January isn’t known to be the liveliest of months for the licensed trade, but it does have one thing going for it, hospitality-wise.
The annual Burns Night celebrations aren’t likely to rival Christmas and New Year as a way to draw customers into licensed premises, but they’ll give some customers an excuse to shake off the post-festive malaise and raise a glass in celebration.
“January can be a challenging month for bars and pubs, with many guests easing off after the festive season,” acknowledged Mariella Romano, global brand ambassador and brand manager at Isle of Arran Distillers.
“Burns Night, however, arrives at the perfect time, when people want to get together again, a gentle return to social life after weeks of cold, quiet winter evenings. The timing gives venues a great opportunity to lift spirits, bring people back through the door, and shine a spotlight on Scotch whisky.
“A curated selection of themed cocktails, twists on classics, or a dram of the official Robert Burns Single Malt can bring people into the celebratory spirit.”
For whisky, in particular, the date is an important one, with Steven Rankin, head of sales at Annandale Distillery, calling Burns Night ‘one of the most commercially important dates in the whisky calendar’.
“While January is traditionally a quieter month, Burns Night consistently delivers a notable uplift in whisky sales, often outperforming average winter trading days thanks to group bookings, set menus, and celebratory serves.”
While there’ll be those that enjoy raising a whisky to the Scottish bard and sipping it neat, drinks companies and skilled bartenders have become good at exploring new and different serves for whisky in recent years.
And Romano and Rankin reckoned there were several whisky serves well suited to Burns Night celebrations.
For Isle of Arran’s signature Robert Burns Single Malt, Romano recommended classic whisky cocktail the Penicillin – blending 60ml of the whisky with 20ml each of lemon juice and honey-ginger syrup.
The resulting drink, said Romano, is a ‘comforting yet lively sip’.
Rankin cast a wider net, listing a number of different serves that are well suited to both whisky and Burns.
Among those were whisky highballs, which he described as ‘light, accessible and great for whisky-curious guests’, Old Fashioneds and Rob Roys, and hot serves such as hot toddies and mulled whisky, which can help take the edge off the January chill.
And of course, different styles of whisky can be better suited to different styles of food.
Lighter, floral Highland whiskies, for example, can be well matched with smoked salmon and citrus crème fraîche, while richer, sherried whiskies can pair with venison carpaccio or stew, with oatcakes, blue cheese and chutney a tried and tested companion for smokier peated whiskies.
Fruity Speysiders are best paired with cranachan-style dessert pots, reckoned Rankin, while it may be best to recommend nutty, mature blends to vegetarian guests tucking into mushroom or truffle risottos.
