What a delicious year it was!
It’s been the first year without proper restrictions and we’ve enjoyed being open as much as we can. As always we’ve been dealing out some of the best specialty coffee in Glasgow with handpicked vintage; oh! and with a curated selection of products and clothes from some of the top independent labels and brands in the U.K and further. We were featured in 91 magazine and we got some gorgeous interior shots for it by Studio Gently, which was nice. It made us blush, just look at them!
We’ve taken some time to reflect and we wanted to thank everyone who’s been involved over 2022! The Candlestickmakers! The Bakers! The Butchers[we don’t stock any]! And you, thank you!
Otherwise here’s a whistle stop tour of some brilliant bakers and roasters from the past year! We love a treat and we love to share so you can have a treat!
Glasgow’s best bakers!
Maple Leaf: a staple, like the rest of them, in our cake cabinet and under our Cloche. There’s the Persian Love Cake, there’s the lamingtons, there’s the brookies, ahhhh, there’s their speciality - pastries; all absolutely delicious. We are yet to find a better Bakewell tart. Rebecca took a career pivot over a year ago and we’re so glad to see someone growing and thriving, especially when they are living their dream and ours since they supply us with such delicious cakes.
A Pastry: another Southside baker. All their bakes are vegan, or at least vegetarian, and we often get told you wouldn't know they were plant based! We get the empire biscuits (Are these the best in town? Come try one and let us know?!) and the gorgeous vegan mini loafs. They have a shop down on Clarkston Road, which you should check our if you’re down that way. They are smashing it like they should be! For any of your doggos that come in, they’re the ones who make the crunchy treats you’ve all been getting.
Kitty’s Donuts: INDULGENT - we were long term fans of her work but 2021 was the first time we could get in her rotation and share her talents with you! Kitty is stocked weekly with us in the Southside on Thursdays, and then over the weekends at our friends Morning Glory in the West End. We’ve sampled our way around the chocolate hazelnut, the dark cherry jam, the biscoff and lemon meringue, wooo!, and the many more we’ve had throughout the year. All top tier ticker clogs let’s say, but worth it and it’s good access is restricted sometimes, isn’t it?
Yolk + Pod: When those almond croissants first came around everyone was fainting on the street, queuing, waiting, tempting, chasing, running, posting, cycling, driving, and hopefully eating! Yolk + Pod are our longest standing baker and we still love em. They’ve also grown an immense following and stockist base throughout the city and are always shaking up what they’re doing. Some of their irresistible bakes we’ve had in are, almost always, their salt caramel brownies, their blondies, their focaccia—tattie & rosemary—, their cinnamon buns and the ultimate favourite, their ginger and orange crack cookie. Yumm-eee!
Flying through our hopper
We recently got some Papercup in and it was so delicious. Their Brazilian Patricia Mundo Novo was a hit with us and you too. This tasty variety, the Mundo Novo, is a natural cross of the bourbon and typica varieties grown just north of Sao Paolo, so is a bit less common to see, but it sings dark chocolate cake smothered in nuts and berries; and it was perf for our hopper with milk or black.
Another highlight is the unrelenting rise of Hard Lines, from Cardiff. They’re amazing with stark, cheeky design and their cafe in Canton, Cardiff is a brilliant breakfast spot. They do it and they do it good, they do it loud! Their house blend is called ‘House Party’ and it was another Brazil we had this year. Their beans are always well roasted and their design, spirit and attitude gets us riled up for anything!
All the way from down there, down south, down in London, Mission Works were a delight in our hopper and helped us discover some more British roasters to rely on. We had their ‘Pivot’ single origin on our shelves this year, which they describe as ‘fruit-forward, experimental’ and so it was fruit-forward in a classic Ethiopian way. Sourced from the Guji Zone, some way west of Addis Ababa, this natural bean came to us from the Danisa Washing station and packed mangoes, strawberries and the sweetness of white chocolate with it. A real gob smack!
Faodail has certainly been a ‘lucky find’ for us, only because Kenny and Simone are amazing at what they do and support those around them. They roast clean and mouth-watering beans here in Glasgow and we always follow their seasonal rotations and offerings in the years we’ve been working with them and everything we’ve had is absolutely worth it. Their Finca Medina, from Guatemala, is a luxurious autumn cake straight in the mouth and their more recent Rwenzori Bugoye, from Uganda, is in essence a strawberry flavoured cola! All treats, all treats!
That’s a wrap, they say! We’re still open til the 31st, but then we’ll be closed for a little breather, a proper one, not like the busy christmas breather that isn’t a breather at all. So we will love and see you all in 2023 for more delicous coffee, bakes and the best vintage in Strathbungo or if you’d like some more amazing artists, bakers and coffeemakers to scroll through, you can visit our Friends page.
Meanwhile,
BAM
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