Stuck for a Fathers Day Gift?

Hands up who's panicking about what to get their dad for Fathers Day?

I'm willing to bet that if your dad is as hard to buy a present for as mine, there will be a fair few hands in the air at the moment. Guess what? All your pressie-buying woes are over if you get your order for a One for the Lads hamper (or indeed any other type of hamper) in before 11am Friday.

Your Valentines Day gift sorted

Fear not, the blind panic that descends as we creep closer to Valentines Day can be completely avoided. Send your nearest and dearest a Lovey Dovey Hamper (cool name or not? What do you think?) and sidestep that whole drama whilst earning yourself a stack of brownie points for your thoughtfulness – result!

View the range of Velvet Antlers Valentines hampers here.

Stuff we chose for our hampers part 4 – Gillies Clootie

It’s really no wonder people get so worked up about planning their weddings. It really is quite important for things to be just right. A wedding is your chance to tell most of the people you know something about yourself and your style.

The style we wanted for our wedding was ‘Scottish’, ‘chilled’ and ‘informal’. We reckon we hit the right note and so we still look back and think it was a great day and we were very comfortable. You know I think that in an ideal wedding people should really feel at home. Sometimes big gatherings get so formal and I think that limits the fun a little bit (sure, or course some alcohol later on helps make this dissolve, if not swing quite the other way!). But if you choose all the details for your wedding accordingly, I think it’s possible to side step this issue and put everyone at ease and in the mood for a good time from the word go.

And every detail is important – the venue, the food, the arrangements etc etc. But the food is possibly most critical. Whisky is powerful stuff, but even the thirstiest Scot cannot ceilidh dance into the wee small hours on an empty stomach. We went to a wedding some years ago in a very majestic Scottish castle, but ended up doing mass minibus runs to the local chip shop. There was no food at the reception and everyone was too hungry to dance and needed party fuel urgently!

For our wedding lunch we took our family to The Oak Tree at Balmaha on Loch Lomond. If you are in the area it carries a strong recommendation from us! Our chosen dessert was Clootie dumpling. Clootie is like so many features of Scottish style, culture, or food; quite traditional in origin but is so damn good that it’s easy to give it a modern twist and make it something pretty cool. In this case, a little high quality vanilla ice cream or, if you prefer to keep it ‘retro cool tradtional’ then some fresh custard, and bingo – You have just fuelled a room full of people to complete many dance floor pounding hours.

Whatever you want to burn off your Clootie doing, you’ll find a generous hunk of it in our Sheer Belter and Pure Stoater hampers.

Stuff we chose for our hampers part 3 – Kshocolat

The first flat Dave and I shared together was somewhat jammy for a pair of financially challenged students. My Bro had taken a contract job in sunnier climbs and we ‘looked after’ his place in the Merchant City of Glasvegas. We felt a little out of place. My little Renault 5 kept attracting polite notices not to park here again in the block’s private parking area. Anyone seen dead in such a vehicle couldn’t possibly afford such an address. I’d just graduated from art school and often sold my prints at a cool art fair across the road in the elegant Merchant Square.

It was hard, (well, torturous actually) to attempt to spend a whole day in front of Kshocolat’s boutique at my stall without giving in to the temptation of their magnificent hot chocolates. Thankfully my photographs sold well enough to warrant regular indulgence. The taste of Kshocolat’s white chocolate is my defining memory of living in this rather nice part of the world, five years ago. If only I could have such a nice memory of every place I’ve lived…

So now it comes around that I have the chance to share that special indulgence through Velvet Antlers. I’m pretty happy about that.

You’ll find Kshocolat’s white hot chocolate in our Pure Stoater, One for the Lassies hampers.

Stuff we chose for our hampers, part 2 – Arran Aromatics

The Scots are a damn lucky bunch when it comes to holidays. Glaswegians like us especially so. As well as the usual choices of getting on a plane anywhere, we have an almost inexhaustible resource of lovely places to discover in our own islands. Often, it’s financial constraints that lead Scot’s to holiday within Scotland, but it’s probably the time most outdoor lovers discovered the highlands and islands.

The isle of Arran is a popular haunt of Glaswegians off work for the summer ‘Glasgow Fair’ weekend, summer holidays, weekend warrior trips and these days, stag and hen dos!

For us, it was Arran’s famous granite mountains that brought us across on the Friday night crossing to Brodick and the long trek up the road to Glen Rosa campsite. Later, we discovered the quietude of camping in Glen Sannox beside some old ruins. This became our base for exploring the cliffs of Cir Mhor, The Bastion and Cuithe Mheadonach. The mood of these mountains really leaves an impression on you. Such a small mountain range, but I remember feeling so remote hanging off a huge granite flake listening to the silence of the summer mountain air and feeling the warm up-draught as the 300 foot plated granite wall soaked up the afternoon sun. Only the sight of the tiny wee Calmac ferry scurrying back and forth across the firth of Clyde to Ardrossan reminds you that civilisation is not too far away.

On that summer updraught I also remember the smells. They always seem so much stronger in the hebridean mountains than anywhere else we have spent time. Blossoming heather, peat drying in the summer heat, and the raw untouched granite, as the crystals under my feet scrittle slightly, disturbed for the first time since the glaciers left.

Arran Aromatics have made it their life’s work to bottle this most exquisite of sensory experiences. So we thought it was perfect for Velvet Antlers hampers.

Stuff we chose for our hampers, part 1 - Brew Ha Ha

It’s a known fact – the Scots love to drink. We heard somewhere that folk outside of Scotland thought our national drink was whisky; Who told them that?! Of course if you go by gallons consumed per second in Scotland, it’s gonna be tea that stands out by a mile. Many of those gallons per second are consumed at Velvet Antlers towers, by Dave, who makes a cup of tea while he thinks about making a cup of tea. So let’s say he’s developed a fine sense of a good cup of tea.

For our hampers we chose Brew Ha Ha tea – a Glasgow company that we thought took tea a seriously as us and had a fair dose of cool factor. Brew’s the daddy?

…you are!

As we all know though, a good tea bag is only one part of the process of constructing a cup of tea worth talking about. It’s a dark art. According to Dave, Scotland is still split by those in the ‘milk in the bottom of the cup before water’, and the ‘strictly milk after the tea has brewed’ camps. We want to get some data on this to settle the issue. Please vote below!

Velvet Antlers launched!

Well after a lot of hard work, Velvet Antlers is finally here. We’ve launched our luxury Scottish hampers in November, just like we said we would – by the skin of our teeth! At long last, we’re all systems go, ready to supply you and your nearest and dearest with tasty treats and gorgeous goodies. Orders for Christmas have already started coming in.

Let us know what you think of our hampers and remember to enter the competition on Scottish Style below. The winner of a Wee Beauty will be announced on Sunday!

What is Scottish style? competition

We’ve obviously spent a fair bit of time thinking about this recently so we could try and perfect our hampers. But we really wondered what other people think good Scottish Style is.

So here is a wee challenge for ya (with a wee beauty of a prize if you do well!):

Comment on this post and tell us of a simple thing, thought, icon, image or phrase that characterises modern Scottish style, right now, in 2007.

The best comment by December 1st will win a Wee Beauty hamper – so get thinking! We’ll announce it on here.

Quite apart from the prize, we’d really appreciate the comments, just to discuss it and hear other folks thoughts. We want to see if we’ve got it right, and figure out how we can tweak our styling to make it even cooler!

What is different about Velvet Antlers?

Every new business has to be different. Sometimes new ventures are started because someone comes across something they need or want, but isn’t available. Other times it’s already available but needs improving. Sometimes it’s both.

Velvet Antlers hampers do both (you knew I was going to say that didn’t you).

Claire sprung on the idea of making hampers as a business after she realised just how much she enjoyed picking lovely items and putting them together herself into hampers for Christmas gifts for our families. When we looked at what hampers were available commercially, we could both see straight away that they looked very different from the Hampers Claire was making.

So how different can a hamper be (we hear you cry) ?

Note the lack of Tartan (and wicker, and shortbread, and…)

If you look at our hampers you’ll see that they are filled with undeniably Scottish stuff, but note the lack of Tartan, shortbread or wicker.

Scotland has more going on that cliché’s. We’ve tried to seek the new and cool stuff out, and put it in our hampers.

But rather than hit you with any cheesy marketing, we just reckon you should have a look at the hampers – it’ll be pretty obvious what’s different…

…style.

Convenient customers only

If you watch telly you’ll probably remember the advert about ‘brand new customers only’. If you didn’t, watch the you tube below. It’s a smart advert because it hit a bit of a chord. There are so many services that want to squeeze out the not so convenient customers just to make a wee % more profit, or just because they just want to skip the hassle of dealing with ‘you’ because ‘you are different’.

In our business, we found the same thing going on. The inconvenience we create is our location – the highlands. When we shop on the net, we perk up when we see the words “We deliver to all UK mainland addresses”. It’s usually only once we’ve chosen something and hit ‘proceed to checkout’ that the small print flags up “deliveries to Scottish highlands and islands carry an extra charge of [£ a lot]”.

Our attitude is that if you want to buy our products, we will remove barriers for you, not put them up. So if you are a ‘different’ request or need from most others, just get in touch with us.

Why are Christmas hampers the coolest Christmas present idea you ever stumbled upon?

It’s one of those things that should, in theory, be quite good fun…

The idea of looking around for nice things to buy your friends and family should be quite a cool activity. But let’s be brutally honest, the reality is it lies somewhere on a continuum between ‘a challenging task’ and ‘a real stress’ most of the time. You may even wish to put it more bluntly than I have. The reason why is obvious – everyone has everything they need. Isn’t it true?

Well, not quite. If you think about it, you can always think of one or two things you could do with (and if someone managed to second guess your mind, you would be a happy lad/lassie on Christmas). But unfortunately, when it’s you buying gifts for Christmas, birthdays etc you rarely have access to that gold dust – stress saving information.

So you end up stressing, getting something they might already have or don’t really want. What a waste. These days, everyone has so many possessions. There’s just no way round it. So gift giving will become harder and harder and less satisfying every year.

And all we are after is something really nice – a wee treat – that gives both you as the giver, and your lucky recipient a good feeling.

Good food and good style will always be something you can give again and again, and your recipient will never already have too much of it. That’s why a hamper (a really cool one, like these!) is the best Christmas present idea you ever stumbled upon.

PS: If you can think of some other belters of Christmas present ideas that aren’t something people can already have too much of – please comment below and let us know the great ideas you’ve had. We might even start making them (better)!

We are Velvet Antlers

I’ll start this blog by introducing ourselves and Velvet Antlers. Velvet Antlers is new company selling luxury hampers filled with the very best food and gifts that Scotland has to offer. It is run by Claire (me!) and Dave MacLeod; Dave being my wingman, there to provide moral and technical support when called upon, which is quite often, as it happens. My background is quite varied, like a lot of people I guess.

My professional background is in retail management in Glasgow, which all changed when we took the life changing decision to move to the Scottish Highlands. I still wanted to carry on doing what I was doing though as I had worked hard to get where I was and the perfect outlet for this was combing my passion of fine food with the joys of internet shopping. The decision to move to the Scottish Highlands was borne out of the desire for Dave to be nearer the mountains (more later!) and a keen willingness from me to live in a place that I have fallen in love with. Who can argue with this as a view out of their office window?

So what do I do when not making hampers?

Another big passion of mine is photography. I trained in photography, graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 2003. I’m still as keen as ever to take photos, and I will regularly post my latest work on here to keep you up to date. They are usually of this guy...

Dave, being a keen (and rather well known) climber, finds living at the foot of Ben Nevis is pretty much an ideal spot for him to live. In between finding new climbs and helping me run Velvet Antlers, he gives lectures to international audiences and coaches climbers around the UK and Europe.

Velvet Antlers is here to provide you with amazing Scottish food and gifts. I’ve used my art-school training, fine food tasting, retail experience and knowledge of Scotland to provide something that not only looks contemporary and unique but tastes pretty damn good too. So welcome on board the Velvet Antlers blog, subscribe to our RSS feed to keep up to date with all the latest about Claire and Dave MacLeod and the latest in our adventures with Scottish food.