Since our previous post from The Royal Oak in Cullen we have been to Hopeman, a seaside village next to Burghead. When we are in Burghead we particularly enjoy the Bothy Bistro, one of the best restaurants we know. Now they have opened a new venue in Hopeman called Bootleggers and, although it is still a work in progress, we wanted to see it. It’s a beach cafe so you have to park at the harbour and walk along the beach to get to it. It’s still something of a building site but we do recommend you try and go there if you are in the vicinity, we’re sure you won’t be disappointed. Unfortunately we couldn’t hang about because we had to get home so this post is from the Coffee Pot in Dufftown.

No excuses

In Dufftown there’s a saying – Where Rome was built on seven hills, Dufftown was built on seven stills. The stills in question are Mortlach, Glenfiddich, Balvenie, Dufftown, Glendullan and Kininvie. Another three: Convalmore, Parkmore and Pittyvaich are not producing at the moment. The town’s six working distilleries account for more than 10% of Scotland’s whisky production. Pat’s bound to find something here!

The Coffee Pot seemed to the only place open so in we went. The wee lass who came to serve us looked as if she would rather be anywhere else but here. Not even a hint of a smile. We asked what kind of scones they had. She replied ” plain, charry, cheese”. We said “what?” She repeated what she had just said. Then we realised  it was our fault for not being fluent in Dufftownspeak.  ‘Charry’ was actually ‘cherry’.  We opted for a cheese and a plain.

The cafe recently made headlines because it was bought by a nineteen year old local girl, Chloe. She had worked there for several years and when it came up for sale she bought it. Well done Chloe, a big step but good luck with it all. It’s definitely a ‘no frills’ kind of place but we think it could do with a few more frills. The decor just makes it look fairly spartan so hopefully she will do something to make it a bit more cheery. The scones were okay at best … a bit ‘no frills’ as well. Maybe our server was just having a bad day but we really hope she brightens up soon.

The Watchers

To get home we decided to take the notorious A939 from Tomintoul to Cockbridge. It is billed as one of Scotland’s great and most dangerous drives. Every year without fail it is the first to get blocked with snow. Since the temperature was about 25C we reckoned it would be safe enough. It’s a great road. Soon we came to the Watchers a sculpture which mimics many of the prehistoric standing stones in this part of the world. They are actually made of folded sheets of steel that form a cowal with a seat to provide shelter from the elements as well as a fantastic view over Corgarff Castle.

The castle was built in 1530 and burned down a few times before eventually being used to suppress the illegal traffic in whisky. Did we mention that Dufftown had quite a few distilleries and that it would difficult not to buy some there? Well, she did … woohoo! I am now the proud owner of a bottle of Finlaggan whisky. Appropriate because my middle name is McDonald and Finlaggan, on the Isle of Islay, is the seat of clan Donald, Lords of the Isles! Problem … it appears to be prone to evaporation because the level has gone down quite a bit in the short time I’ve had it.

Home

We continued home at the end of our time away on very ordinary undangerous roads. It’s been great!

///renovated.edicts.decency

PS: Now you’ve all heard of Oberon, the King of the Fairies. Well the other day we heard from our Bathurst correspondents who were actually in Oberon, a village about a three hour drive from Sydney. Turns out that many years ago they befriended a Vietnamese girl called Quit (pronounced Whoot, as in soot). We think Quit (pronounced as in quit) should be Boris’s new name. Anyway Quit has just opened  Café Oberon so they decided to visit.

This is in spite of the the pretty half of our correspondents having broken her leg … that’s dedication. We wish her a speedy recovery. 

They report that their scone was excellent.Well done Quit

Pronunciation

On the subject of pronunciation they also report as follows:

“On the subject you raised recently regarding the pronunciation of “scone”, I can advise that the town so named to the north of us is pronounced like “phone”. Some hoity-toity people in our part of the world also pronounce the edible version the same way.  Not us, of course.

PS – your last post featuring Speyside Coffee shows a picture of The Sydney Harbour Bridge on the packet. What is the connection , if any. Perhaps it is the bridge in Newcastle which rumour has it, was a trial of the design of our SHB”.

We are happy to report that the bridge in question is in fact the Spey Viaduct only a few hundred meters from the cafe in Garmouth.

130 Oberon St, Oberon NSW 2787, Australia