Taste Tweed Valley
With so much outstanding food and drink to sample, why not cook up your own food and drink tour? You can even try making some of it for yourself. Here in the Tweed Valley, taste and creativity go hand in hand.
Become a chocolate master
Join a class at the Cocoa Black Chocolate School and learn all there is to know about the art of making chocolate (and pastries) from UK World Chocolate Master Ruth Hinks. School has never been such fun!
Get gin’spiration
Whisper it quietly, but artisan gin is even giving whisky a run for its money in Scotland, and no more so than at Peebles Hydro where the nearby Shieldgreen spring supplies the gleaming copper stills of the hotel’s own distillery. Take a tour or try your hand at crafting your own bespoke gin at the Hydro’s 1881 Gin School.
Craft beers and ales
Exploring the surrounding hills and forests can be thirsty business, so it’s just as well that the Tweed Valley is full of microbreweries producing delicious craft beers. Dating back to the 1700s, the granddaddy of them all is Traquair Brewery – housed in a wing of Traquair House, directly beneath the chapel! Look out too for relative newcomers Tempest Brewery and the most recent arrival, Durty Brewing, which offers a range of brews inspired by the local trails and landscape.
Ice cream
Take your pick from more than 20 different flavours! Another local institution, Caldwell’s has been serving up its delicious ice creams for longer than anyone can remember – and not just in the summer months. Now with branches in both Peebles and Innerleithen.
Six of the best
Fancy the ultimate foodie day covering six of the finest places to eat in the valley? Then try this (admittedly rather glutinous) culinary itinerary:
Coffee and brunch at No1 Peebles Road
Lunch at Courtyard Cafe Kailzie
Afternoon tea at the Tontine or Cringletie.
Dinner at Tryst (The Park Hotel)