5 minute read
Drink Bill Knott
venison and salmon dishes and a surfeit of berries and wild flowers, whose indigestibility saw off the last remaining reindeer a few millennia back.
There are still plenty of delights, which should be booked well ahead of the festival’s start date of 5th August. The Gardener’s Cottage and its nearby sister restaurant, the Lookout on Calton Hill, take some beating, especially given the latter’s peerless views of the city and Firth of Forth. For dinner, I would head to Noto, a Michelin Bib Gourmand, with its evolving menu of shared plates imaginative enough to rival anywhere else in these blessed isles.
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If you want American-tourist Edinburgh, head up to the Witchery by the castle, the execution place of 500-600 male and female witches in the reign of James I and VI. The 17th-century Witchery dining room is too dark and oak-panelled for lunch. So go behind to the terrace of the Secret Garden for lunch (two courses for £27.50).
The Ivy on St Andrew Square is all but unique in Edinburgh in having outdoor tables. Perfect for lunch and for their espresso martinis.
Fishers on the quay at Leith is very jolly for an outside seafood lunch. And Mother India’s Café has been serving up inexpensive home-cooked dishes across Edinburgh and Glasgow for over 30 years.
Café St Honoré, tucked in the New Town, offers hearty two-course dinners for £26.50 and drinkable house wine from the Languedoc for just £23.50 a bottle. But if you want a real bargain, try Jules Bistro, which offers a threecourse lunch menu for £11.90 with house wines at £16.90. Avoid the French-onion soup and opt for the goat-cheese salad and coq au vin.
It’s a buzzing joint, the reincarnation of Bistro Vino from the 1970s. It was my son’s and his girlfriend’s favourite place and the scene of their last dinner ever as students.
DRINK BILL KNOTT DOWN MEXICO WAY
I tried my hand at being a jimador once. It was a swelteringly hot day, and I was in a field somewhere outside Guadalajara, in Mexico’s Jalisco province, surrounded by thousands of huge, spiky, blue agave plants shimmering hazily in the heat.
Piece of cake, I thought, naively, as a farmer wielded his coa – a kind of long, wooden-handled hoe with a sharp, curved blade – and expertly sheared the spikes from the agave’s massive, bulbous heart. Ten minutes later, I was drenched in sweat, panting for breath, and my career as a jimador was over.
I made it as far as the nearest bar and revived myself with a stiff margarita: a cocktail that, of course, would not exist without the sterling efforts of the jimadors. The sugar-rich agave hearts – piñas, named for their resemblance to pineapples – are steamed, crushed, fermented, distilled and bottled as tequila, sometimes after being aged in wood. The piña at which I hacked so helplessly was destined for the excellent Herradura Plata (thewhiskyexchange. com, £40.95).
Much less vital to the production of great tequila is the endorsement of a celebrity, but that has not stopped them. In recent years, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Rita Ora and AC/DC have all launched new tequila brands. Five years ago, George Clooney sold his Casamigos brand to drinks giant Diageo for a reported $1 billion – so there is clearly an appetite for the stuff.
Mijenta, a mercifully celeb-free brand from the highlands of Jalisco, produces the classic range of blanco (white and unaged), reposado (aged for up to six months in wood) and añejo (aged for at least 18 months). Añejos are made to be sipped, rather than mixed (and certainly not slammed), while blancos and reposados both make excellent cocktails. So I have experimented with a few, using cocktail guru Simon Difford’s excellent diffordsguide.com as my vade mecum.
I am a convert to Difford’s margarita on the rocks, served in an old-fashioned glass: the classic blend of two parts tequila, one part triple sec and one part lime juice with a pinch of salt and a touch of extra sweetness from a dash of agave syrup. Mijenta’s tequilas (available from thewhiskyexchange.com, from £50/70cl) are more fruity and floral than vegetal and earthy, and the syrup adds a welcome note of the plant itself. Shake over ice and strain into glasses filled with fresh ice.
Agave syrup crops up again in his version of a paloma: four parts tequila, two parts fresh pink grapefruit juice, one part lime juice and a dash of agave syrup, shaken over ice, then strained into an ice-filled highball glass, topped up with a grapefruit soda and given a quick stir. Fruity and refreshing, with a pleasant kick, it is my summer cocktail of choice. I tip my sombrero to the jimadors, but I know which end of tequila’s life cycle I prefer.
This month’s Oldie wine offer, in conjunction with DBM Wines, is a 12-bottle case comprising four bottles each of three wines: a keenly-priced white from one of Spain’s best cooperatives; a summery fizz from a similarly esteemed co-operative in the Loire; and a classic claret from the Graves that would partner a slab of rare roast beef admirably. Or you can buy cases of each individual wine.
Wine
Sense Cap Blanc, Celler de Capçanes, Montsant 2020, offer price £8.99, case price £107.88
Delightful, mediumbodied white, gently aromatic with a pleasing grip on the palate. Great value.
Saumur Brut ‘La Grande Marque’, Cave de Saumur NV, offer price £11.50, case price £138.00
Sprightly, beautifully balanced, classicmethod fizz made from Chenin Blanc: a bottle belongs in every fridge.
Château Trébiac, Graves 2018, offer price £13.50, case price £162.00
Fruity, elegantly structured, unoaked claret: 70 per cent Merlot, 30 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon, and drinking very well now.
