Spruce
Newsletter – Christmas 2007
In 2007 my family and I started to pilot a food and drink range using our
spruce shoots, brash and essential oil.
Having trialled various foodstuffs through the year we decided to focus
initially on the commercial production of spruce-based drinks, in particular
soft drinks, because all the ingredients can be sourced locally, we can make it
ourselves on site, and because we believe there is a niche for a new, locally
-made, healthy, delicious, zero carbon, ‘green’ beverage.
We
now have a grant from South Lanarkshire Business Enterprise to develop
our recipes and we are working with the ICBD (International Centre for
Brewing and Distilling) at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh and Branding
Boutique in Glasgow. This grant will enable us to invite potential
stockists, customers and other interested parties to a drinks tasting in
Edinburgh early in 2008.
In
2008, we intend to seek additional finance for businesses such as ours, located
in remote rural locations. This additional funding will enable us to move to
small-scale commercial production.
We are due to
complete our organic registration (Soil Association) of our spruce trees in May
2008.
We hope to provide
employment in our area and we are actively looking for an outlet where visitors
can buy our spruce products and perhaps see the brewing process.
We have had encouraging feedback from the Forestry Commission at a ‘preview’
tasting in Nov 2007.
We believe that a new, natural soft drink associated with all the benefits of
the forest will go well both with the campaign for fitness in the forest,
mountain biking etc as well as appealing to urban/metropolitan drinkers.
ICBD Heriot-Watt will also be carrying out tests to validate any
health/nutritional claims we can make for our drinks.
Branding Boutique in Glasgow are working on a design and brand identity for our
spruce products, packaging and labelling.
Spruce is
traditionally used in all the countries where it grows, to flavour food and
drink. Various species of spruce grow all over the northern hemisphere. Our
Crookedstane ™ spruce trees were named after the seaport of Sitka in Alaska.
Sitka spruce grows only on the coast, beside the fast-flowing rivers running
into the Pacific, in close relationship with five types of Pacific salmon,
which return annually to them to spawn.
Our pilot Crookedstane™ spruce products were made from: either spruce essential
oil e.g. our spruce and lemon ice cream; the fresh shoots or buds (new growth)
e.g. our non-alcoholic, lightly fermented drink, or from infusions of spruce
needles e.g. our spruce jelly; spruce beer.
Spruce has a delicious, subtle, refreshing and unique taste - a bit like
ginger, toffee, a hint of lemon....
Our
spruce and lemon ice cream is very well received. We sold it at many fairs in
Scotland this summer and to one of our local hotels in Moffat, the Buccleuch
Arms. Also to Dumfries Fish & Game, a specialist fish and game
shop in Dumfries. Our spruce jelly is available from Harvest Time, a
deli in Moffat and we
have orders for our spruce flavourings from Uncle Roy’s (Moffat-based) 2008
gourmet condiments range to be sold in Waitrose
How did we end up owning an
organic spruce forest and making spruce-flavoured food and drink? In 1983, one of our directors
planted 100ha of spruce here in the southern uplands of Scotland.
In 1994 she built a house in the forest. In 1999 on a working visit to
Kargopol in the Arkhangelsk region of northern Russia she spotted a plaque
explaining that it was the birthplace of Alexander Baranov, ‘founder of the
port of Sitka in Alaska’. Her curiosity about the trees growing at
Crookedstane was kindled and in 2001, during an enforced absence from the
forest because of the Foot & Mouth outbreak, she went to Sitka in Alaska.
With the help of the US Forestry Service, she spent time with Native
American guides and other residents and learned more about this remarkable
tree. Further research lead to the use of all this material for a booklet in
the Sage Press collectors tree series
Spruce beer was a regular import to Britain,
probably from Germany, in the 16th century. Evidence of this trade endures in
the expression: ‘Do you fancy a spruce?’, used in Northamptonshire to this day
when offering a cold drink. There are many historical descriptions of recipes
for spruce beer as brewed in 16th, 17th & 18th century. There is
evidence that spruce was used to maintain health of sailors on long sea voyages
and for the army in the winter in N. America e.g. in Boston.
Wishing you a Happy Christmas and a Very Sprucey New Year
From Liz & everyone at Crookedstane Kindling Ltd
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