Food & Drink Reviews
Conwy’s California Dreaming
Craft brewers owe much to the stateside brewing pioneers who first turned up the volume on British style IPA’s to make them even bolder and more robust. And it was the Golden State that led the way, so it’s fitting that Conwy Brewery’s homage to the genre are named for Cali’s most famous landmark and most enjoyed pastime.
Surfin’, is the more laid back of the two, and is reminiscent of the earlier west coast IPA’s that came out of San Francisco in the noughties. Yes, it’s big and bold with plenty of hops on the nose and palate but the hop hit is measured and counter balanced by zesty grapefruit. There’s a lovely malty, bitter finish and a hint of yeast throughout, unsurprising given Conwy’s beers are naturally conditioned and continue to develop in the bottle. With elements of a traditional British beer and hop forward, zesty American IPA’s it’s a very satisfying beer indeed. Golden Gate jumps a few years forward and turns it up to 11. Courtesy of quad-hopping, it’s a blast of four American hops (Columbus, Cascade, Ekuanot and Citra) and is guaranteed to make you sit and take notice. Having said that, it’s no one trick pony, possessing hints of citrus and a nice malty, full bodied finish alongside its moreish bitterness.
Tavern Mead
Not only do Caldicot based Hive Mind produce award winning Traditional mead (with a Golden Fork to boot), and variations on it, but they also have a reputation for pushing the boundaries – check out their honey beers, Honeyade soft drinks and sparkling meads. Whilst they’re constantly searching for new twists and turns, the starting point is always the same though – real honey.
The latest from the team is an entry level take on traditional mead. By entry level, we mean lower alcohol and lower price, but still the real deal – you won’t find sugar, cheap wine and honey flavourings here.
Like it’s stable mates, it’s a simple union of honey, water and yeast and true to Hive Mind’s philosophy – which is to give consumers and the trade a genuine, authentic mead experience. It’s a lovely ‘old’ gold colour, has a delightful floral aroma and a light, crisp mouthfeel. While it has a lovely sweet, honeyed richness that you can curl your tongue around, it’s not as intense as the higher strength traditional they produce nor is it too sweet - it’s even possible to pick up a touch of tart dryness akin to a medium dry white wine. The lower ABV doesn’t affect the clearly high quality liquid, and indeed may make it more appealing for many – it reflects a trend towards less alcohol, is more affordable and yet still resonates authenticity. It’s another breakthrough for Hive Mind.
In the Welsh Wind Aged Vodka
Now here’s an interesting thought. What would happen if you took a premium vodka and aged it in used oak barrels? A question that the exceptionally talented people at Cardigan’s In the Welsh Wind distillery asked themselves. So, they tried it, and kindly sent a sample to see what we made of it. We didn’t want to skew our reactions by researching the idea, deciding to try it neat, straightaway. Opening the bottle, my first thought on the aroma was ooh, Speyside malt, possibly aged in a sherry or port barrel with heady, oriental spice, vanilla and autumn fruit. On the palate, the raw spirit has a trademark clean and pure vodka profile, and it’s remarkably smooth and classy, but the aging brings yet more fruity spice and a lovely woody-ness. The finish ups the vanilla and adds subtle ‘Werthers Original’ toffiness. Must be aged in a whisky barrel, I figured. Time to do the research. Wrong! It’s actually aged in a red wine barrel, which in hindsight makes sense – it’s where the lovely fruit and spice comes from, especially if it’s a European red, that uses European oak. No matter. It tastes great. For what it’s worth we tried it with a tonic water, in a Martini and just with a splash of water, all of which were great (especially the Martini), but to truly appreciate it, stick to neat, as a sipping vodka.
Hafod Landmark best bitter
As much as I like a Craft beer, a strongly hopped native IPA, or its more challenging stateside cousin, and any of the myriad variations on the theme of real ale, it’s hard to beat the daddy of them all – a session ‘best bitter’. It seems that Mold’s Hafod brewery agree. At the core of their range sits Landmark, their excellent take on the genre. The key here is harmony, which is what you want from a beer you’re going to drink all night (or day!). No one aspect of its flavour profile crowds out the others. Yes, it’s full bodied, with plenty of moreish flavour but within that you can easily appreciate the loveliness of all the constituent elements – the chewy, biscuity malt, the grassy barley, the bitter hops, the fruit, vanilla and toffee accents. None of them scream at you but they work together so well and produce such a satisfying, interesting and enjoyable pint.
Usk Valley Cheese - Six Peaks and Blorenge
Wales’ food and drink scene has been garnering plaudits far and wide for many years now, but no more so than when it comes to cheese, which, lamb excepted, is probably our most illustrious food product. The reason is two fold. First and foremost, our lush, nutrient rich pasture helps produce great milk – you can’t make a silk purse out of sow’s ear. Secondly, Wales is stacked with great artisan producers that really know their stuff, have an ambition to excel and are not afraid of trying different approaches.
Usk Valley Cheese maybe relatively new, but they slot right into this template. They source their milk from local dairy cows farmed in the verdant fields in around Abergavenny and the Usk and have been mentored by some of Wales finest and long-established producers. And, as can be seen from their cheeses, they’re happy to be a little different. They started with a Gouda style semi-hard cheese, to which was added a saffron version, while we tried the ‘Six Peaks’ garlic and herb. It has a wonderfully creamy consistency – slightly soft and melt in the mouth – with a gorgeous tang and depth of flavour. To this has been added a well judged amount of herbs and garlic. Not too much, not too little – just enough of an aromatic, savouryness to compliment and bring out the best in the cheese. Perfect. New to the range is Blorenge, named after the hill overlooking the Jersey cows that provide its milk. It’s a Brie style soft cheese that’s creating waves. The soft, creamy texture may be Brie-like, but it’s egg yolk colour hints at unexpected richness and immense flavour courtesy of the ultra creamy, high butter-fat, Jersey milk – as any chef will tell you, fat means flavour. This buttery, tangy pleasure only builds as it matures and softens to gooey loveliness full of even earthier flavour.
Daisy Bank Dairy Milkshakes
Milkshakes should be the epitome of a natural, wholesome drink. What could be simpler – fresh healthy milk and real, often fruit, flavourings. Sadly, that’s rarely the case. Many are reconstituted milk, with artificial flavourings and colourings, too many additives and way too much sugar. Healthy and natural, they are not. Roll up Daisy Bank in Montgomeryshire to put that right. Daisy Bank, who are third generation dairy farmers and also make the award-winning Trefaldwyn cheese, start with creamy organic milk, produced from grass and clover fed cows on their own farm, which is naturally sweet and contains 50% more Omega3. To this are added the natural flavourings. The first thing that strikes you as you look at the bottles is the lack of vibrant colours, an indication that fake colouring agents have not been used.
The very first impression when you taste it is just how creamy it is, so used are we to the semi skimmed based UHT norm. This is proper full fat gorgeousness, that, for those that can remember, reminds me of a Gold Top, with its ring of cream in the bottle neck.
Strawberry – fresh, delicate, with an authentic taste of real strawberries, and not sicky sweet.
Welsh Coffee Co
While some wait to clearly see an opportunity before acting, there are some dedicated and visionary types who plough a lonely furrow before any opportunity comes into view, simply out of passion. Huw Williams is the latter. A coffee fanatic of longstanding who was so into his beans, he journeyed to Copenhagen to learn from industry legend Malcolm Quarleri how to best select, blend and roast coffee beans well before it became a trend. This passion, skill and determination is abundantly evident in the amazing coffee produced by the company he and his wife, Alison, founded in Ogmore over a decade ago. Their Nicaraguan medium roast is a robust beauty, with generous chocolate ,a touch of caramel and winteraberries, aromatic and the perfect start to the day. The light roast Mor, a blend of ??? is delightfully mellow and so smooth, exactly what you’d want in the afternoon, after an evening meal or while watching waves crashing on the beach. And as for the de-caff – wow. Absolutely no taste sacrifices here, this is the real deal and as good as any decaff you’ll taste…
Mr Holts Chocolate
I was lucky enough as a youngster to have an aunt who worked for arguably the world’s most famous chocolate maker, and have very fond memories gorging on freebies until almost sick. Those were the days before shrinkflation, reduced cocoa and dodgy additives, and I miss them. As do many, including the lovely people at Mr Holts. So much so, from their stunning restored windmill on Anglesey, they’ve created a handmade range of everyday chocolate, made the way it used to be. That means high cocoa content of 34% as against current standards in the region of 20%, quality ingredients (cocoa butter instead of palm oil or other fats!) and a whole lot of fun. With names like Iago, Gwdihw, Hiraeth and their signature milk chocolate Clasur, there’s also a playful nod to Welsh heritage, regardless of ambitions to go national.
Clasur delivers on the promise, and is everything you’d want from a milk chocolate bar. Creamy, smooth and velvety with deep soulful chocolate flavour. If Barry White was channelled into a chocolate bar, this would be it. Hireath adds a rich hazelnut filling for a lovely roasted, nutty, buttery dimension. And finally we tried Iago, with natural orange oil it’s a zesty, melt in the mouth experience where both the rich milk chocolate and orange complement each other perfectly. Proof that things can be what they used to be.
Nonna Assunta’s Spritz Cocktails
Having recently enjoyed Nonna Assunta’s sublime Italian inspired liqueurs, we didn’t need asking twice to try their new Spritz in a can. At their heart are the Limoncello and Arancello liqueurs made to a recipe handed down from the founders’ grandmother, ‘Nonna Assunta’, using the freshest, hand-peeled lemons and oranges to create a vibrant, zesty taste of the Med. With the addition of Prosecco and cloudy lemonade/orangeade, the Swansea based family business has created two delightful, effervescent Spritz cocktails that capture the spirit of balmy summer days drinking al fresco in one of Italy’s historic piazzas.
The Arancello Spritz is summer in a glass. It’s bright, refreshing and bursting with the taste of real oranges. It’s less bitter than Aperol, thanks to the use of cloudy orangeade and sweet, pithy orange but this is nicely balanced by the grown up, dryness of the Prosecco. The Limoncello Spritz plays on the same themes. The abundance of lemon delivers a juicy, almost succulent, zingy hit with that trademark lemon citric sharpness. The inherent sweetness of the cloudy lemonade is again dialled back by the prosecco giving a wonderfully light, invigorating experience.
Perfect for summer lunchtimes, picnics and balmy evenings, or on a yacht, moored off the Amalfi coast (we wish).
Still Wild Botanical Drinks
The folk from Still Wild are a determined bunch, endlessly striving for excellence. At their micro distillery, deep within the Pembrokeshire National Park, they meticulously experiment with how to gather (by hand), treat (individually macerated) and distil (cold under vacuum) local botanicals, to ensure Still Wild drinks retain the real essence of the plants, capturing the diverse terroir of Pembrokeshire’s clear coastal waters, river estuaries, hedgerows and rolling hills. This attention to detail has allowed them to create Wales’s first ever Vermouth, which is gathering commendations from across the globe.
We had the task of tasting the Still Wild range to see how the drinks hold up, and they knocked our proverbial socks off. Sampled alone and over ice, the Extra Dry Vermouth struck a beautiful balance of crisp dryness and gentle sweetness, with clean herby notes that felt almost Mediterranean. The Sweet Rosse Vermouth has gorgeously rounded berry notes with spicy eastern tones. The Rhudd Bitter Aperitif delivers the mouth-watering quality that comes when soft citrus sweetness meets a grab of bitterness.
Complex and beautiful. The Negroni, made using Still Wild’s own coastal gin, is a properly grown-up cocktail: crisply dry, robustly bitter and lifted by liquorice overtones, yet still offering a depth of sweetness that is truly moreish. Then the mixologist inside us took over and we experimented with the range and Still Wild’s fabulous bitters, creating classics from a smoky Manhattan to a bright, classy Gin Martini. We’re loving the whole range and the fun of its boundless cocktail possibilities.
Pembrokeshire Gold Dressings
Harry and Kim Thomas’ family have been farming near Manobier in beautiful Pembrokeshire for generations. Turning their attention from growing early potatoes to arable, the couple have become almost fanatical about unrefined, cold-pressed rapeseed oil. With meticulous attention to detail the family carefully grow, harvest and dry the rapeseed, all before the real magic happens, when the seeds are cold-pressed, squeezing out pure oil, undamaged by heat, which can be filtered to produce the crystal-clear Pembrokeshire Gold - bottled sunshine! While the award-winning extra-virgin oil is bursting with health benefi ts, its real charm for us is its glorious flavour and we have long used it at home for cooking and dressings. So, we were delighted to be given the opportunity to sample their range of bottled dressings. We dressed salads and dipped sourdough into; the Honey & Mustard, warm, honied and almost creamy with the gentle, spicy bite of Dijon mustard - gorgeous!; the Balsamic, sweet yet tart and so deeply sumptuous we couldn’t stop dipping; and finally the Chilli, Lime & Garlic, hot, sweet and so zesty that we went rogue, lavishly dressing barbequed meats and roasted veg with it. Three totally versatile dressings, each with their very own character, but all unutterably delicious!
Barti Ddu Cocktails to go
‘Crazy Seaweed Man’, Jonathan Williams is legendary throughout Pembrokeshire and beyond, for Café Mor’s seaweed-inspired menu and for whetting our whistles with the mythical Barti Spiced Rum, a smoothly sip-able spirit, that infuses the wildness of hand-picked laver seaweed into its gentle vanilla tones and warm cinnamon spices. And now he has another treat in store for us, three pre-mixed Barti cocktails have landed. Handily packaged in eye-catching cans, these are ideal to take, wherever the fair wind blows you.
Apple & Barti is a fruity, fresh cocktail, whose sweet apple fl avour is enlivened by a gentle peppery warmth beautifully complementing Barti’s spicey, round caramel notes. Th ink golden sunshine and lengthening shadows in a late-summer orchard. Th e Barti & Sea Buckthorn Fizz is a lightly crisp, summery fi zz, with juicy, berry fl avours that enhance the rum’s inherently soft vanilla tones. Imagine riverside aft ernoon picnics with friends. And fi nally, a personal favourite - Barti Ginger & Lemon Iced Tea. All that gloriously deep and rummy-ginger fl avour you would expect in a Dark & Stormy, but delivered with the gentle citrussy, tannin tang of the lemon tea. Th is is perfect grog to enjoy with your hearties at a BBQ, picnic or beach party, or simply a drift on the evening tide.
Comments