Burns Supper at the Distillery Cafe

We hosted our very first evening pop up event at the cafe on Friday and a Burns supper was the perfect theme.

The space was transformed from cosy wee cafe to comforatable evening bistro and guests were greeted by talented piper, Niall Gemmil who was one of our seasonal distillery crew last year. Just to keep it in the family, his dad, Andrew Gemmil provided us with the haggis, reared and caught on Torrisdale!

We kept it local with the starter too and served up delicious smoked salmon, hot smoked salmon and smoked mussels from the fabulous Kintyre Smokehouse. The vegetarians enjoyed homemade vegetable broth.

After a welcome glass of prosecco, each course was accompanied by a specially paired gin and tonic – Ceann Loch with the starter, Tarbert Legbiter with the main course and Kintyre Pink with the desert.

Niall performed the Address to a Haggis brilliantly – having been practicing it in the office all week. A fair bit did end up on the floor but it was worth it for the drama!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He’ll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.

You can’t beat a plate of haggis, neeps and tatties.

Before dessert was served, we treated our guests to some Burns poetry read in Greek by our own Joanna. They had to guess what poems she was reciting. They sounded equally beautiful in another language!

Dessert was a version of cranachan created by our wonderful cook Lesley. She combined merangue with whipped cream, raspberries, toasted oats and raspberry syrup and it was so good some guests asked for seconds.

Niall took the floor once again to toast the lassies and he cleverly interwove his own teenage tale about returning drunk from the village pub and running past the graveyard to escape the witches described in Tam o’Shanter. The Torrisdale lassies (and there were several in the room!) were then described as witches , which suprised no one.

Emma delivered the toast to the laddies and rasied a few laughs and possible the odd tear upon reciting My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose.

The evening was rounded off perfectly with wee dram of our own Torrisdale Castle Estate Single Cask Isaly Malt accompanied by an enthusisastic round of Auld Lang Syne.

We have had such wonderful feedback about the event and we would love to do more pop-evenings in the future. Sign up for our newsletter so you don’t miss out!