Sutherland charcuterie wins award for 'visually outstanding' venison
A Sutherland food producer has been recognised for its “visually outstanding" venison with an award for Charcuterie Product of the Year.
Highland Charcuterie and Smoke House, based in Lairg, collected the the award last night at a ceremony at Southwark Cathedral in London.
The award-winning product – wild highland venison salami with juniper, which is smoked with peat – was described as “visually outstanding with well distributed ingredients and deep rich colour.”
The salami is made using wild Highland venison and local free-range pork.
Impressing the Great Taste judges with its extremely well-balanced flavours “with the venison appearing first, followed by the juniper and finally a long gentle warmth from the pepper”, the wild Highland venison salami made an impression at every stage of the blind-tasted judging process across the 90 days.
Rising to the top among hundreds of other entries, this “intense and complex” salami was celebrated as the best tasting product in its category.
John Farrand, managing director at the Guild of Fine Food said: “Unveiling the Great Taste Golden Fork winners is a huge honour. After months of rigorous blind-tasting and judging, it is fantastic to reveal the award-winning products and celebrate the producers’ hard work and innovation.
"It’s been an exceptional year for creativity and inspirational food and drink entries. Huge congratulations from all of us at GFF to all the award winners, it really isn’t easy to do what you do – I have the utmost admiration for you all. And thank you to everyone who was involved in Great Taste 2022.”
