Thanks Birmingham

Jane, Lisa and Liz would like to thank everyone who visited the Spencerfield Spirit Stand at the NEC in Birmingham during the 5 day BBC Good Food Festival.

Hope you all enjoyed sampling our whiskies and a big thank you to those  who took some home.

Cheers!!!

Lost Flock Returns

Jane and Friends

What Purdey Did Next?

Well what can I say about Purdey !!

For all those of my generation  not the champion of the Gurkha’s.

(Those born before 1970 please Google ‘New Avengers‘ or ‘Patrick MacNee‘)

Our Purdey is a wee brown cross terrier – very cute, very loveable – Loves Frogs – carries them in her mouth you know.

We are doing a bit of dog sitting on Spencerfield Farm.

As we have Dug and Daisy our  Patterdale  Terriers and we are now looking after Purdey.

The terriers are doing what terriers do best ……but in a team.

So the cats live in the tree, the frogs have given up on us and left the pond..and our flock of Sheep have wandered.

Help Gambit and Steed !!!

The SheepDipper Improving

Well done to The SheepDipper team – getting better and finishing 7th in the 2:20 from Perth yesterday.

Hopefully a top 3 finish is not far away??

We all missed the race as we were out on the road bringing you Sheep Dip and Pig’s Nose at Edinburgh Taste , Holker Hall and Chatsworth House.

Thanks to everyone for visiting our stands and your warm comments.

If you want to find out more please feel free to email us on :

info@spencerfield.com

Down the Road in ‘09 -Well??

Spencerfield Spirit are still clocking up the miles to bring our unique whiskies to you  in 2009.

After the holiday weekend at  Hampton Court and  Country Fest in Kendal. We roll ever onwards and upwards 2:

*Inverleith Park in Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital.

The new venue is the popular Chef’ing Fest that is ‘Taste of Edinburgh’. Come and meet Hattie and Liz and try their new cocktail mix – The Ginger Pig !!!!!

We think it wins  – trotters down…….

*Holker Hall -  Cumbria.

Alex will be at there to let you in on the secret that is ” Sheep Dip” – he has a passion so make sure you come along and share it if you can.

*Chatsworth House – (Nice)

Come chat 2 Jane – she wants your company and will even let you know all about our fabby Whisky Club – tempted?

……….well you heard it right here!!!!!

ps

The weather man say the sun is gonna shine!!!

(View the latest schedule by clicking ‘On the Road’ tab)

Best Dressed – The SheepDipper

Well done to groom Vicki who won ‘best turned out’ in the 2.25 at Kelso races on Wednesday for The SheepDipper – good work !!!!

Doesn’t he look lovely and with his  first ever trip over hurdles he is coming on in leaps and bounds.

Catch his second outing over the jumps next week at Perth and remember to congratulate Vicki for all her hard work.

Homecoming bosses slap ban on whisky to keep major sponsor sweet

Published in The Scotsman : 14 May 2009

By BRIAN FERGUSON

Join The Scotsman Discussion Forum @

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/Homecoming-bosses-slap-ban-on.5265043.jp

‘THE centrepiece event of Scotland’s Homecoming celebrations is under fire after being forced to ban whisky products from its food and drink showcase.

Independent producers and distilleries have been frozen out of The Gathering, being held in Edinburgh in July, despite organisers promising to promote small companies and home-grown products.

But a sponsorship deal with the world’s biggest whisk company, Diageo, which is running its own showcase tent for its products, has led to the ban.

One whisky producer which had signed a deal to take space at the event has condemned the move as “a complete nonsense”.
It has also been described as “unfortunate” by the leading industry body Scotland Food and Drink, which is helping to organise the Scottish Produce Market. Officials insisted it was unprecedented for whisky to be banned from such an event.

Organisers at The Gathering were last night forced to apologise after a number of whisky firms had to be turned away, but blamed a breakdown in communications. Instead, products like cheese, shortbread, ice cream, oysters and chocolate will be available to sample.
However, one firm forced out of The Gathering has accused Diageo of trying to “monopolise” the event. Alex Nicol, managing director of Spencerfield, an independent producer in Inverkeithing, Fife, whose brands include Sheep Dip and Pig’s Nose, said: “It’s a complete stitch-up. We are a small, independent company and now find we’ve been bulldozed out of one of the biggest cultural dates in Scotland’s events calendar.

“We were recently informed by Scotland Food and Drink that our application to be part of the Scottish Produce Market had been rejected due to a conflict with Diageo, one of the event sponsors.

“But The Gathering’s website clearly states that ‘traders can sell a wide variety of high-quality Scottish fare produced by themselves’. We do not present any threat to Diageo, but this action is typical of big companies.”

Fiona Richmond, project manager at Scotland Food and Drink, said: “We did have interest from a number of whisky companies in taking space, and although we wouldn’t have been able to accommodate them all, it is a bit unfortunate that whisky products will not be available.

“It’s a critical part of the food and drink industry and we need to keep alive small independent producers.”

Diageo’s sponsorship deal with The Gathering, which is understood to be worth up to £50,000, will see it run two days of taster sessions and master classes inside a huge marquee. People will be able to sample some of its best-known malt whisky brands, including Talisker, Dalwhinnie, Cragganmore and Glenkinchie.

Jamie Sempill, director of The Gathering, said: “There will not be any whisky products at all available at the Scottish Produce Market, simply because we will have a separate whisky fair.

“It would be completely going against the spirit of our agreement with Diageo, who have been superb sponsors, if we were to allow other whisky producers to take space.”

No-one at Diageo was available to comment last night.

Exports hit £3bn for first time

WHISKY has long been one of the UK’s leading exports, and overseas sales broke the £3 billion barrier for the first time last year.

In China alone, the whisky market is worth £44 million a year to Scottish distillers. It is one of the fastest growing in the world.

This month is seeing the biggest ever celebration of the national drink to coincide with the Year of Homecoming, with dozens of events being held all over the country.

Diageo, which sells about £8 billion worth of whisky every year, employs about 4,500 workers in Scotland alone.

The company, whose other brands include Guinness, Baileys, Smirnoff and Tanqueray, trades in some 180 countries. In contrast Spencerfield has three employees and a turnover of about £500,000.’

The Sheep Dip Hurdle is a ‘Win-Win-Win’ for Spencerfield Spirit

Hope you all had a flutter yesterday on Winning Counsel in

The Sheep Dip Whisky Intermediate Hurdle (aka  the 2 o’clock at Perth) ???

All at Spencerfield Spirit are thrilled to say ‘We did!!!!’

Pics to follow as soon we climb down off our cloud 

Spencerfield Spirit raises a toast to Homecoming Scotland 2009

Spencerfield Spirit is launching a limited edition Sheep Dip barrel pack to commemorate this year’s Homecoming Scotland celebrations.

The handmade wooden barrel, lined with sheepskin encases a bottle of Sheep Dip whisky, woven from 16 single malts.

Sheep Dip emerged in the US in the 1980s but was taken off the market by Jim Beam in 2000. Spencerfield Spirit rescued the brand from oblivion five years later and brought it back for the iconoclastic whisky drinker to enjoy in the States and at home in Scotland.

Further back in history, from Spencerfield Farm on the banks of the Forth, farmer and distiller James Anderson set sail for America in 1791 with his wife and seven children. There he advised George Washington to get into the whisky distilling business and helped America’s first President become the country’s biggest producer of whisky.

Alex Nicol of Spencerfield Spirit explains, “Whisky belongs on Spencerfield Farm and we are very proud of our links to the story of America’s whisky. We want to keep the spirit of James Anderson alive and raise a toast to our deep-rooted connection to America.”

This unique presentation represents the historical reference made by British farmers to whisky as “Sheep Dip”. There was a time when farmers distilled their own “home-made” whisky and in order to avoid paying taxes to the revenue man hid the whisky in barrels marked “Sheep Dip”.

The name came about because Farmers’ merchants continued this tradition by entering cases of whisky as “Sheep Dip” on farmers’ bills, and also “pulling the wool” over the eyes of the farmers’ wives.

Spencerfield Spirit whiskies are available at all “The Whisky Shops”, Royal Mile Whiskies and online at www.spencerfieldspirit.com

What Does £2 Get You These Days?

Our spies tell us that our friends at The Bon Vivant on Edinburgh’s Thistle Street will do a Sheep Dip Dram for just £2:00.

This fantastic new venue 2 minutes from Princes Street is a great escape for all the tram spotters now in town.

bon vivant
     n : a person devoted to refined sensuous enjoyment (especially
         good food and drink)

Check Out the Tartan Sheep at Dunbar

At Sheep Dip we love the Tartan Baaa-rmy …..
A small flock of sheep at East Links Farm Park, Dunbar, East Lothian has been dyed tartan patterns to celebrate the homecoming year- the 250th anniversary of the birth of Rabbie Burns.