Tag: Scottish
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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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Dilemma sorted
Valentine’s Day Gifts Make it a Valentine’s Day to savour. Choose a book for the gin lover in your life. YORKSHIRE’S GINS will guide you through the gins of God’s Own County.The GIN CLAN will introduce you to the gins of Scotland.GINS of the NORTH WEST will guide you through the gins of Cumbria, Lancashire,…
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A Ding for Gin 2021
I enjoyed posting for #GinADayMay again this year but only managed 11 posts this time. Still, I thought it would be good to collect the posts to look back at in the future. These are from Instagram as they were more detailed and the #hashtags have mainly been removed. (Some were on Twitter as well).…
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Author escape – Angus
NEXT ADVENTURE I sent the last text for my next book Yorkshire’s Gins to the publisher in January, and immediately set off to the East Coast of Scotland to do research for some articles based around the 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath, the document asking the Pope to recognise Scotland’s independence and acknowledge…
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Virtual journeys 1
On a Borders Breather The writing of The Gin Clan was pretty intense at times, but it was a delight to be transported to different parts of Scotland. These virtual journeys often brought back happy memories of real visits. As I was writing up the profile of the Lilliard ginnery, I recalled a trip to…
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Hot off the press
The GIN CLAN is building up quite a lot of press coverage. Here are a few of the recent newspaper cuttings (in their digital format) New book a tonic for gin loves, Aberdeen Evening Express, April 2019 Read it here Edinburgh’s gin boom: How did the Capital become the home of quality gin? Edinburgh Evening…
The GIN CLAN 