Britannia's Christmas Booze
Begone despondency and depression in the economy and let us celebrate instead the brilliant selection of alcoholic drinks that make Britain great. Let’s go local during this festive season and stock up on Britannia’s booze. Whether it is cider brandy or perry, sparkling wine or cassis, regional producers are harnessing their passion to create world beating drinks.
Britain is one of the Top 3 brewing nations (along with Germany and Belgium) with a plethora of styles of beer that are copied particularly by American, New Zealand, and Australian brewers. Pale Ale, India Pale Ale, Porter, Stout, Barley Wine are just five styles that rule the world. And that’s just the English ones. Have you ever tried traditional Scottish ale made from heather, gooseberries, spruce, or seaweed? Heather ale is the oldest style of beer in the world still being brewed – dating back to circa 2,000 BC.
Farmhouse Ciders and Perries par excellence especially from Somerset and Herefordshire producers are exciting people’s palates and revitalising ancient traditions of cider making in the countryside. After a prolonged tussle with Brussels, the Somerset Cider Brandy Company has won the right to use the word ‘brandy’ to describe their distilled cider – even though written records describing a drink called cider brandy date back to 1678.
Ten years ago most people laughed at the phrase ‘English Wine’. No longer! Have you tried an English sparkling wine? If not, why? For a start, sparkling wine was invented in England not France – albeit by adding a sparkle to imported French wine (the proof lies in the archives of the Royal Society in London). Thanks to the temperate influence of the Gulf Stream on Britain’s climate, grapes grow here, despite the country being so far north. The chalk underlay of southern England is a continuation of the land under the Champagne region and the gentle contours and well drained soils of the region are perfect for planting vines. In blind tasting competitions English fizz has beaten French sparklers. Crisp dry acidic wines are the English still wine producers’ forté using grapes such as Bacchus and Madeleine Angevine. That’s the grape wines, but don’t ignore country wines and liqueurs made from a cornucopia of fruit, flowers, sap, and spice.
Mead (fermented honey and water) was probably the first alcoholic beverage made by humans, and after being largely overlooked in Britain in the past few decades, it’s making a return to the drinks cabinet. Served over ice or gently warmed up it makes a tasty dessert.
And how could anyone forget Scotland’s singular export – malt whisky? No need to watch your back Jock, but there are some surprising new rivals – the English Whisky Company and the Welsh Whisky Company distilling the water of life in Norfolk and the Brecon Beacons respectively.
Are you inspired yet? Get ready for Christmas dinner with the two drinks menus below. I am a passionate beer drinker, worship at the altar of Ninkasi, and consider beer to be the best match for food, so for fellow beerophiles there is a menu of malt and hops, and for the liquorish all-sorts there is a menu to excite those palates. Or if you’re like me, you’ll try both drinks menus. Plenty of time - it is the Twelve Days of Christmas after all!
Beer Menu (serve the beer in wine glasses)
- Aperitif (served in a Champagne flute): Fuller’s Organic Honeydew. A light, gently carbonated beer with a distinct honey aroma, biscuit flavours, and a mild hop bitterness to give a refreshing bite. It gets the party started.
- Main dishes: Brewsters Pale Ale. A fresh, crisp beer with citrus aromas, grassy, biscuit character on the palate, and a dry finish. The refreshing character of the beer makes it cut through the heavy body of the food without overwhelming some of the more subtle flavours of the meal. Stock up – you’ll want more than one bottle.
- Christmas Pudding: Durham Brewery Redemption Barley Wine – a full-on beer with enormous dried fruit flavours.
- After dinner Stilton: Dark Star Imperial Stout – an incredibly complex beer with roasted chocolate and coffee flavours. Grown up beers need grown up cheese where the robust flavours of both do not dominate the other.
- Aperitif: Fizz from Camel Valley or Ridge View. Zhoosh it into a kir by adding British Cassis made on the Herefordshire/Wales border. Spritzey perfection.
- Main dish: Marcle Ridge Cider 2009. A bone dry cider that comes in an elegant wine bottle. A perfect match for savoury Christmas food with its refreshing sour-sweet apple flavour.
- Christmas Pudding: Oliver’s Red Pear Perry. Perry is made from pears and this is a medium sweet perry with honeyed notes that meld with the pudding’s rich fruitiness.
- After dinner Stilton: Chiltern Valley Autumn Glory Luxters dessert wine, or Mead from Lindisfarne (Holy Island) or Lurgashall. Salty meets sweet and swoons.
- Snooze on the sofa drink: Shipwreck Single Cask Ten Year Old Cider Brandy. This Somerset Cider Brandy was aged in oak barrels purchased from the Receiver of Wrecks after a container ship went aground in Devon in 2007. The barrels were bound for the South African wine industry but ended up in Somerset.
What a choice. Roll on December 25th I say! Anyone want to join me on the roof to shout out why Britannia rules the booze?
In the 1600's thermometers were filled with brandy instead of mercury. Thankfully we don't have Mercury Alexanders on the cocktail menu!
