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 Demijohn wins a Retail Award and offers Free* Mail Order Delivery until Bonfire Night!
To celebrate our Independent Retailer of the Year Commendation Award, launch our new website, announce the birth of our new Son, and mark a crackling start to the new British Sloe Gin season here at Demijohn, we are offering FREE* delivery for all mainland UK orders over £60 placed on our website before Bonfire Night (5 November 2008). If you have already planned your Christmas presents and know exactly what you need (unlikely if you are like me!) or would like to try something new (like me!), this might be the explosive opportunity you have been waiting for to qualify for a FREE* delivery! So if our new website does not blow you away, then hopefully our new 2007 Vintage Sloe Gin will. Do not delay, this offer and the availability of our fabulously rich Sloe Gin are as always very limited! Sorry, just got to get one last one in, another Fawkesingly good offer from Demijohn!
*Click for Terms & Conditions applicable to Free delivery offer
to order any of our products either visit our new Demijohn Online Shop or call us on +44 (0)141 3373600
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Demijohn News - October 2008
 Our News: As the sleet lashes the windows of my office, and the media drones on about crunch this and crunch that, I get the feeling someone is trying to tell me that the seasons have definitely changed! Well, do not despair, it is time for positive vibes from little ol' me the eternal optimist! Things actually have never been better here. Not only do we have a new Son here in the Ferguson family, we also have a seriously clever new website that Google in all its wisdom appears to understand, and on Tuesday evening we were awarded an Independent Retailer of the Year Commendation at the 2008 Scottish Retail Awards in the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow. It was a proud moment for us to finally make it to the podium and be recognised as one of Scotland's top retailers, having been recommended for the award by no less than our great bank The Royal Bank of Scotland. Although we were only able to take our hard working Shop Managers Alastair Simpson (Edinburgh) and Carrie Hay (Glasgow), the award was definitely a huge pat on the back for the whole team, Alastair and Carrie just got to drink the Champagne for everyone! But this is not all. Only a week ago the Sunday Herald Newspaper listed us as part of their so called Food Revolution, for helping to change the way we think about, eat and buy our food. And last week, most importantly of all it was still  Autumn here. Scotland at its best, fantastic cold and clear days with the most beautiful turn of colour in the trees. The sort of day in fact that you wish you could go outside and enjoy, picking the hedges for fruit even.... So, positive vibe hat back on, that is exactly what we at Team Demijohn did for the second year running. We closed the shops on Tuesday 14 Oct and hit the hedgerows for the now annual  sloe picking outing! I apologise now if you were one of few poor souls to have come to the shops on that particular day to be faced with a sign stating "Gone Sloe Picking." This was a necessary evil as Mother nature, a bit like the train at Waverley Station, waits for no man. In 2007 it was to our home turf of Galloway, South West Scotland that we journeyed to find our berries. This year however, we knew that Sloe berries were to be few in number, and in an effort to save on miles in the car, decided it was prudent to pick closer to the shops in the Kingdom of Fife. So famous has our picking become that the Sunday Times even sent a reporter with us to record the event. Their illustrious reporter, Rachel Devine, donned her finest wet weather gear to be exposed to not only the elements and thorny spikes of the Fife Blackthorn bushes, but also the full force 10 of Demijohn banter. Rachel, luckily, was given a little of the 2007 Vintage to anaesthetise her pain and still lives to tell the tale. For all the day was a success, never has a sloe picking been more difficult and sadly the quantity picked was a megre 20lbs, a seventh of our 2007 record and an indication of the struggle that our fruit has had this year in coping with the poor weather. Whatever the amount picked, our 2007 Vintage of Sloe Gin is now in stock after 12 months of maturing, and is testament to it being worth all the effort. It is immeasurably good to taste, traditional in style, incredibly rich with flavour and not too sweet. Its beautiful deep colour hides a world of British passion. With our new website now into its third week of life, (incidentally the same age as my new Son), and our popularity seemingly ever increasing, there is really nothing to be gloomy about. In fact the only lack of sleep for us at the moment is to do with early morning feeds and not about the crunch!
Forthcoming Events
It is Fair season again, and we may well be coming to a town near you in the coming weeks. Our first major winter show is the Scottish BBC Good Food Show in Glasgow which runs between Fri 31 Oct to Sun 2 Nov 08. An excellent event last year, we will not only be exhibiting on Stand D100, but I  will be taking an Oil & Vinegar Tasting Theatre on Sunday between 1.30pm to 2.15pm. So if you would like to hear me talk about our new Perthshire Rape Seed Oil, it would be a pleasure to see you! We are taking part again in the brilliant Chuffs Extravaganza Christmas Fair at the attractive Arniston House, Gorebridge, Midlothian in aid of the Daisy Chain Trust. The event runs on Tues 11 Nov (6 to 9pm), Wed 12 Nov (10am to 4pm) and Thurs 13 Nov 08 (10am to 3pm). Then is it off to South West Scotland and Dumfries to attend the Malcolm Sargent Christmas Fair at Easterbrook Hall at the Crichton in Dumfries. It will run on Tue 18 Nov (4.30pm to 7.30pm) and Wed 19 Nov (10am to 3.30pm). Without a breath we return North and set up for the Erskine Hospital Christmas Cracker Fair on Thurs 20 Nov (2pm to 7.30pm) and Fri 21 Nov (10am to 3pm). This year's event is in a new location at Ingliston Equestrian Centre, Bishopton. Our final major event for 2008 is the enormous Birmingham BBC Good Food Show held in the NEC between 26 to 30 Nov 08. Despite its size, we now have a regular return following of brilliant customers and look forward to it more and more. Phew, how exhausting! If you would like more information on any particular event then please email us at info@demijohn.co.uk for details.
New Product News
 If you missed my postcard about a fortnight ago, you will be pleased to hear that not only are our marvelous Blackwood's 40% Vintage Gin and Blackwood's 60% abv Vintage Gin now back in stock, but we have found a wonderful locally produced Extra Virgin Rape Seed Oil from a Perthshire Farm. You may already use a supermarket bought Rape Seed Oil at home for frying and baking, you may also be aware of the heavily marketed health benefits of such oils. Well this is all good, but few people realise that like olive oil, rape seed oils can and do taste very different depending on how and when they were produced. We started a campaign about 12 months ago, spear headed by Alastair Simpson our Shop Manager in Edinburgh, to try and find "the finest" British rape seed oil being produced. The discoveries Alastair made have been extremely interesting in this relatively new food product. Type of crop, harvest date, method of pressing, chemicals used all, as in the production of olive oil, play an large part in establishing the final taste, and ultimately true quality of, each rape seed oil. So if you would like to use your rape seed oil in cooking, in a way that it would benefit taste and not just your health, then our campaign for the finest tasting rape seed oil should be a good starting point! Mark Bush's skill of producing  our chosen Perthshire Rape Seed Oil at his Madderty Farm has been a fortunate coincidence. For us, we have a very local product which is at the top of its class in taste and quality, fantastic.
Coming soon: A new Whisky and the freshest olive oil in Britain! After a year of no oil, our wonderful Scottish owned single estate Villa Montalbano is about to press its first crop of olives for the year. If you have never tasted fresh, concentrated, days old extra virgin olive oil, this could be your chance. More in our November newsletter.
Your Ideas
Your ideas and thoughts really matter and our new website not only will allow you to write your own blog, but you can ask us a question which we may publish if it is useful to others. So if you require further information or have any comments to make about us please get blogging on the Demijohn website or call us on +44(0)141 3373600 or email me at info@demijohn.co.uk
Angus Ferguson
Managing Director
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