Menu: Autumn food fayres, new Irish whiskey, and sustainable coffee that actually tastes superb
Ciara and Gerry O'Halloran, Flaggy Shore Oysters. Picture: Eamon Ward
Autumnal Ireland is one of The Menu’s most favourite times and places in the world, when the evenings draw in, the stove throws out a warming glow, and the table is laden with the bountiful harvest of yet another season of producing some of the finest fare to be had anywhere in the world.Â
And if The Menu were to think of a place in the country to celebrate such culinary riches then he’d be hard-pressed to look beyond the Burren Food Fayre in Co Clare (Oct 22-25). It coincides with the Burren Winterage Festival, celebrating the ancient custom of transhumance when the cattle are dispatched to the uplands of the Burren for winter grazing.
The Food Fayre offers a series of unique food and farm visit experiences, a blessed return to some semblance of normality after last year’s festival which had to be staged online. These will include visits to food producers such as Burren Gold, St Tola Goat Cheese, Burren Salmon, and Flaggy Shore Oysters (pictured above). Visits will include hands-on interactive experiences including tastings, bread making and oyster shucking as well as trips to local landmarks, Ailwee Cave and the Cliffs of Moher.Â
Nothing puts The Menu in mind of a drop like a cold autumn evening parked in front of a glowing stove and it seems that the whiskey industry is most mindful of such, for there are an amount of fine new Irish whiskeys recently released and all in need of sampling.
Method and Madness Rye and Malt is the first aged experimental distillate created at the company’s innovation hub in Midleton, the Micro Distillery, while the venerable Redbreast release a single pot still Pedro Ximénez Edition, celebrating its ties to Iberian cooperages and winemakers, a triumphant sweet and spicy union most evident in the glass.
If you fancy something a little left of centre, then the Teeling Unconventional Collaborations —We’re Not Finished Yet! (Oct 21) is an immersive virtual tasting event with event packs including whiskeys finished in German Riesling casks, Irish Amber Ale barrels, Italian Amarone red wine casks and Norwegian Aquavit casks, packs include five samples, delivered to your door.Â
But if you’re looking for more than a ‘drop’ then Galway-based Micil Distillery are offering the chance to own a full cask as they release their SÃolta MhicÃl cask offering, a unique opportunity to purchase one of only 240 handmade 50-litre casks, containing the first legal Galway whiskey to be produced in more than a century. Featuring three different mash bills (recipes) and five distinct cask types, expect to fork out €3,300 prior to VAT and excise duty (paid after maturation, four years), all yielding approximately 90 bottles of bespoke whiskey, hand-bottled and labelled with a personalised Micil Irish Whiskey label, which all sounds like the class of bill best footed by a group of likeminded whiskey enthusiasts prepared to spread the fiscal pain in pursuit of rarified sipping.
More highlights from the full Food on the Edge programme at Airfield Estate, Dundrum (Oct 18/19), just released, include: owners of Septime Restaurant in Paris, Bertrand Grébaut and Theo Pourriat; Alice Waters, of Chez Panisse in California in discussion with Darina Allen and Michelle Darmody on food education for children; Virgillio Martinez, from Central Restaurante in Peru, with his sister, Malena Martinez on food heritage in Peru. The ever-compelling Ella McSweeney talks about the food ecosystem and pollution, while young chef Cúán Greene speaks about his personal experience in social gastronomy.Â
The venerable 'cuppa joe' is very much part of our daily lives, especially in Ireland where it has very certainly muscled in on all that hot beverage action once dominated by tea. But it is very often forgotten that coffee drunk in wealthy developed nations can be based on the hard labour of peasant farmers poorly rewarded for their efforts.
It is for this reason that The Menu salutes Dublin-based Full Circle, as yet another Irish coffee company to make concrete efforts to support a far more sustainable supply chain, in Full Circle’s case by investing in several small Brazilian coffee farms and committing to buying full lots each season.
What winds up in the cup, however, must also be considered and The Menu is equally inclined to doff his cap in recognition of the mighty fine job Full Circle is making of roasting said beans.
Brazilian Fazenda Canta Galo (Red Catuai varietal) is a malty, biscuity brew with pronounced hazelnut notes and a mild acidity that makes for a pleasant espresso, or even better, macchiato, lactose sugars amplifying the coffee’s sweetness.
While Full Circle also roasts beans from Peru, Guatamala, Honduras, Ethiopia and Kenya, The Menu particularly enjoyed his other sampling, a Colombian, Villamaria (a pairing of arabicas, caturra and Castillo) with funky, fruit-forward notes of rich criollo cacao bean and pleasing burnt bitter cocoa at the tail-end of nicely acidic mouthful.
And The Menu’s top tip: blend the Canta Galo and the Villamaria for a quite superb espresso — the perky Colombian adding that extra oomph to the more laconic Brazilian Canta Galo.
