Sunday, October 23, 2011

Scottish Oatmeal

Last year at this time, myself, Taylor and our friends, John and Randi Baxter found ourselves in our family's homeland of Scotland.  Scotland in the Fall is spectacular, as are the Rocky Mountains, but in a different way......everyone there wears tweed and drinks single malt.  I did discover, thanks to a wonderful chef at the Hilton in Edinburgh, that many Scots start the day with a wee dram in their oatmeal or porridge for you locals.  I had not done that before, but I certainly do now.  Here's the deal....


Single Malt Oatmeal



Your favorite oatmeal.....NOT Instant if you don't mind.  Old fashioned oats or "rolled oats" are very good, or you can choose steel cut or Irish oats.  Good Scottish oats are hard to come by except for at Whole Foods or other high end supermarkets.  They are milled into Porridge to make them creamy.

Cover with a few toasted walnuts, brown sugar, a bit of pure maple syrup, and a dram of Scotch.  In Scotland, we eat these with a blended scotch such as the Famous Grouse.  In other words, there, they would not waste a drop of single malt on their oats.  Here, since single malt is what I drink, I think a dram or two can be wasted on breakfast.  This is a great start to a fishing day in early November.  Don't overdo the scotch, save that for the river.