The Menu: One of the rarest Irish whiskeys in the world is up for auction with a €40k reserve
Midleton Silent Distillery Chapter Two
Unlike many of his acquaintance, The Menu is very fond of autumn, slowing down with the earth as it shuts down for winter, drawing a close on yet another growing season until next Spring. As the nights close in, he relishes great comforting nocturnal feasts of fine food and wine — and the upcoming wine dinner (Nov 17) at Adare Manor’s wine cellar promises to be such an occasion. It will pair one of the great Bordeaux wines, Chateau Palmer, of Margaux, with a specially created menu by chef Mike Tweedie of Adare Manor’s Michelin-starred Oak Room, where guests will enjoy eight different wines from Château Palmer with a six-course dinner. And The Menu’s sneak preview of dishes for the night has him rather excited. With just 10 seats available, this is quite possibly a very special Christmas present to be enjoyed in advance of the big day itself.
It may not be quite as rarified as the Adare Manor offering but there will be plenty more room around the table for an exclusive wine dinner (Nov 11) at The River Lee hotel, in Cork, with the promise of some very fine wines and excellent food to match. Master of wine, Róisín Curley, holds her first solo wine event at in the swish Leeside hotel’s Grill Room along with Philip Dunne, group sommelier for The Doyle Collection hotel group, where the Mayo native and pharmacist whose vinified passions eventually led her to create her own highly-regarded vintages in Burgundy, founding Maison Róisín Curley in 2015, and sourcing organic grapes from top growers to make her wines, now dividing her time between Burgundy and Ballyhaunis, where she still works as a pharmacist in the family business. Executive head chef, Paul Lane, and head chef, Oisín Collins, have created a five-course menu with strong local provenance with Róisín pairing some of her finest wines.
Tickets from theriverclubcork.ie
ELY in Dublin unveils Wine Wednesdays at ELY Winebar, a relaxed night of tasting and nibbling with each evening focussed on a different theme, region, grape variety or style of wine, and paired with cheese and charcuterie. Open table for groups of two to eight.
The Savour Food Programme, managed by the Clean Technology Centre, MTU Cork, has developed a splendid new E-tool for use by Irish foodservice businesses in an attempt to tackle the issue of food waste, which not only costs the sector in very real terms each year, where 150,000 tonnes of food is binned annually, a combination of plate waste (38%), preparation waste (35%) and unserved food waste (27%), costing an estimated €2.73 - €3.50 per kilogram.
The tool enables users to identify precisely how much their wasted food is costing and identify potential cost savings by implementing good practice standards, including waste segregation, awareness and training, and waste management.
Best of all, The Savour Food programme provides a free service to food businesses including direct consultancy, food waste prevention training and advice on legal obligations in relation to food waste management.
There are still a couple of days remaining (until the evening of Nov 8) to check out Celtic Whiskey Auction’s October online auction which sees one of the rarest Irish whiskeys in the world up for grabs, with all profits (over the cost price of the bottle) donated to Down Syndrome Dublin. Midleton Silent Distillery Chapter Two | Lot 272 is a single pot still whiskey aged over 46 years and. with just 70 bottles worldwide, it carries a reserve of €40,000. Check out the action online and consider making a direct donation to Down Syndrome Ireland.
celticwhiskeyauction.com/en/lot/lot-details/1261/midleton-silent-distillery-chapter-2
It is time once more for The Menu to share his daily bread or at least the fruits of his endless quest to share details of finest real bread in Ireland. Dave Matues also crops up in this weekend’s restaurant review pages for his very fine contribution to the overall edible output on offer at the Pavilion Garden Centre & Cafe, just outside Cork city, but The Menu felt moved to delve deeper into Dave’s trove of baked treasures, in particular, his sourdough loaves made with nothing other than flour, water, salt and time.
Dave first moved to Cork to work with Arbutus Bakery before moving on to Rohu’s, in Innishannon, but has found his self-declared culinary ‘home’ where he turns out a superb range of laminated patisserie and Viennoiserie, cakes, puddings and, of course, his extremely fine breads.
As well as featuring in the Pavilion GC cafe’s sandwich menu, whole loaves can also be bought for home consumption and The Menu recommends picking up three or four loaves for the freezer—just as delicious and fresh once ‘revived’ from frozen for 20-25 minutes in the oven.
The sourdough features a lovely open crumb, chewy, tangy bread and a golden, nutty crust that makes for a very splendid sandwich, an even better toastie and is an elemental ecstasy at breakfast, when toasted and smothered in melting Cuinneog country butter to be eaten with a soft-boiled egg, and a big bowl-sized mug of cafe au lait on the side to wash it all down.
