Match of the week

Homemade Dundee cake and Midleton Very Rare whiskey

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on January 7 2013 at 09:00

What do you eat with a great bottle of Irish whiskey? Fruit cake might seem a bit frivolous to some and even brand you as, well . . . a bit of a fruitcake, but I can highly recommend it.

The whiskey was a Midleton Very Rare, bottled in 2005, belonging to our neighbour a few doors up. She’d been agonising whether to drink it or sell it. Without sounding self-interested it was hard to advise but she happily came to the conclusion that she would crack it open and invited us round to try it.

But what to nibble with it? Remembering the rich flavours of the only other time I’d drunk it I suggested fruit cake so we had a late tea at 7pm digging into her 82 year old mother’s homemade Dundee cake the recipe for which apparently came from a Creda cookbook (Creda being a popular oven range back in the '60s.)

The whisky was utterly delicious - better than I remembered, or maybe a better bottling. Super-smooth, rich, but not too rich with a dash of vanilla and complex fruit cake flavours of its own. At only 40% it didn’t need any dilution. Happily I don’t think our neighbour regretted opening it which was fortunate since it’s now fetching up to £200 a bottle.

You could obviously drink it - or that style of whisky - with Christmas cake too so maybe one to remember for next year.

Photo updated on 13/3/22 ©TalyaAL at shutterstock.com

If you’d like be able to check out all the food and wine pairings on the site you can buy a bundle of credits here to access my premium content.

And/or for regular updates on what and where I’ve been eating, drinking and travelling sign up for my weekly newsletter Eat This, Drink That, Live Well.