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Recipe: Lagavulin Whisky Torte
Good morning Whisky Adventurers,
I am about to embark on a wee Whisky Adventure to Pitlochry today, climbing hills, visiting Edradour and checking out the Enchanted Forest.
While I’m out exploring, I thought I’d post a recipe for my famous Whisky Torte.
This is an adaptation from a recipe I saw in a charity recipe book a few years back. It is incredibly versatile and can be made with a number of different drams, as well as chocolates. My favourite combination is Lagavulin DE and 85% cocoa chocolate. A peaty finish to a rich chocolatey monster! Here’s how you do it:
Ingredients:
250g chocolate digestives
90g butter
340g dark chocolate
500ml double cream
25-50ml Whisky (you decide)
Method:
Method:
1. Whizz biscuits in blender
2. Melt butter in saucepan and add to biscuits and mix. Spread the mixture evenly in a tin (tart or pie pan) with a removable base and put in fridge to chill.
3. Melt the chocolate in a microwave, checking and stirring 30 seconds at a time to make sure that it does not burn.
4. Whip the cream until it makes soft peaks
5. Warm the whisky in a microwave for 30 seconds - make sure it is warm and not hot. Add the chocolate mixture, stir and fold it may look like it will separate but keep mixing.
6. Add the Whisky and chocolate mixture to the whipped cream and fold.
7 Spread the mixture evenly on top of the biscuit base and leave in fridge for approx 6 hours
Other possibilities:
Originally the recipe called for Baileys and Irish Whiskey with White Chocolate, lovely.
Macallan Fine Oak is great with White Chocolate, light and delicate with a zing at the end.
Highland Park is amazing with Orange Chocolate, sink into this cake.
Aberlour with Dark Chocolate is like the Shimmy and the Shake, a perfect marriage!
The possibilities are endless.
Let me know how you get on.
Cheers,
Craig
In my hipflask: Scotch Malt Whisky Society 4.155 a true hillwalking dram! -
London Adventure Day 2: A Very Long Lunch…
Waking up on Tuesday was hard work. After Monday’s incredible tour with Patsy, John, Bryant, Jonathon and Rebecca, there were a few cobwebs to be disposed off.However London is a big place with lots to see, and there is no better way to perk up a day than with a four hour lunch with some friends.Patsy and Bryant joined me for the afternoon. Bryant lives in London and Patsy is currently coming to the end of a two week tour here, and I was surprised at how fast they acted. I am always one to slow down a conversation, one to drink in my surroundings and definitely one to accept the very occasional lazy day. Londoners don’t appear to be able to do this.I love London for it’s architecture, it’s decadence and style a big Victorian middle finger to the rest of the world. Britannia did rules the world and they knew it. I get the feeling that Londoners take this for granted. They spend so much time underground that they don’t see the details. And even down here the stations are gorgeously unique, yet nobody seems to notice them. I love them though, and I wanted to take this spirit of Adventure and apply it to my day.Bryant, being a sommelier in a Michelin Star restaurant, knows the hotspots in town, so he instructed us to meet him in Sloan Square at 1pm before walking a mile or so along King’s Road in Chelsea to a little restaurant called Medlar.
We grabbed a table for three and sat down ready for an incredible attack on the palate. Medlar was opened by two of Bryants ex-colleagues with the sole purpose of delivering delicious food to the Chelsea Public.Medlar is unassuming. It’s plain interior and lack of ambient music let you know straight away that here, the food is king. How it looks, how it smells, how it tastes and ultimately how it makes you feel. This place doesn’t have a Michelin star, but I believe it’s only a matter of time!Feast your eyes on our feast of the senses…
Starters:
Raviola
Duck egg with duck hearts
Ham hock Foie Grais on toastMains:
Mushroom ravioli
GrouseDesserts:
Creme Brulee with some communal White Chocolate and Pistachio Ice Cream
Chocolate and Honecomb Torte and a slice of Pear TartThere was also a middle course of 36 month aged Gruyere with Water biscuits. Lovely!To drink, we relied on our sommelier, and Bryant delivered…Champagne as an aperitif, lovely and dry. A glass of dry dessert wine with the above sweet treats and some incredible aged Prune Eau de vie. Weirdly satisfying that one…
And with the Grouse, we had an incredible 1998 Burgundy. With my knowledge of wine all I can tell you is that I loved it. The way it opened up with time was magical. A stellar choice!
My favourite product though, had to be the bottled water. I’d seen it in every restaurant we visited, but had never seen it in Edinburgh. I wanted to know why it was being picked by all the best places. It was nothing to do with smelling or tasting better or minerals or purity. It is bottled by a company that donates all profit to WaterAid. This was a bottled water (one industry I have never understood) with what appears to be a massive heart. I’m impressed. Belu, take a bow!
At 5pm we left Medlar stuffed, ready to burst. Honestly could not fit another mouthful. On the way back to the tube station, we stopped in an antiques fair (most people were walking past) to have a slow meander round at all the stuff.Antiques fairs are incredible places. Cluttered and useless, you find two types of stall owner. More often than not they will be reading a book, ignoring the punters. These people have brought their collections of commodities. Everything has a price tag, but that is to show what their commodities are worth. They don’t want to sell, they love their things and only really want to show it off. If they do get an enquiry, haggling will be painful and sales will be finalised with a very heavy heart.The other stall owners are business people. They greet you with a smile. They love questions and they buy only to sell on at a greater price.This makes people watching at antique fairs enormous fun. Try it next time you’re in one. Ask questions, handle commodities and watch sellers eye light up or hearts drop as you enquire about prices.After a rummage around we passed a shoe shop with the best name in the world. It seems that even the childish comedy in this is lost on the hundred mph crowd of passers by!Back to the hotel for a nap, I decided that I’d have a sociable beer and dram in the City at the bar with the most comprehensive collections of single cask whiskies in the world. I am of course talking about the Scotch Malt Whisky Society in London.
With a bigger selection than both Edinburgh venues, and food from the famous Bleeding Heart tavern below, SMWS London is a hidden gem in the hustle and bustle that is the City.
I decided to have Mortlach from a first fill sherry butt. (Not available in either SMWS in Edinburgh, that’s the beauty of these places, every backbar has its own hidden gems surrounded by the latest list of beauties)
This was a perfect rich and spicy dram to ensure lunch had settled. So good it was that I bought two bottles to use at the St Andrews Quaich Society tasting on Thursday.
After a dram, I bumped into Jonathon who had suitably recovered from our adventure the day before. He had heard of a new bar up the road, and wanted to check it out.
Behold The Craft Beer Company…
With countless beers and bottles on tap, this new kid on the block delivered up a feast for the eyes as well as a palate straining selection of craft beers from all over the world.
We sampled the following…
Then Bryant showed up, eager to take me to China Town. Bidding Jonathon fairwell, we tubed it to Mayfair (missed one tube which flustered a few people around us, but guess what… There was a second train two minutes later).Meandering through the streets we were approached by people offering us all kinds of club discounts. Luckily for me, our destination was pre-ordained, otherwise I may have ended up with my dancing shoes on.We stopped outside this door in China Town…
I felt that I was entering some kind of illegal gambling pit. Up the long narrow staircase I was suddenly confronted by a scene straight out of Mad Men. This was the Experimental Cocktail Club. Our masterful bartender Alex was mixing up some Rob Roys while a beautiful red dress at the end of the bar was singing to the crowd, seducing everyone with her voice and convincing everyone that they needed to spend more money.Alex’s Rob Roy was spiced up with a few drops of Laphroaig Cask Strength, he must have read my heart as I approached. A wonderful concoction!
I ended the night with a Scandinavian Daiquiri to toast a Norwegian friend’s birthday and also exploit the fact that this must be the only bar in the UK with Aquavite in the speed rail. My mission complete I exited ECC and made my way happily back to the hotel.
Little did I know, that breakfast on Wednesday would be yet another culinary adventure.
A short walk from Goodge St is a place called the Riding House Cafe. Words can’t do it justice.
Find it, Go there, Eat.
Cheers,
Craig
In my glass: Water -
Recipe: Craig’s Edible Peat
When was the last time you had a Whisky lunch?
Whisky and food matching is an extremely enjoyable thing to do, and one which can be terribly hit or miss. What I can say, is that the beauty in food pairing with whisky is the plethora of results and the diversity of opinions. The Adventuring, the Experimenting and the Experience of sharing these weird and wonderful delights is a joy to behold.Food pairing was probably the hardest part of my job, until I realised that my audience were far more interested in the story behind the choices than the choices themselves. As with everything in life, we all have an opinion and we are entitled to it. A pairing that gets some people singing, might encourage others to revisit their breakfast. You can’t please all of the people all of the time, but you can get them chatting about their experiences. This led me to the following rule of thumb:When food pairing with whisky, always try to Compliment or Contrast, and always be open to feedback regarding the marriage, expanding your experiences as you go. Here are a couple of my more triumphant pairings and their alternatives:A salty, briny, fishy whisky is incredible at taming a robust smoked fish chowder, yet the same dish can be exacerbated with a gorgeous and deep peardrop and vanilla flavour profile.orA full blown sherried whisky is the perfect compliment to a nice haunch of venison, yet it can also allow a blue cheese to blast off on the palate.But occasionally you will come across a whisky that does not want to play ball…
The difficulty generally comes from the peat monsters. These whiskies are generally too smoky and can easily mask a cuisine. (I did meet a guy from Texas once who glazed his roast with Lagavulin, but I found out that this was more a measure to keep others away from his red meat than to heighten any flavour expectations. Turns out his friends hated peaty whisky.) How can we get around this most intense of flavours? The answer is simple. Serve them up with a side of peat.Last year, I had the difficult task of matching Ardbeg to food. Everyone agreed that it was too overpowering for everything. But never one to back away from a challenge, I decided to put my apron on and get to work in the kitchen. I decided that the best thing to match a peaty whisky with was peat itself. Therefore I developed this edible version of our favourite fossil fuel:
It looks like peat, it can have the consistency of peat, and with enough Ardbeg it smells like peat smoke too. If you want to shock a group of 100 whisky enthusiasts, just explain all about peat with a piece of this in your hand finishing with the line “and what 99.9% of the world don’t realise, is that it is 100% edible…” Then chuck it in your mouth.Let me know how you get on, I’d love to hear your feedback and see your photos and tweaks to this recipe. You can share them with me on Twitter.Cheers,Craig
In my glass: Ardbeg Alligator and a chunk of Craig’s Edible Peat -
Event: All About Smoke (and Blues)
One of the best parts of my current role, is the opportunity to host whisky tastings for The Scotch Malt Whisky Society and their members. These events are always informal, fun, entertaining, full of info and slightly curious. The next public event I’m hosting for them is no different…
All About Smoke (and Blues)
Tuesday 20th September
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society
28 Queen Street
Edinburgh
7pm til late
All About Smoke (and Blues) promises to introduce you to the slightly sinister side of peaty whisky and to the musical talents of Booker’s Guitar, an acoustic blues duo from our fair city of Edinburgh. (Check them out here: Booker’s Guitar on Facebook)
I’ll be presenting 5 smoky whiskies from the excellent inventory of Single Cask, Singe Malt Scotch Whiskies held at The Scotch Malt Whisky Society. These will be punctuated by stories from my recent trip to Islay, as well as with stories and techniques I’ve picked up from all over the world during the last 8 years of Whisky Adventures. And if that isn’t enough, this will all be accompanied by a fine supper from the Society’s Michelin Guide recommended kitchen at 28 Queen Street.
If you feel this is of interest and you are a member of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, then get on to http://www.smws.co.uk to book a ticket. If you are a non-member, and want to see what the Society is all about, again check out their website and call them about tickets and of course membership.
Here you will find all interesting things I come across in the world of Scotch Whisky as I travel and spread the wit and wisdom over a dram or two...
