Tag Archives: Stronachlachar

Deanston Distillery

Okay we haven’t posted for a while so this one may contain a slightly bigger rant than normal. Let’s face it we are hardly short of things to rant about.

When we named this post Deanston Distillery we had forgotten that we had reviewed the tearoom before. It’s called the Coffee Bothy but that was six years ago so it’s about time we checked it out again. Last time we were here we were able to watch sandpipers on the banks of the river Teith which runs by the distillery. None this time but we did see some grey wagtails and they are always nice to see as well.

Perfect circles
Five shilling note in Deanston money
Five shilling note in Deanston money.

Previously we told you that the workers, when it was a cotton mill, were paid in ‘Deanston money.’ This ‘money’ could be exchanged for goods in the village shop which was owned by …  you guessed it, the mill owner. A perfect monetary circle. In our previous post we also explained that the distillery was originally a flax mill, then a cotton mill before eventually being transformed into a distillery in 1965. It’s owned by the South African based Distell Group that also owns Bunnahabbhain distillery and Tobermory distillery … hallowed names in the whisky world.

Burke and Hare

What on earth could that notorious pair, who murdered lots of people and sold their bodies to medical science, have to do with this sleepy little village? Well, not a lot directly, however, Burke’s wife Helen had to adopt an itinerant way of life after her husband was hanged in Edinburgh before a crowd of 20,000 in 1829. She was acquitted but in the eyes of the people she was guilty by association. Described as “An Unfortunate Female of the Degraded Class” she was unable to settle because when folk discovered her identity there would be angry riots and attempts on her life.

Eventually she took up with a spinner at Deanston cotton mill but had only been there three days before she was discovered. A band of women strangled and crushed her to death in a most barbarous way. Luckily, times have changed, our welcome at the Coffee Bothy was very warm and friendly.Internal view of Deanston Distillery

Taken aback

Anyway, enough of murders and dastardly deeds. After some lunch we asked for a fruit scone to share. At the Coffee Bothy, the scones always come in pairs making sharing very easy. When we asked the young girl who was looking after us if she had made the scones she simply replied “Yes”. A scone at Deanston DistilleryWe were taken aback. Normally that question is greeted with giggles but followed by the information on who did actually make them. It’s a useful way of finding out if they are made in-house or bought-in.

They were nicely presented and the size of each scone was perfect for us to have one each. We weren’t too sure about the cream, it could have been scooshie but it had quite good consistency so we weren’t sure. The scones themselves were really nice but unfortunately just fell short of our top award. Hats off to all young girls making scones though!

Has the world gone nuts

… or is it just us? In our previous post from the Coffee Bothy we compared the UK economy to the “Angel’s Share”.

Red deer playing a musical instrument
talented wildlife in Doune

That’s a term used to describe the gradual evaporation that takes place over many years from whisky barrels. Eventually there is nothing left in the barrel bu, a few angels have become very happy in the process, analogous to our economy under a Tory government. Some make millions while others have to rely on food banks. After the debacle over Rishi Sunak’s wife’s non-dom status that would have saved her over £4.4 million in tax. Poor dear we wonder if she even had to work for half a day to earn that sort of money. Now, however, other cabinet ministers are refusing to disclose their tax status. In Norway tax returns are a matter of public record. Goodness, can you ever imagine that happening here?

World beaters

Boris Johnson and Priti Patel have hatched a ‘world beating’ to send, at vast expense, refugees that land in the UK to Rwanda, one of the poorest countries in the world. There they can be processed before the people traffickers transport them back to the UK in tiny rubber boats. What kind of twisted mind comes up with that as a solution to anything? Are we going to do that for Ukrainian refugees as well?

Display of Deanston whiskyRussian TV gets a lot of criticism because it simply does the government’s bidding. The BBC might be going exactly the same way. When discussing all the many reasons for the UK’s economic predicament, one of the most obvious reasons is never ever mentioned …. Brexit. It’s as though it has been totally expunged for the BBC vocabulary. It’s almost as if it never happened?

Okay, it might be us that’s nuts! But we have to say that there is something strangely comforting about eating scones surrounded by vast quantities of whisky. Not sure what it is but we do recommend it.

External view of Deanston House
Deanston House which used to be the home of the mill owner

FK16 6AG      tel: 01786 843010      Deanston distillery

///awoke.hobbies.happen

A scone at the Pier cafe at StronachlacherPS: lo and behold our ever vigilant Trossachs correspondents have sprung back into life with news from the Pier tearoom in Stronachlachar. We know it well and there can’t be many more scenic places to have a scone than here. We haven’t been for a long time so it was great to hear that their standards had not slipped.

Hot cross scones?

And that’s not all. One of our Kiwi correspondents has sent news of a hot cross scone in Mapua, Tasman at the northern end of the South Island. External view of Deanston DistilleryIt’s a new one on us! He got it at a streetside stall with an honesty box. We love honesty boxes but unfortunately our correspondent reports that “it was average  and a bit on the heavy side and the cross part tasted  leathery like an old boot lace“. Oh dear, thank goodness they’re in New Zealand and not here.

Forest Hills Hotel

Dead end scones

This is a real dead-end kind of place. But only because it is at the end of a dead-end road! To be precise it is not quite at the end of the road because you can go on a few miles to Stronachlachar and Inversnaid but you have no choice but to come back the same way. Having said that, Rob Roy, whose country this is, probably had a hundred ways in and out of Kinlochard. He wasn’t driving a car though. Staying in the village for a few days, courtesy of our intrepid and generous Trossachs correspondents, afforded us a chance to explore the local scone scene. Previously we have reported on one of our favourite places, the Wee Blether in the centre of the village. But there are scones everywhere in the Trossachs. Forest Hills 05

Forest Hills Hotel

The Forest Hills Hotel was just along the road and seemed like a good place to start. It holds a particularly fond memory for me from almost forty years ago. I was the official photographer at a family wedding. At one point I remember assembling the bride and groom and both sets of parents in front of a fireplace for a group shot. Forest Hills 01The hotel has undergone massive changes since then and I wondered if the fireplace had survived almost four decades of modernisation and change. It had, and still stands proud, pretty much as I remembered it. In fact the main part of the hotel was remarkably unchanged.

How many scones do you need?

Forty years ago we were sipping champagne which had been transported in suitcases all the way from France, but this time, of course, we were on scone safari. Pat just wanted a cup of tea so it was up to me to order a scone for myself. Turned out they came in twos (one plain, one fruit) but something was obviously lost in translation because when they arrived there was two for Pat as well! Heyho, she scoffed them anyway, no problem! Forest Hills 08Three different jams as well as a generous bowl of cream and the scones themselves were just the way we like them … warm, not too big, slightly crunchy on the outside and beautifully soft and light inside… mmmmm, topscone!

Nowadays the hotel has all the necessary accoutrements to make it into a ‘spa’ resort. It is slightly ironic, however, to see lots of people pounding treadmills in a hot sweaty gym when they are surrounded by beautiful countryside and hills where they could be getting much better exercise whilst breathing pure clear Trossachs air. What is that all about?

View from the hotel towards Loch Ard with endless exercise opportunities
View from the hotel towards Loch Ard with endless exercise opportunities

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Is the UK a sporting powerhouse

Perhaps, more to the point at this particular time, what are the Olympics all about? Once a noble amateur sporting spectacle, in recent years it has succumbed to the powers of capitalism. Its lost it’s moral compass. Too much flag waving by multi-millionaires and pontificating by knights of the realm! The world would be a much better place if there was no professionalism in sport. Can’t think of a single good thing to come from it. If Team GB does well there will be calls for vast amounts of money to be invested to maintain our place in the world as a great sporting powerhouse. If it does badly there will be calls for vast amounts of money to be invested to transform us into a great sporting powerhouse. As if it matters? Never mind Russia’s drug taking, financial and medical advantages over others are just another form of cheating!

The fact that we might beat Team Vanuatu in the hop, skip and jump is supremely irrelevant to almost everything that really matters. It’s all a grotesque nonsense and a waste of money.

not a cossetted Olympic event ... a proper swimming event at the loch
not a cossetted Olympic event … a proper swimming event at the loch

On top of all that we are expected to listen to endless banal drivel from multi-millionaire commentators and pundits. Olympic tennis turns out to be a rerun of Wimbledon? Olympic golf … we despair! The sooner they have ordinary dads building an IKEA Billy bookcase as an Olympic event the better. Rant over, must get back to the scones, they’re very good … gold medal even.

FK8 3TL         tel: 0344 879 9057          Forest Hills Hotel

Trakai Island Castle

What are our Trossachs correspondents like?? A couple of weeks ago it was Gibraltar, then Stronachlachar and now, Vilnius, (we are prepared to bet that that is the first time these three places have ever been mentioned in a single sentence). We thought our own scone efforts were pretty good but this is definitely above and beyond. It all depends on the scones of course.

Searching for scones

Well, .. in spite of their best endeavours, scouring Vilnius from top to bottom, not a single scone was found … zilch. At one point they excitedly crossed the street because they had seen these in a café window. They turned out to be some sort of crème brûlée thingys. Easy mistake to make. Lithuania 04They did however come across signs of support for our own Nicola Sturgeon.

Did they give up? Not a bit of it. Undaunted, and taking inspiration from our Aussie correspondents who recently reported from Eilean Donan Castle, they elected to try and find an equivalent. And they did, about 20km west of Vilnius.  Trakai Island Castle on Lake Galvė, like Eilean Donan, is situated on an island and joined to the mainland by a bridge. It dates from the 14th century. After falling into serious disrepair it underwent a major reconstruction program which was only completed in the 1960s. Unfortunately, yet again there were no scones. There were, however, reminders of home.Lithuania 02b The Lithuanians have a haggis equivalent, vedarai, and seem happy to compare it to the genuine article.

Incomprehension

What of Lithuania itself and its people? We can do no better than quote directly from our correspondents report: “the very clear message here (Lithuania) is that all generations cannot understand how or why the UK voted for Brexit. They also know quite clearly that Scotland voted to Remain. This is a small country of just under 3 million, reveling in it’s independence and EU membership. Is everything perfect.? No, many of their young people are working in Scotland and sending money home.

However, they are confident about their future, have an education system where children are educated in Lithuanian and English and are generally very positive about being members of the enlarged European family. Lithuania 03We have experienced none of the xenophobic rhetoric of Farage, Gove and Co. We note that Gove has got his just deserts and that the UK will now have a woman as Prime Minister. Lithuania already has one and of course we have Nicola. Let’s hope that the UK does not repeat the last occasion we had a female Prime Minister. A model of whom we saw in a street market in Trakai today”.

Scotland and Lithuania

Once again we are indebted to our Trossachs correspondents in spite of the dearth of scones. It seems that Lithuania has much in common with Scotland. A high degree of national pride and a philosophy that foreigners are welcome and considered an asset. Of course Scotland has a vast array of riches compared with Lithuania, not just scones! Unbelievably though, Scotland, still has all it’s major decisions made by another country with very different interests? You can almost see the open-mouthed incredulous look on Lithuanian faces. They must think we are mad … or stupid, or both!

Lithuania       tel: +370 528 53946      Trakai Island Castle

BREAKING NEWS: Our correspondents, still in Lithuania, have decided that they are not going to find any Lithuanian scones comparable to our own. Lithuania 12However, they have managed to find a sort of scone equivalent in a café called Kmyninė just east of Vilnius city centre. Lithuania 10They were served by a lovely man and woman who have had the café for just over a year and made them feel very welcome.

Lithuanian scones

Once again quoting directly. “It is one of many great initiatives, we have experienced, where hard working young people are making a real fist of it in challenging circumstances. It is hard for us to comprehend how the poisonous narrative of the Brexit campaign managed to persuade the UK electorate that these fine young Europeans are a threat to our society and values. At least they know that they are welcome in Scotland”. Lithuania 11But what about the Lithuanian scones? Lithuania 08“There was no jam,cream or butter but these offerings were delicious. crisp on the outside, soft and tasty inside with a lovely nutty flavour. A bit like Ma Broon’s rock cakes”. So there you have it, another first for allaboutthescones.com. If in Vilnius and crave a scone, your best bet is to head to Kmyninė.

Vilnius        tel: +370 640 49042          Kmyninė Food & Groceries FB

The Pier Tearoom

The writing was on the wall from the start. When James Graham, Marquess of Montrose was promoted to Duke as reward for his support in bringing about the Act of Union in 1707, he was never going to be best buddies with Scotland’s Robin Hood, Rob Roy MacGregor. When the Duke, no doubt flushed with his new found importance, confiscated the MacGregor lands, that really put the tin lid on their relationship.

Factor's island, Stronachlachar
Factor’s island, Stronachlachar

In an act of retaliation, Rob Roy imprisoned Montrose’s factor (rent collector) on an island on Loch Katrine and to this day it is still known as Factor’s island. Rob Roy was born at Glengyle, just a short distance away.

Punishment
View from the pier
View from Stronachlachar

As if to punish the Factor further, the island is less than a 100 meters from this great wee tearoom with a glass conservatory, so he would have had to sit alone and hungry on his island watching folk tucking into cakes, scones and all sorts of other goodies. Absolutely no mercy!

We have no idea

We were here to meet with our intrepid Trossachs correspondents who, readers will remember, were recently reporting from Gibraltar. What better place for a debriefing session than here at Stronachlachar, one of the most beauStronachlachar 08tiful spots on the planet. The steamship Sir Walter Scott usually docks here but on this occasion the much smaller Lady of The Lake came into the pier and disgorged her cargo of happy walkers and cyclists. The tearoom has everything you would want; free wifi; fine coffee; fine wine; home made cakes … and scones, but not homemade?? Stronachlachar 11Why, when they make their own cakes, they don’t make their own scones, we have no idea.

Anyway, in the middle of an intense discussion on modern trends in sconology, we received our scones. Nicely presented with lots of jam and cream. They were enjoyable enough though the overall feeling was that the bicarbonate had been overdone, leaving a slight aftertaste. No topscone unfortunately but this is still a great tearoom in a great setting and, if you go, you will enjoy it, thougStronachlachar 07h hopefully the use of this old phone box will not be necessary!

Loch Katrine, of course, has been the water supply for the city of Glasgow since the 1850s, a phenomenal feat of engineering and far-sightedness. The water flows 35 miles into the city only dropping 10 inches in every mile. Do we have similarly far-sighted politicians today? We fear not. Modern day neo-liberalism means that those in power cannot see much further than the end of their noses! Musn’t speak too ill of them however, as the debacle over the EU referendum has been interrupted by the tragic murder of Labour’s Jo Cox. It’s very much a time for sympathy and solidarity.

FK8 3TY          tel: 01877 386 374          The Pier Tearoom

New gin venture

On our journey home we unexpectedly stumbled upon this .. the Trossachs distillery … fantastic. Only opened two weeks previously, we thought we should at least give it a mention. Brainchild of the affable Dale McQueen, it produces gin in a variety of flavours using a unique distillation method. He even puts it in nice, dark blue ceramic bottles. The gin market is ‘busy busy’ at the moment so we hope Dale gets a favourable wind for his venture. Online shop at the link below. We chose the ‘sweet citrus’ and the ‘mocha’ and the … noooo we didn’t buy them all. Might go back for the others!Trossachs distillery 03bFK17 8LR        tel:07968 063125            Trossachs Distillery