Perthshire honey scoops major award
Heather Hills among best in world
An east Perthshire farm has been named one of the best food producers in the world.
Heather Hills Farm in Bridge of Cally is one of only two Scottish producers to be placed in the Great Taste Top 50 Foods in the World for their award-winning raw Tasmanian leatherwood honey, which received a three-star rating from the Great Taste judges.
The east Perthshire farm also received a one-star rating from Great Taste for their Scottish heather honey with whisky, and their handcrafted Scottish marmalade with heather honey.
The family farm, first established in 1945 with just a single hive, now has 1,300 hives across Perthshire and Deeside.
Mark Noonan, managing director at the farm, said: “The principles of raw honey - where the honey is not heated over the normal temperature of the hive and is unfiltered - is now only just being understood.
“However, it is still not widely known that honey is like wine and dictated by its terroir - the flower, the nectar, the soil, the climate, the bees, the people and the practices.
“It’s basically nature’s way of creating something so wonderful from a recipe of variable elements.”
He continued: “We are passionate about Scottish provenance and delighted to have won awards for our recipes that pair our signature Scottish heather honey - gathered from wild-flowering heather - with other key ingredients that allow the marriage of flavours to truly shine.
“Our Scottish heather honey with whisky is blended with the 10-yearold Edradour malt from our local distillery in Pitlochry.
“And in recognition to the timehonoured tradition of marmalademaking in Dundee, we have handcrafted our Scottish marmalade with heather honey, a thin-cut Seville orange marmalade that blends the aroma and taste of the Spanish orange groves into our late Scottish summer.”
The honey was judged by an expert panel of over 500 people who praised its smooth, buttery, full-bodied finish with “unbeatable” floral aromas.
The expert panel described the honey as “stunning”, adding that it was “the perfect continuity of nose and palate with amazing length, powerfully individual aroma, yet somehow subtly engaging perfection.”