It’s not just rampant stag that fill Royal Deeside’s mounds. Aberdeenshire’s hills bristle with tales of sovereigns. Prince Philip, locals say, once piqued the Royal Lochnagar Distillery in Balmoral enough to drop its prefix ‘Royal’ – the duke had accused the whisky kings of polluting his back garden. Tiff now resolved, its dram is gingered, sherried and quite superb. And that wee store, by the bridge, is where the Duchess bought her princes sweeties. And here, in the forest bowl, is how Charles idles his Sundays.
From Aberdeen we had followed the faithful Dee into the Grampian mountains through Braemar. The trip was designed as a gastronomic pilgrimage around the Highlands. Our drive took us past Douglas fir, across rust and purple moor. It was here in 1715 where the Earl of Mar recruited for the first Jacobite uprisings. Rebellion still stalks the undergrowth. Monarch of the Glen tried to get our measure. Cock pheasants bickered. The Cairngorms did their pearly white tease and we ate.
We had dinner at Darroch Learg, a Victorian granite country house low on the slopes of Craigendarroch hill in Ballater. My dish was a little knoll of heather, earth and mossy sap. I had Glen Muick loin of venison with pithiver of boudin, creamed celeriac and red cabbage. The tangle of caramelised cabbage was sweet enough to blunt all that bloody intensity from the boudin – or black pudding – and the gaminess of deer. The best was the creamiest quiff of celeriac at the centre. Whenever you felt salted out by the meat, its soft repose was warmed pleasure.
The day before we’d visited the somewhat sparse Banchory Farmer’s Market. A hunter was selling roe deer osso bucco, shot fresh himself, at just £3.70 apiece. I bought a deep-throated Lairig Ghru Cambus O’May cheese which proved provocative and delicious.
Coralled into a corner of the market was a posse of Vintage Emos – a splendid hybrid found only in small market towns. In the small town where I grew up it was Goths and Smellies but that was the ‘80s. This lot paraded tiers of pretty cupcakes, too foo foo, surely, for Highlands heavies?
My weekend of unparalleled enjoyment was clouded only by the judicious DI AberDockGreen of airport security. Just I and the North African man were called aside for a verbal frisk. What exactly had been our business in this good oil country? Would we return? Did we harbour noxious ferment in our Deeside cheeses? I quizzed him back till his jowls quivered and skipped onto the plane.
http://www.discovering-distilleries.com/royallochnagar
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