On this episode of Scran Rosalind took a trip to Arran to learn a little more about food and drink production on the island.
Her first stop was at Lagg Distillery where Fred Baumgärtner, Brand Home Ambassador and Head Tour Guide showed her around this ultra-modern distillery set atop a cliffside with the most spectacular views. She sat down with Fred and Graham Omand, Distillery Manager to learn more about the liquid and what they've got coming up.
From Lagg to Bellevue Farm where Rosalind met Agnes Madden who helps out and Donald Currie who is a sixth generation farmer to work this land. Rosalind got to learn more about their traditional farm and how they have adapted in recent years to work with Lagg as well as welcoming visitors to stay and experience life on the farm. You'll hear mention of Ailsa too - that's Donald's wife. Oh and did she get to hold and feed a baby lamb? You'll have to listen to find out.
Finally, where else but to James of Arran? The famous Scottish chocolate brand was Rosalind's final port of call before heading back to the mainland. She met James McChlerey there who told her all about the business.
If you would like to find out more about visiting Arran and it's wonderful food and drink please visit www.arransfoodjourney.com
Her first stop was at Lagg Distillery where Fred Baumgärtner, Brand Home Ambassador and Head Tour Guide showed her around this ultra-modern distillery set atop a cliffside with the most spectacular views. She sat down with Fred and Graham Omand, Distillery Manager to learn more about the liquid and what they've got coming up.
From Lagg to Bellevue Farm where Rosalind met Agnes Madden who helps out and Donald Currie who is a sixth generation farmer to work this land. Rosalind got to learn more about their traditional farm and how they have adapted in recent years to work with Lagg as well as welcoming visitors to stay and experience life on the farm. You'll hear mention of Ailsa too - that's Donald's wife. Oh and did she get to hold and feed a baby lamb? You'll have to listen to find out.
Finally, where else but to James of Arran? The famous Scottish chocolate brand was Rosalind's final port of call before heading back to the mainland. She met James McChlerey there who told her all about the business.
If you would like to find out more about visiting Arran and it's wonderful food and drink please visit www.arransfoodjourney.com
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to Scran, the podcast passionate about the Scottish food and drink scene.
00:26I'm your host, Ros and Derskin, and on this episode I take a trip to Arran to learn a little more about food and drink production on the island.
00:36My first stop was at Lag Distillery, where Fred Baumgartner, Brand Home Ambassador and Head Tour Guide, showed us around this ultra-modern distillery set atop a cliffside with the most spectacular views.
00:48But the big reason they took the risk of sailing in this weather was the biggest danger they faced were the revenue cutters from the excise.
00:58From Lag, I travelled a short distance to Bellevue Farm, where I met Agnes Madden, who helps out there, and Donald Currie, who's a six-generation farmer to work this land.
01:11I learned more about their traditional farm and how they've adapted in recent years to work with Lag, as well as welcoming visitors to stay and experience life on the farm.
01:19I grow the barley for the distillery and I get the by-product back, and that can go in the fields as well to help as a cycle, isn't it?
01:28Yeah, kind of the way it probably always was.
01:30That's right.
01:33Finally, where else but to James of Arran?
01:36The famous Scottish chocolate brand was my final port of call before heading back to the mainland.
01:41I met James McCleary there, who told me all about his business.
01:44A lot of these are really traditional, so it goes way back to the traditional Belgian chocolates.
01:53Originally, each shape would have been a specific flavour, so people would have known, no matter what shop they went to, that was a strawberry or that was a cherry or whatever.
02:05We trust you have a pleasant journey with us today, and thank you for your attention.
02:09My name is Fred Baumgartner, I'm the Brand Home Ambassador and Head Tour Guide at Lag, and yeah, welcome to Lag.
02:20Really, the south end of Arran where we are today, that's the real heartland of distilling in the island.
02:26Because back in the 19th century, that's where all the farms were, the most agricultural bit of the island.
02:32Farms have people, people go barley, barley is what you turn into whiskey.
02:37So this is where it all happened.
02:38So with Lag coming back, we're kind of revitalising, giving a new energy to that history that came before us.
02:45And it's kind of a forgotten history as well, because we didn't have whiskey until 1985, when we reopened La Cranza.
02:51It's a fantastic opportunity to see everything that came before us.
02:54Lag did exist, 1825 to 1845.
02:58It was pretty stop-start, but it is roughly contemporary to the distilleries in Campbelltown, even in Islay.
03:04It never really succeeded like they did, and we'll look at that in a wee bit of detail.
03:10We've edited the wonderful Arran Water Tour to give you just a taste of what you can expect if you visit the distillery.
03:15There were three sort of original legal distilleries at that point.
03:20There was one in Glenshant in the back of Burwick, and there was one next to the high school in Lamlash, the White House Woods.
03:27Both of those opened somewhere in the 1790s, and we don't know when they closed.
03:32We essentially know nothing about them beyond they exist.
03:35They completely, utterly failed.
03:36And it was only this distiller, the Lag, 1825, that was a little bit more successful, but successful in massively relative terms.
03:44So it had the backing of the Duke of Hamilton, and at this point in time, he is the landowner.
03:49He basically owns all of Arran.
03:51So he gave them a little bit of support.
03:53He gave them rent abatements, and he encouraged them.
03:55He wanted to encourage some legal distilling.
03:57We'll see later on why he did that.
03:59And it was set up as a co-operative of three local South End individuals.
04:03One chap was called Captain Charles McAllister Shannon, former Army veteran, and he had the rent of Bennet Carrigan Farm, which is a farm you'll pass by that way.
04:15Not a farm today, but the big house is still there.
04:17A guy called Matthew McKinnon, and he had Clachig Farm, which is the farm on this side.
04:23It's actually the field that we bought the distillery from.
04:26And a guy called John Spears.
04:27He was the landowner of the Lag Hotel, or the Lag Inn at that time.
04:31So you've basically got two of Arran, two of the South End's biggest farmers, and you have the guy that owns a local pub.
04:38So they all got together to build a distillery, because they could take that barley they grew, turn it into whiskey, and make a little bit more money from it.
04:46And they also have the pub to flock it in, basically.
04:49So that's how it began.
04:50However, the environment didn't help legal distilling, but it was really, really good for the other kind, for illicit distilling.
04:59And illicit distilling absolutely flourished on Arran, much later than it did elsewhere in Scotland.
05:04And it was called the Arran Water.
05:06It's what they used to make here, and that's the whiskey.
05:09And apparently in the 19th century, the Arran Water was regarded as one of the best whiskeys you could get in Scotland, and was known as the Burgundy of Whiskey.
05:17It's a local Arran Gaelic song, and it's from World War One.
05:46And it's a story about a group of soldiers drowning out in the Fafa Clyde, in a shipwreck.
05:51So we mentioned Camel Town a little bit downstairs.
06:04I just want to point out, Camel Town is directly ahead there.
06:06So you can see Devar Island, and Camel Town Harbour is just behind it.
06:10So you can see how close it is.
06:12As the crow flies, it's pretty much right over there.
06:15And Camel Town crops up in the story quite a lot, because there are really strong connections between...
06:21So there are really kind of two groups.
06:28So one, you had your illicit distillers, and your second group was the smugglers.
06:32And these are what I describe as cowboys.
06:34So you could really go to the metaphor of pirates, but really I think it's more like the Wild West.
06:39So you have kind of untamed frontier landscape here on the South End, and you have grips, posses.
06:45It was usually young men at this point, and they were seen, they're quite a respected figure within the community.
06:51They're seen, they're quite wild, quite lawless.
06:54But 1770, a guy called John Burrow, he's the estate factor.
06:58So he runs the island for the Duke of Hamilton.
06:59And there was a plague at this point.
07:01So he put on a quarantine, and he said he suspected the quarantine would never work,
07:06because the smugglers, the banditti of the South End,
07:09hundreds and hundreds of young men whose entire livelihood was made about smuggling,
07:13just simply wouldn't follow it.
07:15But yeah, they were essentially, again, if the only kind of employment you had on the island
07:19was maybe working on the farms, if you're north then maybe a little bit of the fisheries,
07:23or potentially you could join the army.
07:24Again, in the 19th century, lots of people went off to join the Nepal and it was at this point as well.
07:30But those were all quite strict, quite hard lifestyles, which didn't suit everyone.
07:35So joining a smuggling gang was essentially sticking your middle finger up at authority.
07:40So they acted in little grangs.
07:41They would then go up into the boffies in the mountains, find or get the alisic whiskey,
07:46take him down to the beaches and the ports, and then smuggle him off island from here.
07:50So down here you've got Cleet Shoa, you've got Camoré Beach that way as well,
07:53and these are exactly the little places that you can imagine.
07:56So you've got Port Moor just down here.
07:59Port in this sense, you know, it really just means a small beach you can land a boat from, essentially.
08:04They intended to use a type of vessel called a wherry.
08:07Again, if you came to Arran in the early 19th century,
08:10you'd have seen hundreds and hundreds of wherrys just dotted about everywhere.
08:13They were quite a primitive, small, wooden sailing ship.
08:16Often they were in a pretty poor state of repair as well.
08:19There's a travel writer from this period who comes to Arran and he describes the wherrys as all looking as wretched little things.
08:26And they would put the whiskey on it and they would try and get it mainly to air, straight across, basically.
08:32But they had a lot of obstacles to do it.
08:35So they would tend to sail when nobody else would sail.
08:37So usually at night time or in really stormy weather, which didn't always work.
08:42It's testament to the sort of maritime skill of Arran they were able to do this.
08:46At one point in this time, actually, Arran has more master mariners living on the island than anywhere else in Scotland.
08:52But it didn't always work out.
08:54So 1822, the day after Boxing Day, there's two brothers, Angus and Malcolm Sillars from Brodick,
09:01who are trying to take 12 casts of whiskey and smuggle them off over to the mainland.
09:05But they actually get caught in a storm.
09:07The storm demasts the ship and they begin to take on water.
09:11And eventually they capsize and they drown.
09:13So a few days later, their bodies are found washed up between a drosson and solcoats.
09:19And I think they find about three casts of whiskey as well.
09:21So it didn't always pan out.
09:23But the big reason they took the risk of sailing in this weather was the biggest danger they faced were the revenue cutters from the excise.
09:30So again, so for Campbelltown, there were seven revenue cutters that would patrol far down as the Isle of Man and they'd go up far north as the Hebrides.
09:37These were big ships, they were fast, they were well gunned, and they were pretty much entirely crewed by veterans of the Napoleonic Wars.
09:45So if they caught the little wearies from Arran, there was literally nothing you could do.
09:49So you tried to avoid it as the best you could to get over to air.
09:53So the very first recorded story of smuggling we have on Arran is as early as 1671.
09:58It's the 27th of April.
10:01A smuggling boat from Ireland landed in Lamlash.
10:04At this point in time, the main thing smuggled was salt from Ireland that was then used in the fishing industry.
10:09They landed in Boric and the smugglers got their goods off.
10:12And the local minister at this point heard this.
10:15And he was called Archwood Beef, Reverend Archwood Beef.
10:18So again, this is why I think Wild West, he gathered a group of locals, a little posse, and went to try and confiscate these goods.
10:25Didn't go quite well.
10:26The whole thing ended up in a gunfight as the smugglers grabbed their goods and again, try and sail away with it.
10:33And it reminds them, sailing out in Lamlash Bay, you've got musket fire, you've got clouds everywhere.
10:36And in the midst of this, two of the smugglers were actually killed.
10:40Archwood Beef actually was arrested, sent to the High Court in Edinburgh, where he was tried for acting in a most un-pastor-like manner.
10:48Because apparently a man of the cloth probably shouldn't be shooting and killing people at this point.
10:52So he was actually sentenced for murder, and he was meant to hang, but he got a last-minute reprieve, and then spent the rest of his life living as a pauper.
11:01A very infamous figure in Arran, he was known as Archwood Beef, the Reverend Slayer.
11:07But there you go.
11:07So smuggling, it's happened for years and years before the whisky began, but it was quite a dangerous game.
11:13And initially, it was, yeah, it was salt.
11:15I sat down with Fred and Graham Omand, distillery manager, to learn more about the liquid and what they've got coming up in the exciting year ahead.
11:26We're here today in the Dramming Room at Lag Distillery on a beautiful sunny day in April.
11:34We've just had a very informative tour about the history of Arran, illicit distilling, all the goings-on that happened, all the shootings and everything.
11:43It's been really, really informative, and a lot of things I've never heard before at all.
11:47Just to take it back to the more modern history, could you tell us a little bit about the history of Lag and how it all came to be?
11:53Yeah, so Lag, we are a pretty new distillery. We opened 2019, so it was six years ago.
11:59We're the same company as Isle of Arran Distillers, so you'll know Arran Whisky up at La Cranza.
12:04We opened that in 1995. Lag is really the next chapter of that adventure.
12:09We're down the South End, and it's all about making a peated whisky, a heavily peated whisky, and to see where that goes right at the start.
12:17And does the heavily peated nature of the whisky sort of hark back to the history of what was being distilled on Arran?
12:23Yeah, I think there is. So back in the day, they would pretty much have used peat to make the whisky, so it would probably have been a peated whisky.
12:31It is a little bit more traditional. Lag is a contrast, though.
12:35So there is modernity to it, there is tradition, there is that lovely kind of romantic, historic side of the smoky peat, but there's lots of intense, grassy, earthy flavours as well.
12:47It is kind of taking the history side, but also adding the complete new side that we're now creating here as well.
12:52It's a balance of the two worlds, I think.
12:54So for anyone that knows Arran whisky or is a fan of that style of whisky, how does it differ? What are they going to notice?
13:00Well, the main obvious difference is that Lag whisky is heavily peated. It's 50 ppm by standard.
13:08That puts it into kind of, if I can, almost an Isle of Malt league.
13:12So you're talking this, when people think of peated whisky in Isle, they think medicinal, they think smoky.
13:17So we're kind of going around that route, whereas compared to Locranza, Locranza traditionally has always been a non-peated distillery,
13:23and they focus on floral, smooth, sweet history, lots of fruity notes, whereas we're more of the darker side, sort of this earthen, smoke.
13:35Bonfire kind of ash is kind of one of the main ways I would describe it, but there's also a sweetness to the peat.
13:41It's not just all fire and brimstone.
13:43And being a new distillery, obviously you've got a really cracking still house.
13:47You've got big picture windows either side. You can see how it's lovely, especially today.
13:50Did you look back into history for the design of the stills, or did you sort of know what you were looking for,
13:56for the type of spirit that you wanted, obviously, because they impact what you're going to get?
14:00Everything down from the mash tun to the shape of the stills to the placement of pipework was all going to go hand in hand
14:06on how we created the spirit.
14:08And so we knew from day one, even before the brickwork was put down, exactly what we were going to do with the still house
14:12and what that character we were looking for in the spirit was going to be.
14:15Yes, we've seen earlier that when you look out from the balcony, you can see one of the barley fields from the local farm.
14:21Is that a really important part of where you're based and what people are sort of expecting?
14:25Yes, absolutely. We take great pride in the fact that we have two 10 hectare fields just outside the distillery
14:32that a local farmer has more or less given to us for use exclusively with our own whisky.
14:38A 10 hectare of barley field, on average, will give us about 160 tonnes of malted barley,
14:43which will give one distillery, either Locrans or Lag, maybe a month's worth of malted barley.
14:48And we share it between both sites.
14:50And we found that we've been doing this for a couple of years now, and the spirit we're getting out of that,
14:55although going in the ground is still the same malted barley, same variety that's grown up in the northeast of Scotland,
15:00it is completely different, the character we're getting out of it.
15:03It's almost indicative of the area, the westerly wind, the salty air, even down to the soil composition.
15:10All that seems to be feeding in to this unusual whisky we're getting here,
15:13and we can proudly say that it is a 100% Aran whisky,
15:15and we are very excited for people to be eventually trying it from both distilleries.
15:20So that malted barley that you've used to distill the whisky, is that yet to be put out to market?
15:25Yes, we've been distilling it every year for the past few years at Lag,
15:30and La Cranza have been doing it as an experiment for quite a number of years before Lag was even created.
15:34So we're slowly stockpiling this nice wee kind of treasure chest of 100% Aran malt.
15:40It will be coming to market probably soon.
15:42I can't really talk much about it right now, because I think that's a higher being, so deciding that before me.
15:48And when you look at it as well, you've got your barley field and beautiful views,
15:52and you've got some apple trees, and you're doing something quite exciting with them.
15:56Yes, when we created Lag, we had quite a lot of spare acreage around the field,
16:02and there was a lot of talks about, well, what can we do with all this?
16:04Hedge maze was one of the ideas that was thrown about,
16:07which we thought, well, why don't we actually do something that's a bit more indicative of production?
16:13We're a drinks company, so why don't we maybe dedicate the area to apple trees?
16:18And the board jumped on it very ecstatically, and before we knew it, 2,000 apple trees were planted.
16:25And we've now gotten to a point where we're on our second cropping coming to market as cider,
16:32local Aran cider, and from what a few people have told me, it is a very small batch.
16:37We're only talking maybe 600 bottles or something like that a year,
16:39so it usually flies off the shelf within a week.
16:41But the locals really like the idea, because it's the first and only ever 100% Aran cider,
16:48and a lot of people are telling me that that is a fantastic thing we're doing here.
16:51So it's a wee offshoot, and eventually, down the road, once we have enough crop,
16:57we are hoping to evolve that from cider to an Aran apple brandy.
17:02Nice, using casks, ex-whiskey casks.
17:04Yes, indeed, using ex-whiskey casks with our own apples growing site.
17:07Nice, and then you can reuse them in the whisky.
17:09Yes, that's very exciting.
17:11So can you just tell us a little bit about the core range?
17:13Yeah, so for lag, we've currently got two whiskeys.
17:16So we have the Kilmory edition and the Corrie Cravey edition.
17:20They're both named after villages, basically just either side of the ciliary as well.
17:24In fact, Corrie Cravey is actually where I come from, so that's my home.
17:27Mum and Dad still live there, so I like seeing that on the bottle.
17:30Kilmory, that's kind of our flagship.
17:32It's a full maturation in ex-burden casks, 46%,
17:36and both of them non-shell filtered, natural colour.
17:38So naturally presented, they are the way they should be.
17:42Kilmory is everything lag is.
17:44It is that peat, it is that sweet, it is the grass, it is the citrus.
17:48Super fresh, super clean.
17:50Corrie Cravey starts its life the same way.
17:53It's in Barbour initially, and then we finish it in sherry casks for about six months at the end.
17:59Slightly higher ABV, 55%, a little bit darker, a little bit earthier,
18:03a little bit more spicy, kind of sweet barbecue sauce as well.
18:07And what can people expect when they come to lag?
18:09Yeah, there's loads of things, like you guys saw today.
18:11So we're down the South End, so I am biased.
18:13I think this is the nicest bit of the island.
18:16You come to the distillery, you've got stunning views in the background.
18:19You've got, it was a craig sticking out of the water.
18:21There's Ayrshire, there's Kintaya behind us.
18:24Building itself, we've got our lovely cafe downstairs,
18:27so you can get a nice wee spot of lunch.
18:29Upstairs, we have our whiskey bar, so you can have a wee dram, have a wee cocktail.
18:33There's a balcony as well out there, you can have a wee sit and enjoy the view.
18:38There's the gift shop as well, so plenty of whiskey and local souvenirs.
18:43And we have a whole bunch of tours and whiskey experiences as well.
18:46So we've got our standard tour, the Lag Whiskey Experience.
18:50So come down, we'll show you how we make the whiskey.
18:52And you'll end in a couple of drams of that core range as well.
18:56We have our tasting, so that's something that's a little bit more sort of limited.
18:59So distilled exclusives, some cast samples, things that might still exist,
19:04things that might long be gone, a little bit more geeky.
19:07Just kind of see the other kind of things that exist for Lag.
19:10And then there's my favourite, it's the Aran Water tour.
19:13As we saw earlier in the podcast, that is my history tour.
19:17So we go around and we just have a look about the history, the stories,
19:20especially on the south end of Aran as well.
19:23So something for everyone, really.
19:25Yeah, and you should say the balcony's covered it.
19:26It is, yeah. So rain or sunshine, you can come down and you'll have a good time at Lag.
19:30Yeah, we've just had lunch, which was the seafood platter and the meat and cheese platter.
19:33Very good. Lots of local produce.
19:35Local produce, yeah, local produce.
19:37Set upstairs and just enjoy that view. Stunning, isn't it?
19:40Lovely, yeah.
19:41So this lovely weather has got me in mind of summer.
19:44We're obviously early spring, but we're coming into Whiskey Festival season.
19:47Do you guys have anything that you want to talk about coming up in the next couple of months?
19:50Yes, we've got our Molten Music Festival. It happens always last weekend in June.
19:55So this year, it's a special one because it's the 30th anniversary of Aran, La Crande Distillery.
20:01So Saturday, Sunday, we'll be up there. There'll be loads of cool things going on.
20:05But the Thursday and Friday down here at Lag, we've got a few special things in the run-up to that.
20:10So we've got some interesting experiences.
20:12We're doing the normal tours as well, but there is an orchid tour and a warehouse tour.
20:18So the orchid tour, you're going to go around with Big Davey, Big Andy, our groundskeepers,
20:22who are quite some characters, and they'll tell you all about the apples and the cider.
20:26We've never done that before.
20:28And then the warehouse tours, the way Lag's set up, you can't really normally go down to the warehouse as a part of the tour.
20:33So this is really a one-off.
20:35The warehouse guys will take you down, have a wee look at that. That's really special.
20:38Cool. We're also going to be doing some special tastings and special releases to coincide with the event.
20:44We're actually going to be launching our third-ever small batch, distillery-exclusive small batch, at the event,
20:50just two days before the festival actually begins.
20:53And it's going to be a very exciting tequila finish,
20:56which is something that not even our sister distillery has attempted yet.
20:59So it's quite a rarity for the Aran whisky world that we get a chance to show people these unusual characteristics
21:06we can get from casks that are not really known to be as common as, say, a clexus sherry or bourbon.
21:12Have you tasted it?
21:13Well, yes, absolutely.
21:15We actually had a fun wee panel where we kind of got a wide selection of these unusual casks at one point.
21:20You know, we were trying to...
21:21Experimentation is kind of part of the nature of lag.
21:23We really wanted to set up this distillery in a way that we wanted to try new things, unusual things,
21:29because we're not really sitting our ways yet.
21:30People don't know what to expect, really, of lag.
21:32So we got a very broad range of unusual casks, and we had a very nice afternoon with Fred and myself
21:38and a few other people from head office.
21:39And we found that out of the bunch, the cream of the crop, when there was this tequila cask,
21:45it worked so fantastically with the spirit we've got here.
21:47And I'm really excited to share that with people.
21:49I think that people will be very, very surprised at what we can get with this matching of the tequila and the lag spirit.
21:55Nice. And will that be available just during the festival or if you come over or online?
22:00It will only be available in the shop at Lag Distillery, and it will be launched two days before the festival,
22:05just on the run-up to it.
22:06I can't guarantee that it won't be sold out by the Saturday.
22:10So I would definitely recommend that if you're interested in trying one,
22:12you should get yourself over to Aaron for the Malt and Music Festival and line up and buy a bottle.
22:17Nice. Thank you very much. Sounds great.
22:20Thank you. It was nice to show you guys around.
22:22I quite fancied that tequila finish, so may have to get the Aaron Malt and Music Festival in my diary.
22:29Next stop was Bellevue Farm, where I had so much fun feeding the animals and petting baby lambs.
22:34Whilst there, I met Angus Madden, Donald Curry and Sophia Perry.
22:38Hi. Hello there. Have you brought the sunshine with you?
22:50Yeah, it's amazing.
22:51Yeah, that's cool.
22:52As I'm saying, you're coming a good day because you've got the scenery in both directions
22:56and you can actually see it rather than a haze coming down.
23:00So we've got the Highland cows here just back.
23:01They were up in the hills, up at Drummond, and they got there for the winter
23:05to purchase because there's more grass for them and they've not got company then.
23:09But they're now back because they'll be getting all the company and hand feeding they can cope with.
23:13So this is the new sheds.
23:14What we're trying to do is promote the whole farm to fork experience.
23:19We've actually got people, a pioneer project.
23:22They deal with planting up community gardens.
23:25They help the schools planting the vegetables and everything.
23:28And they're actually volunteered to come up and plant up the garden this year,
23:31which is a big part of what we never get round to doing quite right.
23:36But when you have tours and things, the kids like going in and pulling their carrot
23:40to feed to the guinea pig or feed to themselves.
23:43Nine times out of ten, they won't give it to the guinea pig
23:45when they realise it's a carrot coming out of the ground.
23:47You know, it's so exciting.
23:49There's also the cottages.
23:51When people stay in the cottages, they can go in and help themselves
23:54to the vegetables out of the garden and cook with that as well.
23:56So in the shed, this has just been up since kind of COVID time.
24:03So maybe three years, four years, just round about that.
24:07So what we're trying to do is keep it fun for the kids,
24:09but obviously also educational for everybody else.
24:13It's basically, we've got a wee story about the milk
24:14and everybody that uses the Arran milk.
24:17There's only one dairy farm left on the island now.
24:20And it's tiny for you.
24:21So the milk, it used to go off the island
24:24and then they were finding it wasn't viable
24:26and they weren't getting a lot of money for it.
24:27So they just keep it all on the island now.
24:30So what happens is the tanker from the cheese shop picks it up
24:35and the soft cheeses are made in the building
24:37just out round the side there.
24:39So they'll take the cream to make cheeses,
24:42then it goes to make ice cream as well.
24:45And then what's left will go in the vending machines
24:47round the island for people just to bottle and use themselves.
24:52So it's a machine where you can actually just bring your own bottle
24:54and fill up with milk.
24:55That's one over there.
24:56We don't have milk in it at the minute actually
24:58because we're not opened yet,
24:59but we will have by next week.
25:01And you just get your bottle, put it in.
25:03We sell it by the cup just for the kids to taste as well.
25:06And they come for any tours or anybody that wants to try it.
25:10These were new boards.
25:12Arran's Food Journey supplied them for us,
25:15which are great.
25:16The kids were over.
25:17We did an open day for the high school kids.
25:20They do it every year.
25:21And we've got a chef in.
25:22We've got a mobile kitchen area that comes out.
25:26So he cooked a meal.
25:29Then the kids go a farm tour to see the animals and see everything.
25:32Then they taste the food at the end of it.
25:34And the different hotels and businesses on the island come together
25:38to try and tell the children a wee bit about what they do
25:42to try and entice them to join in.
25:44So lamb, beef and pork is what we supply.
25:49We did do goat.
25:50We don't have any goat at present,
25:52but the goat went really, really quickly.
25:54It was really, really popular, so it was.
25:57So Bellevue Farm was arable and livestock,
25:59but you've got more modern additions,
26:01such as the educational side and the accommodation.
26:03Yeah, so there's beef cattle as well.
26:05And we've now got the play barn,
26:07which is the educational side of it,
26:08where we're trying to do more farm-to-fork experiences,
26:11letting people see the animals where they've grown up
26:14and take them through the journey for ending up in our freezer,
26:17basically, and then do tasting sessions
26:19where they can taste the produce as well.
26:21It's an interesting thing,
26:22because not a lot of farms are doing this,
26:24but there's probably a lot of kids
26:25who don't really have that relationship
26:27with where their food comes from.
26:29Yeah, that's definitely noticeable in the farm tours
26:31because Ilsa gets the kids to collect the eggs from the hens
26:35when it was in the hen house,
26:35and that was really a big thing for them,
26:38you know, getting an egg from a hen.
26:39And also in the vegetable patch,
26:43getting the carrots out, bringing the carrots in.
26:45You know, all that is just kind of new to some kids,
26:48which is quite shocking, really.
26:49So what can people expect when they come to visit the farm?
26:51We've got two holiday cottages,
26:53so anyone that comes to stay in the holiday cottages
26:55have full use of this indoor play barn.
26:58We've got an indoor play barn right on tractors,
27:01and there's usually hay pit, you know,
27:03crafts and things to keep the kids occupied.
27:05So it's ideal in a really great day
27:06if you're stuck in a holiday cottage
27:08and you want somewhere for the kids to come.
27:10Ilsa does what we call farm tours,
27:12where she takes the people out
27:14and explains all the animals,
27:16the breeds, the history,
27:17and all the rest of it behind them.
27:19You can do a self-guided experience,
27:22which is where you would come in,
27:24we'd give you a wee map of the animals that you should see,
27:27we'll give you some food,
27:28feed for the animals,
27:29and then you're just free to do your own thing
27:33as and when you like.
27:35The barbecue, which we can see over here,
27:36it looks like a trailer.
27:37Can you tell us about it?
27:39This is a trailer.
27:40This is our new all-singing, all-dancing barbecue,
27:43which is great.
27:43It was showcased last week out the front, actually,
27:46but it can be hooked onto quad bikes,
27:48so you could take it down the beach,
27:49you could take it if somebody was having an event,
27:51you could take it down there.
27:51There are numerous flavours of burgers and sausages
27:56and all things barbecue,
27:58so it's ideal to team up with that
28:00and go to some kind of event somewhere.
28:02That's the hope in the future.
28:04Or bring people here, more so,
28:06so that we can just cook stuff for them outside
28:08and they can enjoy the produce.
28:11It's to the cows.
28:12Yes.
28:13So when are you open?
28:15So you're just starting to open now
28:17at the beginning of April,
28:17and when you are open,
28:18are you open seven days a week, or what's the...?
28:20No, we usually open Tuesdays, Fridays, Sundays,
28:23and it's bookable online.
28:25If it's a party that are wanting to book the place,
28:28we can come to some kind of arrangement
28:29and they, you know,
28:30they just book it out for that particular party.
28:33This time of year is really a nice time to come
28:35because you've got the baby lambs,
28:37so there's always the feeding of the baby lambs.
28:40It surprises you how much the adults are involved in it,
28:43as well as the kids.
28:44You know, they really do enjoy it.
28:49Hello.
28:50Hi.
28:53Right, speaking up, this is Donald.
28:54Hello.
28:55Hello.
28:55Hi there.
28:56Hi.
28:56Good, how are you?
28:57Fine, thank you.
28:58Now, I think I'm going to ask you a few questions.
29:00I'm not sure about what.
29:02They're on the hot spot.
29:04So, Donald, could you tell us about your farm?
29:07You've been here for a while.
29:09Yes.
29:10I was brought up, born in Ireland,
29:13looking back several generations.
29:15I think I might be the fourth or fifth Donald Curry
29:18to carry on the farming.
29:19How have you seen it develop over the years?
29:22Because, obviously, you've gone from traditional arable farming
29:24to the different experiences now.
29:26Yeah.
29:26It's ten years since we've done the barley for the distillery,
29:29but we've always grown barley to feed the cattle and sheep in the farm.
29:32I do love the crop, growing the barley, etc.,
29:35doing the crops on the farm and the contracting side.
29:37I don't take much to do with the farm tours.
29:41Is that like a modern part of farming, having to diversify?
29:45Yes, we've all got to diversify.
29:47Maybe things are looking better.
29:48There's better prices for cattle and sheep now,
29:50but certainly in the years going by, it wasn't so good.
29:53But input costs are quite high.
29:56But the distillery, I mean, they pay me a good rate,
29:59a premium rate for the barley, so it's good.
30:01It's good.
30:01So how did providing the barley for the distillery all come about?
30:05Well, I knew the last guy, James McTaggart, quite well.
30:08He was using a few of the farms locally to spread the effluent in the fields,
30:12you know, to help the grass grow, etc.
30:14So then we discussed about me growing some barley,
30:17and it's taken off from then.
30:20This will be ten years, so they're about to release the Arran barley whisky this season.
30:24And are you going to be trying it?
30:25Probably, yeah.
30:28It must be quite an achievement to think that it will be your barley.
30:32It is, yes.
30:32It's a nice feeling.
30:33It is good.
30:34Yes, yeah.
30:35Some years the barley's been very good, very good results.
30:38So is all your business based in Arran,
30:39or do you send anything off to the mainland?
30:41Obviously the cattle and sheep go to the mainland to be sold off the farm.
30:45I do buy the draff, that's a by-product, from the distilleries,
30:50and I try and sell it.
30:51Most of it goes to the mainland.
30:53I sell it across there.
30:54Some goes to island farmers, but the remainder goes to the mainland.
30:57And that's used for, like, feed, isn't it?
31:00Yes, animal, cattle, feed mainly, yes.
31:02It's a kind of full circle thing.
31:04You're supplying the barley, you've chosen eating the draff.
31:06It's a great feeling, you know,
31:08we've even been spreading the effluent onto the fields
31:10to help the barley to grow.
31:12I grow the barley for the distillery,
31:14and I get the by-product back.
31:15And it can go in the fields as well to help as a cycle, isn't it?
31:18You know, it's...
31:19Yeah, kind of the way it probably always was.
31:20That's right.
31:21Thank you very much.
31:22OK, thank you.
31:24This is actually a right cheeky wee cockerel.
31:27He was going for everybody's ankles,
31:30so he's in quarantine just now till it looks to be.
31:34So, yeah, he was a bit of a nightmare.
31:36This is the cottages.
31:38These are the holiday cottages.
31:39And a lot of turkey loves to meet for guests.
31:46Oh, wow.
31:47So, if you get jock at your window in the morning...
31:52He's not cockles.
31:53He's not going to go cock-a-doodle-doo.
31:55He's just going to go gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble.
31:58Wow.
31:59So, this is two cottages here.
32:00We've changed the names now to the Snoozy Coo and the Sleepy Sheepy.
32:04So, they're working at outbuildings,
32:06and that building there is now where they make the soft cheeses.
32:10And this has gone up to the lambing shed.
32:13You'll never hear a tango, don't you?
32:15Sophia!
32:17I can't be able to hear anything.
32:19I think they're getting bullied.
32:21Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Sophia.
32:23Sophia, you help out of the farm.
32:25Can you tell us what you get up to?
32:26So, we kind of start off the day as just feeding,
32:30making sure...
32:30Well, first thing, I come about 7 in the morning
32:32and make sure everything's OK.
32:34If there's anything that's lambed during the night,
32:36make sure they're all happy and with their mum,
32:38and then I'll put them into their own wee pen
32:40and then get them some food and all that.
32:42And then, once the sheep are all happy,
32:45we then go and feed all the other animals,
32:46like the pigs and the goats and the cows and stuff like that.
32:49And are you from a farming background?
32:51I've got a family farm in Brodick.
32:52So, just where you got the boat,
32:54it was my papa's that my mum grew up on.
32:56So, I didn't grow up on the farm,
32:57but I spent my summers in Arran on the farm and stuff.
33:00But it was more beef, not so much sheep.
33:02But I prefer the sheep.
33:03Because they're cute.
33:05Yes, they're very cute.
33:07And easier.
33:08I think they're easier.
33:09Not as scary.
33:10I think the cows are a bit too big for me and a bit scary.
33:14So, this is obviously a really busy time for you,
33:16springtime.
33:18Yeah, very busy.
33:19But it's good.
33:20There's always something to do.
33:21It keeps you on your toes.
33:23I just think it's so nice.
33:24It's so rewarding.
33:25When the lambs come out and they're healthy, happy,
33:28and the mum's got lots of milk,
33:29and then you can put them out in the field
33:30and you watch them all having wee races with each other,
33:33it's just the best.
33:34And what about when the kids come up?
33:36So, when the kids come up,
33:37hopefully we have a few pet lambs.
33:39So, we make up bottles,
33:40and they all get to have a wee shot,
33:42hand-feeding them in bottles and stuff like that.
33:44It's dead fun.
33:46I mean, it's the type of thing that,
33:47like we were saying earlier,
33:48not a lot of kids get to do.
33:50No, not at all.
33:51And I think you can see how happy it makes them,
33:54and it's just the cutest.
33:55A wee tiny person with a wee bottle and a lamb.
33:57It's just the best thing ever.
33:59Just the best.
34:00And would you like to stay on that end?
34:01Yeah, so I'm helping just now.
34:03I've got a few sheep of my own at home in Brodick.
34:05I've just finished my degree there in agriculture,
34:07so I don't know what I'm going to do.
34:09It's kind of a few months off, I think,
34:11and then I'll try and figure out what I'll do later.
34:13It's just great.
34:14When the sun shines,
34:15it's just an amazing place to be.
34:17The community and everything is just great.
34:19There's always somebody there if you need a hand,
34:22or there's just always something to do.
34:23It's just great.
34:24I'm beyond excited,
34:25so shall we go and see some sheep?
34:27Yeah, come on then.
34:29Well, it's desperate to hold the baby laugh.
34:31Can we accommodate her?
34:40This one was born this morning.
34:41I can hold them like you were the wee dog.
34:44A dog?
34:45I would just want to keep one like this.
34:47Oh, it's so cute.
34:49Those ones are maybe an hour.
34:52There's one up the top that was actually born 10 minutes ago.
34:55And sometimes you've got like two, three at once,
34:57and it's all gone.
34:58A bit stressful.
34:59Wow.
35:06Thank you very much for showing us around, Agnes.
35:09It's been brilliant,
35:10and I would encourage anyone to come and see all the animals.
35:13It's been great speaking to you,
35:15and I hope you do come back someday yourself.
35:22Hi, James.
35:23We're here in your lovely shop,
35:24which smells amazing.
35:25Could you just tell us a little bit
35:26about how you came to set up the Iron Chocolate Shop?
35:28Well, yeah, I used to make sweets when I was a kid for Christmas,
35:33like a lot of people.
35:3420 years later, I decided to start making chocolates,
35:37and then we got the opportunity for this shop became available,
35:40so we started the business, and we started from there.
35:43And you've been here for quite a long time?
35:4525 years, next week.
35:47So what kind of things were you making?
35:50Well, we just started off with a sort of basic range,
35:52doing strawberry and cherry,
35:55some plain bars, milk bars, dark bars,
35:58and we just built it up over the years.
35:59Some of it was old favourites,
36:01or some of it was flavours that people asked for
36:04that came into the shop.
36:05And did you teach yourself,
36:07or did you train to become like a chocolatier?
36:10I had a bit of training,
36:10but, yeah, a lot of long days and mistakes.
36:15It's a very practical job,
36:16so you kind of have to just get on and do it.
36:19A lot of long days and mistakes,
36:20and a lot of eating chocolate.
36:22Somebody has to.
36:24So can you talk us through,
36:26we're standing here in your shop,
36:27and there's a window to the kitchen,
36:28and we can see someone making chocolate.
36:30Can you talk us through the process?
36:32Sure.
36:32Well, you can see Jan is currently making the shells,
36:37so we run the mould under the chocolate,
36:39fill the mould with chocolate,
36:42and then take the air bubbles out,
36:44and you'll see Jan turn the mould upside down
36:46to take the excess chocolate out,
36:49which leaves us with a shell.
36:51Once that's set,
36:52we can then fill the moulds with whatever it is,
36:54whether we're doing violet today,
36:56we're doing orange,
36:57we're doing champagne and ginger.
36:59There's chocolate coming out of what looks like a tap,
37:01but I'm assuming that's like tempered chocolate?
37:04It is, yeah.
37:05There's a big sink of chocolate, basically,
37:06which would be appealing to a lot of people
37:08to just, I don't know, dip their head in.
37:11So people come to the shop,
37:12what can they expect?
37:13Do you do any tours or tastings or things?
37:15Well, as you can see,
37:16we've got the window into production.
37:18The sink of chocolate you were talking about
37:20has got 25 kilos of chocolate in it.
37:22That always puts a smile on people's face.
37:26And have you seen flavours evolve over the years,
37:28so things that were popular maybe 10, 15 years ago
37:31have kind of gone out of fashion,
37:32or how has it evolved then?
37:33We try not to get involved in fashion.
37:36People like what we do,
37:37so we stick with the traditional ones.
37:40We do things like peanut butter
37:41with chocolate and jam,
37:43a little bit unusual.
37:45Champagne and ginger's a bit unusual as well,
37:47but people also like the strawberry creams
37:49and hazelnuts and all that.
37:50And we just said this before we started,
37:52but the pistachio Dubai chocolate trend,
37:54you've had pistachio for a while.
37:57That was one of the first ones we did, yeah.
37:58Ahead of the game.
37:59When you were standing,
38:01you've got shelves of bags of chocolate nuts
38:04and fruits as well as boxes.
38:08So what kind of products do you do seasonally
38:09and with it being Easter coming up,
38:11what is popular?
38:12Well, yeah, Easter is coming up,
38:14so lots of Easter eggs, Easter bunnies,
38:16all that sort of thing.
38:17Obviously, later in the year it'll be Christmas,
38:19doing all the Santas and all that kind of stuff.
38:21But we're doing about maybe 80 or 100 different products
38:23at any time.
38:24And for anyone that can visit,
38:26do you have an online business
38:26and do you ship off the island?
38:28Yeah, we do.
38:29We've got a big mail order business,
38:31so people can order online or give us a phone.
38:34Do you have a favourite chocolate?
38:35Yeah, nibbed hazelnut and soft caramel.
38:37That sounds really good.
38:38We're going to try some chocolate now,
38:40the nibbed hazelnut and soft caramel praline,
38:42which sounds right up my street.
38:44There you go.
38:44Thank you very much.
38:45Dark chocolate?
38:46Dark chocolate.
38:47And it looks like it's got a knot pattern.
38:50That's another thing.
38:50How do you come up with what they look like on the top?
38:53Well, a lot of these are really traditional,
38:55so it goes way back to sort of traditional Belgian chocolates.
38:59Originally, each shape would have been a specific flavour,
39:02so people would have known,
39:04no matter what shop they went to,
39:05that was a strawberry or that was a cherry or whatever.
39:07Do people now still recognise that,
39:09or has that kind of been lost?
39:10No, that's definitely been lost, yeah.
39:12There's always new ones coming out,
39:13but a lot of them are traditional.
39:16This is nutty, not too nutty,
39:18sweet, not too sweet,
39:19but a really good combination.
39:21The caramel's not really squidgy,
39:24which is quite nice,
39:24so it's almost like a mini,
39:25I don't want to say Mars bar,
39:26because it's nicer than that,
39:27but it's like a mini little dessert.
39:30Lovely.
39:31Really good.
39:32You've also got traditional sweets,
39:34but you don't actually see that often anymore,
39:36so do people get surprised when they come in
39:38and get some surplus?
39:40Definitely, yes.
39:41Really popular, still really popular.
39:43I think because you don't see them everywhere,
39:45you know, like, say, sewer plumes
39:48or some of the new ones,
39:49like Iron Brew specials,
39:51they're really popular with the kids.
39:53Yeah, you're in an ideal position
39:54just being on the main street
39:56as people come off the boat.
39:57Do people wander in
39:58and are quite pleasantly surprised?
40:00Oh, definitely, yeah.
40:00Brilliant location,
40:01just a couple of hundred yards from the boat,
40:03so we get all the day trippers as well.
40:06Usually catch them twice
40:06when they're on their way to climb Goat Fell
40:08and on their way back.
40:09Reward themselves with some chocolate.
40:11Yes.
40:12There's one here,
40:12so there's obviously slabs of chocolate
40:13that can be decorated with whatever you want,
40:15like happy birthday,
40:16but one here,
40:17I nearly climbed Goat Fell,
40:18but dot, dot, dot,
40:19is that quite popular?
40:20That's very popular,
40:21but so is the one behind it
40:23that says I climbed Goat Fell.
40:25So we cover both bases.
40:28And do you work with any other businesses
40:29on the island?
40:31Yeah, we do.
40:31We supply quite a few of the shops
40:33and we also do a bespoke range
40:35for both the distilleries
40:36and they also use them
40:37for their whiskey pairings.
40:39So did you have a good time
40:40trying to work out
40:41how to pair chocolate with whiskey?
40:43Yes.
40:45We also use their
40:46Arran Gold whiskey cream liqueur,
40:49which works really well
40:50with the chocolate.
40:51It's a really good combination.
40:52We had some of the chocolates yesterday
40:54that were lovely.
40:55Well, thank you very much.
40:55It's been a delicious start to the day.
40:57No, you're welcome.
41:03Thanks to everyone I spoke to on the podcast.
41:05If you want to find out more
41:06about visiting Arran
41:07and its wonderful food and drink,
41:08please visit