London game restaurant launches Scottish-inspired cocktail range

London-based restaurant Mac & Wild has launched a range of ready-to-drink malt whisky cocktails inspired by foraged Scottish ingredients.

The five-strong cocktail range has been created by Edinburgh-based mixologist Luke Leiper, who hand-makes and bottles the drinks in small batches in Edinburgh, before shipping them to the Scottish game restaurant’s site in central London.

Based on identifiable cocktails including the Manhattan and Old Fashioned, the range uses whiskies or spirits, vermouths, and locally sourced Scottish herbs and botanicals. It comprises The Forager, based on a Glenkinchie 12-year-old malt, with pine tincture, heather honey & barrel aged bitters; The Ginger Laddie comprising Bruichladdich Classic Laddie and Port Charlotte Islay whisky, with ginger, oloroso sherry, orange and sweet vermouth; Dalwhinnie 15-year-old-based The Auld Pal, with bianco vermouth, suze gentian, dandelion & burdock bitters, chamomile and gorse flower; and The Bonnie Brae, with a Haig Club base, rowan berries, rhubarb rosato vermouth, peychauds and agave. The fifth sky is a gin-based cocktail, Tam’s Tears, which uses Tanqueray No. 10 gin, with lemon verbena, wild nettle and dry vermouth.

Leiper, who has worked with Mac & Wild’s co-founder Calum McKinnon for a number of years, told the drinks business the range had developed naturally out of Mac & Wild’s in-house cocktail range, which he devised with McKinnon partly because the restaurant had such limited bar space. “It isn’t unusual – it ensures you get the same level of service in terms of speed and quality, without the wait. But we got lots of feedback from customers wanting to buy bottles we decided to offer it to retail,” he said.

The drinks, which are distributed by Speciality Drinks, are being stocked by up-market food stores including Selfridges & Co and Whole Foods Market, and online with Masters of Malt.

Leiper said the company was keen to increase production of the drinks as business grows, and had already increased the size of its batches. But he admitted that when the business gets to a certain level, it would have to outsource bottling.

“We had an enquiry from Asia recently, but we would beed to step up production to another level,” he said. “It is an exciting project to be involved with and it has grown very organically.”

Mac & Wild was opened by McKinnon and business partner Andy Waugh in October, as the first permanent site for their street food business The Wild Game Company. This launched onto the London street food scene in 2010, supplied by Waugh’s family game business, Highlands-based Ardgay Game.