Demijohn News - May 2011
Our News:  
Recently recovered from Royal Wedding excitements and the long holidays from school for our children, we are back to experimenting with ingredients for Summer cocktails and new products.  As Frances aptly put in her latest blog post, Spring with Zest, the Swallows are back and the Summer is nearly on us.  It's time to dust off the BBQ and consider just a few of our new cocktail drinks to get your party started! The Demijohn team have been cooking on gas this month with their ideas for exciting drinks. Mark and Tim, from our York shop, have come up with an exceedingly drinkable drink called The Bloody Pirate. An equal measure of Raspberry Vodka and Spiced Rum Liqueur over plenty of ice can either start or finish a night off beautifully (as I found out myself while staying with friends over the weekend!). But alcoholic cocktail drinks are but one of the recipes to recommend this month. We are now in salad season, hooray! If you are a salad monster like me, either growing green leaves yourself or just appreciating the freshness it brings to our tables, it is a culinary inspiring time of year. But you do need a nice dressing to bring out the best in those green leaves in my opinion. It could just be your favourite Extra Virgin Olive Oil drizzled over the leaves with a little salt cracked over the top. Our Villa Montalbano Olive Oil is wonderful for this. Or be creative, make a dressing with your favourite fruit vinegar from our range and tailor it to suit your dish. Mrs Wilson of Biggar did just this with her Elderflower Vinaigrette. A simple dressing made from our Elderflower Vinegar, rape seed oil, lemon, salt and pepper, it is a winner. She tried it on us over the weekend with her salad to accompany her homemade salmon fish cakes, just to prove how good it was. What can I say - deliciously, delightful Mrs Wilson...oh and thankyou for having us too! If you have recipe ideas you would like to share, email them in or post them straight up on our Facebook page to see what everyone thinks.

Product News - Elderflower Power!
While our Mystic 100ml bottles and boxes are now back in stock, supplies of our delicious Elderflower Vinegar are running critically low and are now only available for mail order or in our Glasgow shop, sorry. So take this as a warning, if you would like some, buy it right now! To recharge our demijohns we will need to close the shops once again to gather more, but we are waiting patiently now for nature to run its course. The blossom on the elder has to burst into full bloom before we can deploy the troops. If like me you have become a bit of an elderflower spotter, a word of advice. Don't be confused by the many other shrubs with a similar blossom, such as Hawthorn or Rowan, there can be only one. Please don't crash the car while trying to spot it! Our prediction is that due to the excellent Spring weather, picking will be up to two weeks early this year so expect to hear the full story of our annual elderflower pickathon very soon. To be continued....

Event News
Next stop for the Demijohn travelling road show is Hovingham, a beautiful little village in North Yorkshire for the ABF Spring Fair. It you like massed bands and plenty of pomp and ceremony, then this is for you! And all for such a good cause..... Here is a quick summary of our events up to the end of September:
ABF The Soldiers' Charity Spring Fair - Hovingham (18 & 19 May)
Yorkshire Game Fair - Harewood House, N. Yorks (29 & 30 May)
BBC Good Food Summer Show - Stand F476 - Birmingham NEC (15-29 Jun)
Scottish Game Conservancy Fair - Osprey Row - Scone Palace, Perth (1-3 Jul)
CLA Game Fair - Food Village - Blenheim Palace, Oxford (22-24 Jul)
Huddersfield Food & Drink Festival - Huddersfield (11-14 Aug)
York Food & Drink Festival - York (23-25 Sept)
Kibble Palace Christmas Fair - Glasgow Botanical Gardens (27 & 28 Sept)

There are of course many more events than this in 2011, so watch out in future newsletters for updates.

Next Month in The Demijohn News.... 
Fresh air and a jolly good lunch, is there anything better in life? If you like the great outdoors but are in need of picnic inspiration then we let you into some of the secrets behind our Demijohn picnics ....



          

        Angus Ferguson
        Managing Director