Tag: Scotland
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Burns Night 2025
The birthday of Robert Burns on 25 January is an opportunity to celebrate Scotland’s southern-most whisky distillery. We probably all associate Robert Burns with his love of whisky, but we sometimes forget that he was also an excise officer – fighting the smugglers and illicit stills. Poetry wasn’t big business in those days and when…
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St Andrew’s Day 2024
St Andrew’s Day and time to celebrate a Scottish gin. I was in Galloway last week and took the opportunity to seek out the Dark Arts distillery in Kirkcudbright. It’s a wee gem. It’s part of the Johnston – a former primary school – which also houses the Dark Space planetarium. You can’t miss the…
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Gin stories
About the author I’m the author of three gin books – GINS of the NORTH WEST, YORKSHIRE’S GINS + The GIN CLAN. The GINS of the NORTH WEST features the gins and their makers and distilleries in Lancashire, Cheshire, Cumbria, Manchester, Liverpool. I’m also a journalist writing about a wide variety of things from tech,…
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Wild feast
Foraging in Scotland – Seeking a taste of East Lothian. Blackberrying marked the end of the summer holidays when I was little. The plump dark berries squishing in the bag as we walked along before they appeared in my mother’s bramble and apple pie. That was the sum total of our wild food harvest in…
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Island adventure
Manx Lit Fest I’ll be visiting the Isle of Man this month. I’m hosting an evening of stories, music, art and gin at the Fynoderee Distillery in Ramsey on 27 September. There’s a G&T on arrival before my talk about modern gin-making and what inspires the people crafting the spirit. I will be joined by…
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Behind the scenes
AUTHOR AT WORK: LIGHTHOUSES In January, I set goals for the year and developing a portfolio of travel writing was one of them. By the end of the month I’d made a good start with a visit to Angus. Gradually through the pandemic the fruits of January’s trip were published – mostly in print so…
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Gin families
It sometimes seems that the current love affair with gin is a UK wide phenomenon but there are different forces at work in different places. Yorkshire Day (1 August) seemed like a good time to compare the gin scenes from the areas of my two books. My thoughts are in the article posted on the…
The GIN CLAN 