No doubt about it, whisky is a good mixer, not just with other drinks but with food as well.
For decades whisky has been added to cakes, marmalade and many other packaged foods seen on shop shelves throughout Scotland. And a slosh of the cratur has for years added zest and panache to everything from haggis to Atholl Brose to cranachan.
Now another food joins the happy list of those enhanced by whisky – in this case cheese and, interestingly, those behind the idea are a Scot and a Frenchman. Drew Watson and Pierre Leger launched Strathearn Cheese Company this January in the former kitchens of Cultybraggan Camp near Comrie. Their first cheese was made in March and is already supplied through wholesalers to a host of cheese shops and delis across Scotland. Their nearest outlet is Hansen’s Kitchen in Comrie.
So far they have produced two types of cheese, Strathearn and Lady Mary (pictured). Strathearn is a softish, cow’s milk-based cheese that for several weeks is washed every second day in brine with added honey and 10-year-old Glenturret – resulting in a cheese with a notable hint of whisky.
Lady Mary on the other hand is treated over time with locally foraged wild garlic applied to the cheese with truffle oil. The end result is two true Scottish cheeses with subtly different tastes that are making an impact in the specialist cheese market.
Drew is a local lad, born and bred in Crieff. Pierre on the other hand was born near Paris, spent his formative years in the Loire area and met Drew when he was working for a cheese stockist in Edinburgh. France produces countless different cheeses; indeed, General de Gaulle once lamented: “How can one run a country that has 227 different sorts of cheese?”) but now the UK and particularly Scotland are belatedly spawning an amazing variety of cheeses after decades when many shops stocked just mild and mature cheddar and mousetrap.
However, whisky-flavoured cheese is a bold step in a new direction – a Scotch homage to fromage – and I hope to be sampling Strathearn with oatcakes and, appropriately, a dram of Glenturret.
