On this special partner episode of Scran with 'Eat Drink Hebrides' Rosalind visited Uist for the first time and had the wonderful opportunity to sample just a little of what this unique island has to offer.
First up Rosalind chatted to DJ Cameron from Long Island Retreats. A sixth generation crofter, DJ tells Rosalind all about his business and how visitors come from all over to understand their farming methods from field to fork. DJ explains that despite the challenges of trading on the Western Isles, their high quality product and singular location keeps customers coming back for more.
Next up Rosalind met Mick Huda at Charlie's Bistro in Benbecula. Mick is a Production Manager at Salar Smokehouse. He explained how the business came to be and why their product is so singular whilst they tucked into some delicious salmon and scallops.
All that running around Uist is thirsty work y'know - so the next stop was welcome - North Uist Distillery - set up in 2019 by Jonny Ingledew and Kate McDonald. It's home to Downpour Gin and in time, some of the first whisky ever to be distilled on the island legally. Whilst there Rosalind enjoyed a gin tasting, a tour of the facilities in this historic building and a chat with founder Jonny.
The final stop was at Lochmaddy Bay Prawns located at Clachan Sands where Rosalind met Tina Nicholson to hear all about their unique business which was a positive result of the impact of covid-19.
If you are looking for somewhere to get away from it all and enjoy a wonderful welcome and delicious local produce, Uist is for you. You can find out more by visiting www.visitouterhebrides.co.uk and searching for 'Food and Drink'.
First up Rosalind chatted to DJ Cameron from Long Island Retreats. A sixth generation crofter, DJ tells Rosalind all about his business and how visitors come from all over to understand their farming methods from field to fork. DJ explains that despite the challenges of trading on the Western Isles, their high quality product and singular location keeps customers coming back for more.
Next up Rosalind met Mick Huda at Charlie's Bistro in Benbecula. Mick is a Production Manager at Salar Smokehouse. He explained how the business came to be and why their product is so singular whilst they tucked into some delicious salmon and scallops.
All that running around Uist is thirsty work y'know - so the next stop was welcome - North Uist Distillery - set up in 2019 by Jonny Ingledew and Kate McDonald. It's home to Downpour Gin and in time, some of the first whisky ever to be distilled on the island legally. Whilst there Rosalind enjoyed a gin tasting, a tour of the facilities in this historic building and a chat with founder Jonny.
The final stop was at Lochmaddy Bay Prawns located at Clachan Sands where Rosalind met Tina Nicholson to hear all about their unique business which was a positive result of the impact of covid-19.
If you are looking for somewhere to get away from it all and enjoy a wonderful welcome and delicious local produce, Uist is for you. You can find out more by visiting www.visitouterhebrides.co.uk and searching for 'Food and Drink'.
Category
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 [Music]
00:06 Hello and welcome to Scram, the podcast passionate about the Scottish food and drink scene.
00:11 I'm your host, Ros and Erskine, and this is a special partner episode with Eat, Drink, Hebrides.
00:17 I visited Uist recently for the first time and had the wonderful opportunity to sample just a little bit of what this unique island has to offer.
00:25 First up, I chatted to DJ Cameron from Long Island Retreats.
00:29 A sixth generation crofter, DJ told me all about his business and how visitors come from all over to understand their farming methods from field to fork.
00:38 DJ explains that despite the challenges of trading on the Western Isles, their high quality product and singular location keeps customers coming back for more.
00:47 One of our biggest attractions in Lost Yavart is our herd of Shetland ponies.
00:53 We have a herd of close on 60 of them roaming in the hills.
00:56 They're quite good at mastering roadblocks, so they stand on the road until they get treats.
01:02 [Music]
01:05 Next up, I met Mick Huda at Charlie's Bistro in Benbecula.
01:09 Mick is a production manager at Sallar Smokehouse.
01:12 He explained how the business came to be and why their product is so singular whilst we talked in to some delicious salmon and scallops.
01:19 The uniqueness of the product sits with the ovens we're using and the technique which we use for curing and smoking.
01:28 [Music]
01:32 All that running around Uist is thirsty work, you know, so our next stop was welcome, North Uist Distillery.
01:37 Set up in 2019 by Johnny Ingledew and Kate MacDonald, it's home to downpour gin and in time, some of the first whisky ever to be distilled on the island legally.
01:46 [Music]
01:49 This is the grain that we're going to be using. So this is bear barley and bear is the oldest grain in use in the British Isles.
01:56 Every whisky in the world used to be made with bear barley and then over the years it's changed out for more modern varieties.
02:02 All whisky's these days really apart from one or two brands are made with modern varieties.
02:07 [Music]
02:10 My final stop on my visit to Uist was at Lochmaddy Bay Prawns located at Clackin Sands where I met Tina Nicholson to hear all about their unique business which was a positive result of the impact of COVID-19.
02:21 [Music]
02:24 Feedback that we've had from people is that everything is cooked to perfection because we're doing it in small batches and we're doing it fresh.
02:30 As our stock gets used, we're not doing like a big batch and then having lots of loss.
02:35 So I think it's because we're regularly cooking the langoustine on the prawns that the quality is there.
02:41 [Music]
02:47 So I'm joined by DJ from Long Island Retreats and Larder. We have just tried some of your produce but we'll come back to that.
02:54 So how are you?
02:55 I'm very well thank you. It's a nice sunny day so why wouldn't we be good?
02:58 Yeah and a beautiful location as well.
03:01 So can you tell us a bit about your background? Your croft has been in your family for a long time so can you just sort of tell us about that for anyone that doesn't know what is crofting and how all this came about?
03:10 We have crofts in the family that go back hundreds of years and we still work the crofts there. The crofts are now left to me.
03:19 So I'm working the crofts. We have sheep, cattle and pies. Crofting goes back to the majority of crofts were farms that were broken up in the late 1800s for sustainability.
03:32 There was a lot of food poverty here so the crofts were created for people to feed themselves and there's a big focus on food and where food comes from and that's where we are looking at moving into the niche.
03:45 Because you wouldn't make a living off a croft and we need to look at diversification and that's why we're here. We're processing our own meat and getting outlets for it.
03:59 It is a premium quality product because of the way we rear it so the traceability and food miles of what we have here is very low.
04:07 And for anyone that doesn't know what is the difference between crofting and farming?
04:11 There's no real difference for the animals but for us a farm is generally one block of ground where the farmsteading and the farmhouse and everything is together.
04:20 Whereas crofts are parcels of land. Because it was a farm that was broken up into crofts you needed to give everybody equal shares of good productive ground so you can't do that.
04:31 If your croft land was of poor quality then your common grazings would be of better quality so that everybody had an equal amount of good quality ground.
04:41 So because of that your parcels of land are scattered over two or three, four miles maybe.
04:47 So have you been doing this your whole life?
04:49 I was brought up crofting and 23 years ago I moved off island, worked in the mainland for a while and I worked in the oil industry.
04:57 I took voluntary redundancy three years ago and moved back here full time to run the family crofts.
05:03 I got a croft of my own in the year 2000 from my granny with a flock of North Country Cheviot sheep.
05:11 So I've kept that going. With that we've had to look at diversifying and how we can make a better life for ourselves because we don't want to be moving back and forth to the mainland for work.
05:22 We want to be here and make our living here.
05:25 And what kind of diversification are you looking at?
05:28 At the moment we have done meat boxes as a trial in 2021. That was very successful so we've carried on with that.
05:36 We started with lamb. We now have lamb, beef and pig to offer or lamb, beef and pork and that's getting marketed through Long Island Larder.
05:45 We're looking at doing accommodation which we did think about having up and running now but we focused on another project to build a shed for it to be a place to meet and greet people for us to provide a field to fork experience.
06:00 Also where we are, although it's nice and sunny today, it's not that all the time.
06:09 So enemy number one is the rain, enemy number two is the midges.
06:14 So if we have people booked in for a croft tour and we have either or, we have an environment now where we can have livestock inside in a controlled environment and people can meet the animals.
06:26 We also have items of old farm machinery and stuff that we can put on display as well and tell a story of the history of crofting and what people used to do, the hard work that they had versus a lot of the work is done mechanically now.
06:41 You mentioned a field to fork experience so can you tell us a little bit more about that, like what people could expect if they come to visit?
06:48 In our field to fork experience we would like to show people where the animals are reared, they're grass fed animals outside, cattle are outwintered, the animals that we finish will be taken in in winter time to keep condition on them.
07:02 So that's that part of the process and then get them processed so we would like to show people step by step what happens from the animal from birth and the process of getting it to the point of finishing it for slaughter.
07:18 Which some people think, oh it's easy enough you just have cows and they'll be ready for butchering, you're looking at from birth to slaughter 24, 26 months so it's a long time to get into the cycle of it.
07:32 Do you find that more commonly these days people are more interested in finding out more about provenance and where their food comes from?
07:38 Absolutely, people are very conscious of what they're eating and where it's coming from and they're happy to pay a premium for that.
07:46 Certainly our meat, we sell a lot of meat on island, every time we put meat on social media for sale it sells out within hours and we have a waiting list for once people buy the book meat for the next time we slaughter an animal.
08:01 So the demand is there, it's just keeping the supply chain filled up.
08:05 So today we've tried a few bits and pieces of yours, we had a beef and black pudding bonbon and what else?
08:13 There was beef sausage rolls, there was fillet steak, there was top side of beef, you had to be quick because the vultures were in pretty quickly.
08:22 Especially the meat, the beef probably.
08:24 There was pork and apple sausage rolls as well, so it seems to have been a big hit that everybody seemed to have enjoyed it.
08:31 We had maher potatoes as well, so the maher is very sandy rich ground that we fertilise the ground with seaweed that we collect off the beach and we midden that and we spread that on the ground.
08:42 And certainly for the potatoes it makes a huge difference to the taste of the potato, it grows with seaweed, a nice clean tasty potato.
08:51 The food here was made by the chef here who also does freelance work, but that is the type of thing you can expect from your produce.
08:56 It's quite versatile, it's not just steaks and things, it's also gone into sausage rolls and obviously been very well received here.
09:02 Yeah, the food we're very lucky because Christina, the head chef on the Dark Island, she does some freelance work for us and she is willing to work with us going forward to cook our produce and for us to feed that to people that do croft tours and stuff.
09:17 And that's where we want to be, we want to be selling our own product and also not just ourselves but putting the islands on the map for what we have because it is quite clear that there is a demand for our livestock because a lot of animals, whether it be calves or lambs are sold store, so weaned off their mothers and sold.
09:37 And we have a huge following of mainland buyers that come to the islands to buy these animals, they do pay a premium for them.
09:45 So for anyone that doesn't know, what is the appeal of the animals?
09:48 Like Aberdeen Angus cattle to me and Highland cattle, they're very placid, tame animals.
09:53 They suit our climates very well because we have quite extreme weather here in winter time, so that's the challenges for the animals to survive that and they're easy to winter.
10:04 Whereas bigger continental animals take a lot of feed, they cast their coats earlier as well and like May time we still have a lot of cold weather then so if they're rearing a calf then the calf suffers as well.
10:16 Whereas the native bred animals, they stand the harsher climates with the sheep as well.
10:23 The North Country Cheviot sheep, they're a very hardy sheep and they cross well with continental breeds so we've worked Texels for about 25 years and they work well.
10:34 Again we alternate between Texels and North Country Cheviot, we don't want the sheep getting too Texel bred so we try and keep them North Country Cheviot.
10:44 So for anyone that's coming to you and wants to come and visit you, where can they find you and where can they find out more information?
10:50 Our information is on Long Island Retreats, we have social media pages and Long Island Retreats website.
10:58 We stay in Loch Steppart on the east side of South Uist and one of our biggest attractions in Loch Steppart is our herd of Shetland ponies.
11:08 So that is one of the attractions for people to come to Loch Steppart to see the ponies.
11:13 We have a herd of close on 60 of them roaming the hills.
11:16 They're quite good at mastering roadblocks so they stand on the road until they get treats which we don't encourage people to feed them.
11:24 By all means come and see them, they don't need fed, you can tell that they're well enough fed as they are.
11:29 So yeah, they are very interesting animals.
11:33 We also have a Highland pony and an Eriske pony.
11:37 They're a bit more pampered but the Shetlands are very, very hardy animals.
11:40 In winter time they're out on the hill, they wouldn't see bad weather because they're tucked up in the hills and they miss all the bad weather.
11:47 Well it sounds like a great day out for all the family and thank you very much.
11:51 Thank you.
11:52 I sat down with Mick from Sallor Smokehouse to taste some of the delicious Sallor Smokehouse products and hear about how the business is doing.
12:08 Hello everyone, welcome to Charlie's Bistro.
12:11 Today we have a small presentation with the main products from Sallor Smokehouse.
12:17 We do have an extensive range, today we aim for the three most popular ones.
12:22 Which would be our Hot Smoked Salmon, that was the start of the smokehouse.
12:28 We have local scallops, also smoked, more or less same recipe.
12:35 And we have our Cold Smoked Sliced Salmon.
12:38 So the Hot Smoked was quite unique when it started, I believe it was 1987.
12:45 A local couple, they started it as a hobby in their back garden and they developed the brand, Sallor.
12:52 They opened a small smokehouse at the time and even now we're still using the same ovens.
12:59 Because we think that's where the flavour is and moving to new premises, those two are the main important things that they will come with.
13:10 It's a simple process, we're using oak flakings, it's cured just using sea salt.
13:17 Keep it simple, it's about timings because our salting process is a bit different than the main producers.
13:24 Our salmon gets a shelf life of 90 days from production day, that's based on the salt content and the way it's vacuum packed.
13:31 So for us that's the main advantage, our location being so remote it's very hard sometimes to get deliveries fresh.
13:40 So we need to take advantage of the longer shelf life to make it.
13:45 Because it's a very competitive market, especially in the last decade, smoked salmon it seems to just, it comes and goes.
13:54 So is all the fish kind of locally caught?
13:57 The main flaky is made mostly with fish that is from Western Isles fish farms.
14:06 We do have at times other suppliers from the mainland, it's all Scottish, due to the time of the year and such and harvest periods.
14:16 The scallops are caught on the West Coast by Cullen Shellfish, they're based in North East in Grimsey.
14:22 So fresh scallops, we get them fresh, we smoke them fresh, we serve them fresh.
14:27 And obviously the cold smoked salmon comes from the same batch as the cold smoked salmon to start with.
14:33 I guess we want to taste some, so we've got the smoked salmon, just as you would imagine, it's very kind of coral in colour.
14:40 I can imagine having it on a bagel with some cream cheese.
14:43 We've got some nice oat cakes here, and here we go.
14:47 It's quite subtle, it's not too light on your face, quite sweet, nice texture, goes well with the oat cake.
14:54 And then the hot smoked salmon, that was lovely, it's quite sweet, definitely more smoky.
15:00 You can sort of taste the, what did you say it was, oak smoked, yeah.
15:04 That's really nice, I can imagine that on a nice sandwich.
15:07 And then they've got the scallop, which I've never had a smoked scallop before, so...
15:11 You can tell it's kind of smoked because it's a different colour.
15:16 It makes it almost sweeter, like it's really sweet, really like kind of subtly smoked.
15:23 That kind of smoke that brings out the sweetness, it's not like too much smoke.
15:28 It's really good.
15:30 Mick, how did you get into working with Saller's Smokehouse?
15:33 I started working in Saller maybe ten years ago.
15:38 At that time the business was owned by Loch Dürer Salmon, and I got the job as a production manager.
15:45 That's how I met Ian professionally, we knew each other from before.
15:50 I'm a cook, Ian is a cook, you know.
15:53 A few years on, Loch Dürer decided to move on and Ian made a great effort and he bought the company.
16:01 And I changed jobs, but because my actual job, I have six months off a year, I carried on working with Ian since.
16:11 So we've been working together in the smokehouse for the last ten years, I would say.
16:15 So is Ian and Emma the owner, correct?
16:18 Yes, so Ian and Emma, they went ahead and they bought the business from Loch Dürer.
16:25 And can people come to Beto?
16:27 Yes, we do have visitors.
16:29 That had to stop for a wee while, obviously what happened in the world for the couple of years, things, you know, we had to adapt.
16:37 But we're talking about in the new premises for them to be built in such a way that visitors will have access to most of the process.
16:46 Either through live cameras from the production areas or like loops, video loops, so they can see the process from start to the final product.
16:56 Because everyone is interested and people are curious about the product.
17:02 So we're trying to make sure they have access to as much information as we can about it.
17:06 So can you tell us about the process of the smoking?
17:09 Yes, so whether or not it's quite a simple process, the uniqueness of the product sits with the ovens we're using and the technique which we use for curing and smoking.
17:20 I can't go into too many details about that.
17:23 But as I mentioned before, due to our location, we have to make sure we achieve a long shelf life.
17:30 So that it's to do with the salting process, we need to achieve a threshold for us to be able to sell the product with an extended shelf life.
17:40 So basically the fish comes in, it's all hand cut based on the requirement because you do a variety, 100 gram, 150 gram, 200 gram portion, half sides and such or to order for special orders.
17:54 So everything gets hand cut. Prior to that, the fish gets cured and salted.
18:01 It's called a washing process. It goes in the cutting table.
18:08 So our colleagues, they see to that and you have to be quite accurate because it's to do with the yield.
18:14 The fish gets trayed up, ready for our ovens.
18:18 It gets cooked for around 30, 45 minutes, depends on what we're producing.
18:26 And then it's a fast chilling process which we have to compare the HACCP, United Food Safety, and hand packing and vacuum packing.
18:35 And after that it goes to our colleagues in dispatch. It gets lifted up and the whole dispatch process from there on.
18:42 So it's quite a straightforward production line. It's a good flow and it has to be because it's a small operation.
18:48 We don't have many people because it needs to be feasible also financially.
18:56 And whereabouts can you buy it? Obviously it's available here but whereabouts on US and also on the mainland as well?
19:03 Yes, a few years back our customer base was quite on a big area including a lot of abroad customers, including Dubai and Germany and such.
19:14 Obviously Brexit happened and things changed.
19:18 So now Ian and Emma decided to start from us and expand from here rather than go away.
19:25 So we're working with all the co-op stores because they're our main stores on the island.
19:30 Also the local stores. The oatcakes you tried are made by our local baker, Maclean's.
19:36 So they sell our fish. We obviously buy all the oatcakes from them.
19:40 I think it's quite a few shops in Scotland that store. Also down in England.
19:45 And the website. The website attracts a lot of customers through our online website.
19:51 So you're moving into new smokehouse premises because obviously things, or presumably things are going quite well.
19:56 So what are the plans for the future once that's up and running?
19:59 Well, yeah, moving. It's a must at this time because we need to find a niche to expand our range.
20:07 At the moment the hot smoked is number one favourite. Probably it will still be.
20:11 We're looking to try and to go a bit with other flavours.
20:18 We do have some in the range. We will try to be more what the customers are looking nowadays.
20:24 And dietary requirements and such. So yes, we like to think that things are going well at the moment.
20:31 And we're hoping they'll go even better with our moving to new premises.
20:35 And where can people find out more about the smokehouse?
20:38 Well, I think the most information we'll get nowadays will be online.
20:42 Probably the full history is there from the beginnings up till now.
20:46 And with the new smokehouse I think a full revamp of our website will happen.
20:52 So I think we'll focus more on, you know, people are more interested in the process.
20:56 And as you said, you know, the history behind it.
20:59 Because it is a niche product, the smoked salmon.
21:02 So it comes with, you know, a story behind it.
21:05 If you actually want to have an impact. It's not just the taste. It's the whole process.
21:10 Because, you know, as you know, you first eat with your eyes and brain.
21:14 By the time you get the taste, you know, you've made up your mind halfway through.
21:18 So you like to get that experience before you get the taste.
21:21 And the taste will make, complement everything else.
21:24 And it will become, you know, what we think is the best.
21:28 Well, thank you very much.
21:30 It's a pleasure to have you guys here.
21:32 And I hope everyone will enjoy this retasting session.
21:35 And hopefully soon we'll see you in the new premises.
21:38 We arrived at North Uist Distillery on a beautiful afternoon.
21:44 The remarkable whitewash building is really eye-catching and I was eager to find out more.
21:50 So, yeah, we're going to start with today our Scottish Dry Gin.
21:55 That's the blue bottle here.
21:58 So that's our original recipe.
22:01 It's lovely, sort of packed with flavour.
22:04 Really full-bodied, quite complex gin.
22:07 Under your wee beer mats there, you've got a little trio.
22:11 It's the one pointing towards you that we're starting with.
22:14 I'm going to whiz around with some tonic.
22:16 But have a quick nose.
22:19 This is 46%, so you're getting quite a lot of ethanol when you pop your nose in.
22:24 But if you give it a little bypass and sort of move it around, keep it moving,
22:29 and then you'll be able to get some of the layers out of there after a wee.
22:33 So hopefully you'll be getting lots of spice, lots of juniper and citrus in there too.
22:39 Right, shall we whiz around with some?
22:45 So you can smell the juniper and it's got like a...
22:50 ...appley note, a bit of citrus.
22:53 It smells like a classic dry gin.
22:56 Like it would make a very good gin and tonic.
22:58 Which I can't have because I'm dry.
23:01 Mary, what do you think of the gin?
23:03 Oh, it's delicious. Really fresh. Easy to drink. Very enjoyable.
23:09 It has a lovely floral warmth to it and a bit of honey sweetness as well.
23:14 Sort of almost tricking your brain into it being sweet because you're getting those honey flavours.
23:19 And we harvest that on a bartering system.
23:24 So we invite the community to go out and do the picking for us basically.
23:29 And in return we pay them in gin.
23:33 So we go out and get the heather and we hanker out.
23:37 We take just the flowers and a kilo covers a whole batch.
23:41 Which is quite a lot of flowers to be harvesting.
23:45 Especially at the midgy time of year.
23:48 But yeah, we pay a full bottle for a kilo.
23:52 And then on the bottles you see at the top of the labels there that we have written on
23:58 the name of the place where the heather has been harvested.
24:02 And that's the name of the whole batch.
24:04 So this is Therva Hulish.
24:08 Just down south east.
24:12 Just near the causeway to where we're going.
24:16 And the heather is out at the moment and there's current numbers.
24:19 So if you guys have got a bit of time today.
24:22 A bit of downtime.
24:26 Do anything you can.
24:28 And we use this system for a few of our gins.
24:32 Where I mention a local product, assume that it's on that bartering system.
24:36 So local brambles in the slow and the wild thyme in the coast and croft as well.
24:41 Now the coast and croft also has wild seaweed in.
24:45 But Johnny does the harvesting for that.
24:47 Rather than sending people out into slippery rocks.
24:50 Yeah, I'd rather Johnny went to his death instead.
24:55 What are you getting from that?
24:56 Anything in particular standing out to you?
24:59 Spicy.
25:00 Spicy, definitely very spicy.
25:02 So it's got cinnamon and cloves.
25:06 And a variety of pepper, a lovely smoky variety called cubeb.
25:10 Which just sort of softens it, it's nice and warm.
25:15 Hopefully you're finding it quite citrusy as well.
25:19 Johnny and Kate really prefer citrus forward gins.
25:22 So that's kind of the palate throughout all of the range.
25:26 So we're going left to right this time.
25:28 So you're the last clear gin there to the left.
25:35 This is our pink grapefruit.
25:37 So pink bottle as you would hope.
25:42 And this is really paired back on the spice.
25:46 So it has pink peppercorns, coriander seed, a little bit of juniper.
25:50 Nothing like as much juniper as the last one.
25:54 And then grapefruit peel and lemon peel.
25:57 We use dried in all of our distillations, like sun-dried peel.
26:02 But then in this one as well we put in fresh grapefruit zest.
26:07 So our slightly long-suffering distillery team have to hand zest hundreds of grapefruits.
26:17 And yeah, the smell is pretty heady up there in the distillery when we do grapefruit.
26:22 But it's worth it.
26:23 A fabulous zingy, really powerful, sort of summery flavor coming from it.
26:31 You really get the zestiness coming out.
26:33 But then because we put so much of that fresh zesting, it can be a little bit astringent.
26:39 So we add a tiny bit of sugar afterwards.
26:41 So this is what we class as an old tom gin.
26:44 The branding for our gin is downpour.
26:47 And whilst that's fairly appropriate for a Scottish island, it's meant to be a symbolic downpour.
26:54 So it's a downpour of flavor.
26:57 And that's because we use twice the volume of botanics by weight to the industry standard.
27:02 So that you're getting really punchy flavor coming through when you add as much ice or as much tonic as you want.
27:08 So that you can really sort of languish and enjoy the drink rather than having to have it neater in a way that you wouldn't necessarily enjoy it.
27:15 Yeah, it's good, powerful flavor always coming through.
27:18 You can really smell the grapefruit.
27:20 So it smells more zesty and citrusy than the first one.
27:24 And it doesn't smell like fresh grapefruit.
27:26 It's more like a sort of dried grapefruit.
27:28 A little bit of gin. A little bit of gin and pear.
27:31 The perfect serve on our gin and tonics is a one to four ratio.
27:40 For the slow and bramble, we recommend one to two.
27:43 So a little bit less because it's got that sugar in it anyway.
27:46 You don't need a lot.
27:48 Visitors were treated to four gins to taste in total and the feedback was unanimously positive.
27:57 Founder Johnny took over to show us around this beautiful old building.
28:01 Okay everybody, we're going to be walking through the building.
28:06 If you want to follow me through to the other end.
28:09 This way.
28:12 Yeah, come on in folks.
28:14 This is Nunton Steadings, our visitor center and what will become our home in general.
28:21 At the moment we've got a gin distillery that's based up in Bayhead where we do our gin production.
28:25 Where we produce a range of Danporth gins.
28:27 We've always distilled in-house and we've always developed our own recipes in-house.
28:31 I've got background in distilling, did a degree in distilling,
28:34 then worked in brews and distilleries around the UK before me and my partner came back and launched this business around five years ago.
28:41 We've been trading for four and a half years.
28:43 And we bought this building around two years ago and we've been slowly moving into it and increasing our visitor center offerings.
28:49 We've got our shop at the moment, our island life bar, we do tastings Monday to Friday over summer as well.
28:54 The building had a lot of history before we took it over.
28:57 One of the things I just wanted to point out here is this lovely feature here,
29:01 which is actually a kind of cog that was used for turning a millstone.
29:05 And this used to actually be a room where they milled grain.
29:09 This is a very fertile area for growing barley and they used to grow barley in the fields around here, as they still do.
29:15 And they had a millstone in here and they'd mill the grain with a horse outside,
29:19 walking around in a circle to turn a millstone.
29:21 So it's a nice wee piece of the history of the building.
29:24 We'll head through to the end of the building next and I'll talk about our whisky plant.
29:28 Johnny led us through the corridors to reach what will become their whisky distillery.
29:33 Okay, perfect. We've got everyone here.
29:36 So this is the main hall of Nunton's Steadings.
29:39 And I said before that this building used to be lots of things previous to us taking it over.
29:44 This building's dating back to the 1700s originally.
29:47 And at that time it was a horse steadings.
29:50 And this end they actually used to milk cattle and that's why they've got these lovely windows here.
29:55 They're kind of arrowhead shaped windows.
29:57 It was all about letting the weather air flow through, but not the weather.
30:00 And they used to have a cobbled floor in here, but that's since been tiled over, obviously.
30:05 Over the years this was turned into a community space.
30:08 And they used to have a lot of calys and weddings and birthdays and funerals as well in here.
30:13 And we bought the building, as I said, about two years ago.
30:17 And our plans for this room is to house our whisky equipment in here.
30:20 So we've got a big package of whisky equipment that's going to arrive in April next year.
30:25 And we're going to be a field to bottle whisky distillery.
30:28 So we're going to grow our own barley.
30:30 And we've got seven acres growing at the moment to start building up our seed stock.
30:34 We're going to molt on site across the road.
30:36 We're building a molting plant.
30:38 And we're going to distill in here and mature in the other end of the building.
30:42 So we've got the full suite of process steps.
30:44 It's quite uncommon to be a field to bottle whisky distillery in the industry.
30:49 You could probably count on one hand the amount of people that do all the production steps on site.
30:53 So it's a nice point of authenticity, really.
30:56 This is a little mock-up of all of our whisky equipment.
30:59 So you've got two big spirit stills over here.
31:01 Our wash still, 2,500 litres, and our spirit still, 1,900 litres.
31:05 We're going to move gin production down here as well, which is currently up at our bayhead site.
31:10 And then we've got forward and washbacks just around there.
31:13 So this room's going to once again be quite noisy and lively like it used to be when there was caleys on here all the time.
31:19 So it's going to be quite a nice space once all the whisky equipment's in here.
31:23 What's quite a nice idea as well is that the buildings really dictated a lot of the style of the whisky we're going to be able to make.
31:29 It's quite a small building, this.
31:31 So our stills, for instance, are actually going to be poking out the roof.
31:34 And just past these gentlemen here, you can see a mock-up of the swan necks and linarms and condensers of the stills
31:41 poking out of the roof and actually coming down the outside of the building.
31:45 That's kind of dictated the still height.
31:47 And, for instance, we're going to have quite short squat stills, which starts to decide the kind of flavour profile that you'll create.
31:54 We're also going to be a single-cast distillery.
31:56 So each day that we run our production equipment, we'll produce one cask of whisky, which is very, very small.
32:02 It's about as small as it gets in the whisky side of things.
32:04 So at the end of the year, when we count the casks in the warehouse, that's going to be how many days that the earth's turned, essentially.
32:11 So that's the idea for that.
32:13 And then just moving over to here as well, this is the grain that we're going to be using.
32:19 So this is bear barley.
32:21 And bear is the oldest grain in use in the British Isles.
32:24 Every whisky in the world used to be made with bear barley.
32:27 And then over the years, it's changed out for more modern varieties.
32:30 All whiskies these days, really apart from one or two brands, are made of modern varieties.
32:35 And the benefit of moving to modern varieties is a higher yield when you grow in the field.
32:40 So modern varieties give you about four acres per tonne, and then bear, you get about one acre per tonne.
32:45 So basically, anyone in their right mind who's got an accountant in the team has changed out for modern varieties.
32:52 Bear is actually the only barley variety that grows in Uist.
32:55 So people have continued growing this strain, a unique strain to Uist.
32:59 And it's what we're going to continue growing using our production process.
33:03 So it's what they call a land-race barley variety, and it's been unchanged for thousands of years.
33:09 And we've just joined the Heverview Whisky Trail.
33:12 So that's what this poster is about.
33:14 We had our whisky open day yesterday, on Monday, sorry.
33:18 And at the moment, there's six distilleries in Harris, Arcel, North Uist Distillery, Talisker, Rasse, Toravegan, Jura.
33:25 We're trying to create a whisky tourist trail similar to the Speyside Way to promote whisky tourism in the islands.
33:32 And here we have a wee sample of the bear seed.
33:35 And this is a sample of the molting floor that we're going to have across the road.
33:39 So we're going to peach smoke our molt, and hot air will pass up from afar underneath, pass through this little grid,
33:45 and then dry the barley kilnit, essentially.
33:49 Great. OK. If you want to follow me to the other end of the building, we'll go through the courtyard.
33:53 One thing to bear in mind, the other end of the building is very uneven.
33:56 [Music]
34:06 OK. So as you can see, this isn't usually here.
34:09 We've actually got a wee art exhibition on at the moment by a local artist called Keith McIntyre from Burnery.
34:14 And we've done that a few times over the last year, where we've had different art exhibitions on around the building.
34:19 It's quite a nice atmospheric space for hanging work, and so artists tend to like to come in here and exhibit the work.
34:26 So I talked about this building being quite old, dating back to the 1700s.
34:30 This is the part of the building where they had kept the horses, and you can still see some original features.
34:35 Up behind you on the wall are the original saddle pins, where they would have hung up the saddles from the horses.
34:40 And over here as well, you can see some of the original stalls as well.
34:47 Some lovely features, and the original cobblestones as well, which are actually listed, as we've got to retain.
34:53 People struggled to figure out what to do with this end of the building when the building was renovated in 1998.
34:59 So it's largely been kept as is. But for us, this is perfect for maturing casks in.
35:05 So that's what we're going to do. And our founder casks, which were our casks sold in the years one advanced cask offer,
35:11 and our years two advanced cask offer, are all going to be stored in here.
35:15 So about a year ago, we sold 60 casks from our years one production, and they sold through the website.
35:20 And they all sold out in 90 seconds. It was the fastest selling cask offer in Scotch whisky history.
35:25 And all those casks, once they're filled next summer, will all be stacked up here in traditional dunnage fashion.
35:31 And the cask owners will be able to come in and stroke their casks and sample them and whisper sweet nothing to them, I'm sure.
35:38 So that's the plan for here. This is quite a nice, generally damp and cool space, which is quite good for aging casks.
35:45 I'll just take you through to the other end as well, so you've seen the whole building.
35:49 Like in the wildlife book.
35:53 So yeah, this is a bit more cask storage for us. So casks will be stored on either side here.
35:58 There's actually a fireplace just behind here. And they had that because this was a small chapel as well.
36:03 And you might have noticed there's actually a bell-free tower on the top of this end of the building, which is very uncommon for the outer Hebrides.
36:09 I think it's generally a bit too windy to have bells out this way.
36:12 So actually, the inside of the bell was taken out a long time ago. It's probably annoying the neighbors a bit too much.
36:18 But they had this large horse steading. It's a very uncommon feature in the US.
36:23 And that's because generally at the time, people were very poor and they didn't have enough money to own horses.
36:29 So this was actually a rich and powerful family called Clan Ranald who owned this.
36:33 And that's the original seat of Clan Ranald just across the road, which is where they moved to after the castle, Ormaclet Castle burnt down in the early 1700s.
36:43 About 1705, I think. So what they used to have horses in here and they had a dairy over there.
36:48 So that's why they used to milk cattle in that end. And they had lots of lands. That's why they used to mill on site as well.
36:54 And there's also a ruined wall outside. And that's where they used to keep the carriages.
36:58 And out the back, there used to be another stone building called the Booyah Byre.
37:02 And booyah and garlic is yellow. And that's where they used to keep the grain because grain is yellow.
37:07 So it's basically their grain store. So it's quite a large enterprise at the time.
37:11 And Clan Ranald were a very powerful family who eventually moved out of that building and the general site of Nunton Steadings fell into disrepair.
37:21 The actual kind of township of Nunton is referring to its original purpose, which was a nunnery, essentially, was in the general area.
37:29 And Nunton's town is Nunton, essentially. And the Gaelic is Balin y Gaelach, which is Township of the Old Ladies.
37:37 So that's really the history of the site.
37:39 [Music]
37:50 Do you know or could you tell us a bit about the history of distilling on the island?
37:55 Yeah, so there's no legal historical history of distilling on the island, but lots of historical verbal stories of illicit distilling.
38:03 And there's a great website, Tupper and Duaches, where you can go online and search for stories which are all in Gaelic and all oral history told by someone.
38:11 And it's a recording of them telling a story of illicit distilling happening on the island.
38:16 Obviously, no one was making gin and tonics back in the day.
38:19 They would have been making whiskey and using leftover grain, which, you know, for a long time was legal and then ultimately made illegal over the years.
38:27 So there's stories of a borough race off North Uist where they had tens and tens of different people distilling on the island, but all over the islands.
38:35 And whenever you chat to someone, they've usually got a story of their uncle or granddad that threw illicit still into their local loch when the guardsmen came marching over the hill looking for their illicit distilling.
38:47 So how does it feel to be bringing distilling to Ireland for the first time officially? Because you're going to be one of two, right? Because there is another whiskey distillery coming.
38:55 Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's unfortunate for the people here that they've waited all this time for a whiskey distillery and then two have come along at the same time.
39:03 So that's definitely a coincidence. Yeah, we're super excited to get started with whiskey.
39:08 We've been making gin on the island now for four and a half years. But it's always been our dream and our vision to start with whiskey.
39:14 We've got such a fantastic environment here to make whiskey and local grain, peat and water.
39:19 So it's going to be a nice offering for us to be able to start making whiskey and bringing that into our story.
39:25 And can you tell us about the Hebridean Whiskey Trail for anyone that doesn't know?
39:29 Yeah, the Hebridean Whiskey Trail has been going for into its second year now, I think.
39:34 And we joined this year as we're a whiskey distillery in waiting.
39:38 There's six, five other members, so six in total.
39:41 And it's all about promoting the Hebridean Whiskey Trail and trying to promote whiskey tourism to the islands and create something similar to the Speyside Way
39:51 and emulate a bit of their success of promoting the whiskey distilleries in the region and also for visitors for suggesting a good route for them to take for the Hebrides as well.
40:01 So you mentioned that your casks sold really quickly. Why do you think that was?
40:05 Yeah, we were super excited to see our cask sale go so well, so we sold 60 casks of our years one production in advance, which are going to get distilled next year.
40:15 It took us by surprise. They were quite expensive casks as well because we're so small scale here.
40:20 I said that we're going to be laying down a cask a day, which is, you know, about as small as it gets in whiskey distilling.
40:26 There's certainly a degree of collectability there because it's such a small amount that we lay down.
40:32 I think what's nice is the offering that we've got, which is using a heritage barley variety that we're going to grow ourselves,
40:38 molting on site, maturing and bottling on site as well.
40:42 So that field to bottle approach is such a nice authentic story using a heritage grain that every whiskey in the world has been made from as well.
40:49 It's just a nice offering and I think one that captured our audience's imagination.
40:53 So when can people come to visit the distillery? When will it be fully operational?
40:57 Yes, our whiskey equipment is currently getting manufactured. It's quite a long lead time.
41:02 It's about a year and a half to get your whiskey equipment manufactured.
41:05 So it's all arriving on site in April next year, April 24.
41:09 And if they come then, they'll see a big hole in the roof where we're going to put the whiskey equipment into the building.
41:13 It's about three months to get the whiskey equipment installed and commissioned.
41:17 So it's going to be from summer next year, around July time, that we'll start filling our founder casks from the years one advance casks that we sold.
41:24 And it'll be great to see anyone here next summer and share a wee dram of our new make spirit with them.
41:30 Where can people buy the gin?
41:31 Yes, our range of gins, Danporth gin range, that's available for our website with free delivery.
41:36 We've got various distributors around Scotland and we're just moving into England.
41:40 We're also stocked around Europe and in Canada as well.
41:42 So, yeah, hope you can pick up a bottle and let us know what you think.
41:45 That's good to know because I want to buy a bottle in a groanie.
41:48 Anyway, sorry. Thank you very much.
41:50 Fantastic. Thanks very much.
41:52 Lochmaddy Bay Prawns is an eye-catching sight from the road.
41:55 An American Airstream caravan is parked right outside Tina and Donald Nicholson's house,
42:00 where you can drive up to get your extremely fresh prawn takeaway meal.
42:04 It's a little bit windy on you this morning.
42:08 Morning.
42:12 Morning.
42:13 Yeah, got it.
42:20 Yeah.
42:21 How are you?
42:22 Good, how are you?
42:23 Not too bad, thanks.
42:24 It's a little bit windy.
42:26 But warm.
42:29 Yeah, yeah.
42:30 Okay, so we're going to go somewhere where it's not so windy to have a little chat.
42:33 We stepped inside out of the wind for a chat.
42:37 Oh, and by the way, you might hear Nala, their cockapoo, snoring in the background.
42:45 Okay, so Tina, we've had some of your seafood last night and a lovely platter with salad.
42:50 So could you tell us what we ate?
42:52 So in the mini platter, it's classed as our trio platter on the food truck.
42:56 And we've got dressed crab meat, and it's from the crab claws.
42:59 And it's the white meat, not the brown meat.
43:02 The skipper insists it has to be the right and perfect.
43:06 We had dressed squat lobster.
43:09 Squat lobster's a bycatch to when he's fishing for the langoustine or prawn.
43:13 And it's on the edges of the hard ground that he'll catch them.
43:18 I have a photo on my Facebook page of what a squat lobster actually looks like.
43:23 Because a lot of people have come to the food truck and said, "What is a squat lobster?"
43:26 They see the name lobster, and they think it's lobster.
43:30 So it's like a spider-type creature where they have the tail meat similar to the prawn meat.
43:37 But the actual delicacy of the flavour of the meat is between prawn and lobster itself.
43:43 Maybe you agree with that? Have you had lobster yourself?
43:45 Yeah, yeah, I thought that. It wasn't quite like prawn, but it wasn't quite like lobster.
43:50 And it was a funny little round shape, so I didn't really know.
43:53 So that's good to know. It was really nice.
43:55 Yeah, so it's a lot smaller than a prawn.
43:58 And the prawns that were on the platter, they're classed as the small grade.
44:01 So you get small, medium, and large grade.
44:03 And when you get up to the large, you refer to it then as a langoustine.
44:08 It's also known as the nephrof or the Norway lobster, under lots of different names.
44:12 So we do have on the van, Lochmaddy Bay prawns.
44:16 We've got a picture of the langoustine, and we refer to langoustine because we have all different nationalities that come to the food truck.
44:22 So it's making sure that everyone has a clear understanding of what it is that we're serving on the truck.
44:28 So for anyone that doesn't know, could you take us right back to the beginning and tell us how your business came to be?
44:32 So Lochmaddy Bay prawns is a positive result of the impact of COVID-19.
44:39 The boat was instructed to tie up, the markets were closed, and DA, or Donald, the skipper, had 1,200 creels on the seabed.
44:48 And it was, what are we going to do because these creels will sink into the mud, he'll lose his gear.
44:55 And we had to earn a living because we were classed as the food chain.
44:59 We were allowed to then start going back out on half day to a day a week.
45:04 And we decided to sell our catch locally.
45:07 So we launched our Facebook page to advertise the fact that we would have this service to the local community, which was going through the pandemic.
45:15 Everyone was in a bit of shock.
45:17 And we would go around once a week with our refrigerated van with orders that we'd received through social media.
45:23 So it was all through the power of social media at the beginning and deliver people their orders to their door.
45:29 And it was always about making people happy.
45:32 People sometimes hadn't seen anyone for three, four days.
45:35 So when you would turn up with their order, it was about being able to have that safe distance.
45:39 But the conversation just to bring some food and make some happiness there.
45:43 We continued to sell even after things started moving and the markets opened up again.
45:49 We were still live from the fishing boat. So anytime anyone would ask, they would get.
45:53 And we would still be sending then exporting to the EU.
45:57 Then we had the difficulty in the fishing industry of Brexit.
46:00 So it was another impact. But luckily, we still had the channels locally and people were still buying locally.
46:07 Although the paperwork took some time to get to the bottom of with Brexit, we got there and the markets were back to how it should be.
46:16 But we still continued in the background selling locally, at which point we were thinking there is a market.
46:22 We could do something different. There is a bit of a gap.
46:25 Just having complete seafood. And we discussed different options.
46:29 And we decided to take on this venture of Lochmaddy Bay Prawns to go.
46:34 And we got some support from the local council, Conn and Eilean Shear, with the Covid Economic Recovery Grant Scheme.
46:41 And that gave us the push to say, well, we'll give it a shot because we had support through that and Business Gateway.
46:49 And we got the trailer. We didn't really know the exact, I suppose, boundaries of where we were going to stop with it.
47:00 It started off, it was going to be a base to cook our prawns.
47:03 And then, well, if we're cooking, we might as well do a bit of a salad bar with it.
47:08 So it's gone, it's just basically grown from strength to strength from doing prawn rolls to prawn wraps to then doing the cook tubs.
47:18 We had an opportunity for an American that was visiting the islands in April.
47:24 She came and she said, it's my birthday. I don't want to have to shell anything.
47:27 I don't want to have to do anything. I just want to be able to eat lovely, delicious seafood.
47:32 And then started doing some sort of food art, if you call it, with the seafood and making seafood platters, which have been a huge hit.
47:41 Yeah, here we are. We've six months later, music festival tick, local games tick, been to the local distillery tick.
47:50 We're sending our tubs over to the Isle of Harris. And it's just been a whirlwind season.
47:58 And it's nice to see because, you know, people know Scottish langoustines and stuff, but unless you go to a restaurant, they're not always readily available.
48:05 So it's nice to come and get them in a really accessible way.
48:08 Do you find that from people that eat, whether they're tourists or probably not locals, because you guys might get them all the time.
48:13 But like, I'd feel like we don't have access to langoustines and kind of locally caught seafood as much as you would want unless you go to a restaurant in the central belt.
48:22 Yes, I think so. And I also think that a lot of people have said to us that they might get them, but they can be mushy.
48:29 And the feedback that we've had from people is that everything is cooked to perfection because we're doing it in small batches and we're doing it fresh.
48:36 As our stock gets used, we're not doing like a big batch and then having lots of loss.
48:40 So I think it's because we're regularly cooking the langoustine on the prawns that the quality is there and people being able to get it.
48:49 We are identified or subscribed to the Outer Hebrides Tourism, so we are on the food trail.
48:55 And we have had a number of people that will come up to the trailer just because they've seen us on the map and they're just intrigued to see what else is available there.
49:05 So the trailer, we kind of mentioned it outside, but it's American Airstream and it looks immaculate. So what made you kind of go down that route?
49:12 The American Airstream, it's more to do with the cleanliness and with seafood, you have to be particularly clean.
49:19 And also I'd looked at a few catering trailers before that and the appeal didn't do it for me.
49:25 It's a complete head turner. The number of people that have come up to the food truck and said, "Whoa, this is amazing. Where did you get this from?"
49:32 It's just simply browsing online, trying to come up with ideas of how we wanted to stand out and be different.
49:39 I mean, the seafood itself is unique, but we needed to have something unique to go with it.
49:44 So that's why we opted for the Airstream and we had it custom built.
49:48 So we've got it all laid out inside as to my working layout that I requested.
49:54 So how long has Donald been doing this? Has it been kind of a long time or is it a family thing? How did the fishing all start?
50:01 Donald's been fishing for 35 years plus. He began fishing with his father, his late father, and it's always been in his blood.
50:11 He's had a passion for it. He has tried lobster fishing on the west side and he's always come back to the prawn fishing on the east side.
50:19 And he enjoys that. It's all year round.
50:22 So back in the day with the lobster fishing, your season would be from April, May to September, October, and your winter would be mending your gear.
50:30 But at least with it being prawn and all year round, you've got an income, albeit it's peaks and troughs, but you've still got some sort of income all year round with it.
50:40 Well, we can definitely recommend the seafood platter, the prawns, the squat lobster and the crab was lovely.
50:45 And we stayed at your self-catering cottage last night, which is beautiful. It's a lovely location, beautiful views, lots of wildlife.
50:51 I feel like we could stay for a lot longer and relax.
50:54 So people should definitely come and pay a visit. So where exactly can people do that and where can they find out more information?
51:01 We have our own web page. I manage both web pages for the self-catering cottage, Skippers Retreat and Lochmaddy Bay Prawns.
51:09 All the information is on there, our contact details. And we are located in the village of Clackinsands and that's in North Uist, the Outer Hebrides.
51:18 Well, thank you very much. And it's been lovely to be here and speak to you. Thank you.
51:22 Thank you very much.
51:24 I have to say I really enjoyed my first trip to Uist.
51:33 I met some really wonderful people who are working hard to produce great food and drink products, albeit with the many challenges that are brought on by island living.
51:41 If you're looking for somewhere to get away from it all and enjoy a wonderful welcome and delicious local produce, Uist is for you.
51:48 You can find out more by visiting www.visitouterhebrides.co.uk and searching for food and drink.
51:55 Thanks to all my guests on this episode and thanks to you too for listening.
52:00 If you've enjoyed this, please remember to rate, review and subscribe to Scran so you never miss an episode.
52:05 Scran is a logical podcast that's co-produced and hosted by me, Ros and Erskine, and co-produced, edited and mixed by Kelly Crichton.
52:12 [Music]
52:18 (upbeat music)