My wife was born and bred here on Gigha, 45 years ago. She's been running the farm lease from her father, and has basically been milking cows day and night pretty much her entire life. She learnt to ride sitting on a bull. But I digress.
Lately the price she gets paid by the bulk milk buyer of the region has dropped to abysmal levels, and though we had been discussing the idea of adding value by way of making ice cream for some time, frankly in the past 9 months push has come to shove and we simply had to crack on and do this. So I've become an ice cream chef, and I found along the way that there's a lot more to the making of good ice cream that meets the eye. But locals are now raving about our Bramble & Whisky flavour, and that group from Taiwan that so admired the 99 Day China Dragon all seemed to love the Lemon & Lime. Worked hard, at least 25 different recipes and batches, to figure out how to make good Chocolate ice cream, but finally cracked it about 2 months ago. I love our Vanilla the most, personally, but I'm that kind of boring guy. But the new Mocha flavour is fabulous, and several people reckon it will become a best-seller. We're currently investing in converting one of the under-utilised sheds up at the farm into a Production Facility, complete with new panelling, floor, walk-in freezer etc. etc. Hope to be producing on a modest but commercial scale in the autumn, probably by October. In the meantime we are allowed by regulation to only sell to folk who come to our door, but so far we have sold about a thousand small tubs to passersby. If any of you fancy trying some, come on over, we're easy to find once you get to Gigha, which is only 3 hours from Glasgow. Any Forum members that make it this far will be entitled to a free wee tub of ice cream!
