wales with a 1.5kg slab of 45 day aged Welsh longhorn rib from N.R. James, purveyors of fine faggots to the cognoscenti, gave particular cause for celebration.

I am pretty certain I saw a tear in HP’s eye and we took it in turns to stroke the glistening and slightly yellow fat and murmur words of lust normally reserved for the honeymoon suite. There may even have been a little dance involved.

I placed its preparation in the hands of HP whose skills with such things should never be doubted and he spent a good chunk of Saturday night preparing stock for the gravy, with roasted beef bones from a previous meal, and the batter for the obligatory mound of Yorkshire puddings.

This morning, before a brisk post gym walk to work up an appetite, he removed the royal rib from the fridge and allowed it to come up to room temperature and, while we waited for it to cook, a half bottle of Mazanilla, some olives and a mound of excellent pork scratchings kept me from clawing at the oven door.

As the beef was removed (fat stripped to be returned to the oven alongside the puddings for extra crispness, of course) I was pretty sure it would be worth the wait while it rested.

Well of course it was worth the wait, with a bowl of fiery, fresh horseradish and some perfunctory greens the beef was allowed to shine through in all its aged glory. The primary taste was clean with none of the whiff of stale fat you get from lesser meat and HP’s expert cooking left enough bite to the perfectly rare flesh to put up some toothsome resistance and to combat an equally meaty bottle of Bierzo from Castilla Y Leon.

HP was disappointed with the Yorkshire puddings, but I was not, preferring mine slightly doughy to soak up the juices, particularly when said gravy has been made, as it was, with a good, generous splosh of Madeira.

To keep the booze quotient suitably high, HP finished his afternoon’s entertainment with a large glass of Patxaran while I cracked the stopper from a bottle of Penderyn, Wales’ only single malt whisky, in this case the version aged in Oloroso barrels and really not bad at all.

With me back out on the road on Tuesday, it is going to be a while until we get chance to do this Sunday lunch thing again, but I shall take with me a happy memory of a classic HP meat fest.