A view looking in from the front door, through to the Pressing Room

At long last, the shop is open for business!

It has been abit like Topsy….it has grown and grown and hopefully it is still growing! Certainly it is not full yet of all things apple, but over the next few months it will.

We have the full range of apple juices always available for sale. When I get hold of different varieties then these will also go sale but sometimes they don’t have a long availability-like Discovery-and when they are gone-they’re gone! I have to say that I like that,  seasonality is something that has largely disappeared. Afterall you can get strawberries at Christmas, and asparagus spears from Peru any time of the year! Its nice, waiting for a particular variety to come on the market and having the expectation of taste confirmed when it finally does arrive.

This year it was Lord Lambourne.

There was a customer of one of my customers, who really took to Lord Lambourne and was disappointed when it stopped being available-but just wait until next year! I will be the biggest buyer of Lord Lambourne in the UK!

We have experimented with making apple jellies and I really wnated to make jellies of all our varieties, but I have found that the really sweet apples do not make good jellies, so we have reduced the number to 3, with some additions. We have Bramley and Granny Smith apple jellies and Bramley and Granny Smith apple jelly ‘with a hint of cinnamon’ and… Cox’s Orange Pippin(with no hint of anything other than Cox’s Orange Pippin!)

Once the Environmental Health people have tested the jellies they will be on sale. Not sure of the price for the 1/4 lb and 1/2lb jars-just watch this space!

I am still trying to make a number of varietal apple sauces and the first few attempts have been nearly there, but not quite there. I am sure that I will crack it in the near future, and now that Christmas is over, I have more time to experiment. I want to produce one ‘rustic’ apple sauce and one smooth apple sauce for all the varieties-why just have apple sauce from Bramleys and only have it with pork? I’ll let you know when I have cracked it.

The other additions that we have, are made by two people in Peebles.

The first is a superb Apple and Cranberry relish made by Val Brunton, owner of The Sunflower Restaurant in Peebles.She is also one of the people who have greatly encouraged me to carry on with Cuddybridge and experiment with any wild ideas that I might have. Not only is the Relish superb, it is beautifully presented with a cinnamon stick and a Star Anise on the lid, and at £3.50 per 1/2lb pot a true snip!

Stewart Laidlaw comes from Peebles, and he has recently been making two products-Damn Good Chillie Relish and Damn Hot Chillie Relish. As you can gather one is normal and the other is truly HOT! Again they are both beautifully packaged and whilst one person did not agree with wording on the 1/2lb jar (Damn!), they have sold very well and are delicious across a wide range of foods, as well a hot dip. Damn Good Relish is £3.50/jar whilst the Damn Hot Relish is £4.00.

We have had for some time now, 2 varietal sorbets(500ml tubs)-Braeburn and Bramley- both made atOver Langshaw  Farm, Galashiels. Lucy is the brains behind the venture and sorbets are superb-very true to their apple taste. Hopefully during the warmer months we will be able to sell 100ml pots of both, more as an impulse buy, when customers are in the shop.

Both of the sorbets are just scrummy!

 The 500ml tub is just £4.99 and keeps in the freezer for up to one year.

We also sell a small range of my daughter’s herbal teas. If you want to now more about them, please click on  the ‘Medical Herbalist’ link at the top of the home page. The prices are also given.

So we have the basis of the shop,and more things are coming on stream….the idea was never to open with a full shop, but rather to allow it grow as people have ideas and insprations about what  can be done with apples.

It’s going to be a great fun year ahead!