Nikcy:

I have always been fanatical about good food. Quality ingredients combined for amazing flavours. I studied catering & Hotel Management at the tender age of 17, and went on to work at some of the top hotels in Scotland. Travelling around the east coast of Australia at 19, working here and there, meeting wonderful people. When I returned home after nine months, I worked in France as an Au Pare, looking after 3 very special children, and 54 animals. This family is still a very important part of my life, over 30 years later.

My passions are food, graphic design and art. I believe they harmonise in so many ways. Creation of food is understanding flavours, textures and colour. I love cooking, and creating art.

Last year I had a bad chest infection, then my asthma kicked in. It was one of the scariest experiences of my life. Alan rushed me to A&E in the middle of the night. I couldn’t breathe, I thought I might die. My asthma is under control, but I feel I need to prevent any colds etc if I can. So, that’s why we are creating these products. We believe prevention is better than cure.

I also have arthritis in my fingers, unfortunately it hinders me from creating art as I used to. Turmeric in a great help, it is a wonderful anti-inflammatory, and has many other health benefits. That’s why we include it in our Fire Cider Vinegar.

My proudest achievement is my son, whom I brought up on my own. I am very lucky to have so much love in my life.

We met in 2020 during the Covid pandemic at a time when the minds of the world were very focused on health and wellbeing. There had been several high profile viral outbreaks over the years and news stories of bacteria becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, it became clear that the human immune system was being neglected by most of us. And as a society, we were more focused on fixing our bodies when they go wrong rather than maintaining them so they were more likely to go right.

Alan and Nikcy found so many things in common including a deep desire to create a life filled with joy and to use the skills we had acquired over the years to good use. We wanted a business that would allow us to travel throughout Scotland in our converted minibus, to see the wonders of this beautiful country, to meet new people, learn new things and to have adventures.

We found a recipe for Fire Cider and the controversial story of the battle for ownership of the name. We made a batch and it quickly became obvious that while anyone can make Fire Cider at home but there are several reasons why they tend not to. Anyone who has grated a significant quantity of horseradish will know one good reason at least.

We figured that the challenges of making a small batch were quite similar to those encountered making a large batch and as the recipe was quite vague and flexible, it could be adapted to suit different natural ingredients and the different health benefits these ingredients offer. Could we adapt a recipe to help with menopause? Could we make one for prostate health? What other herbal infusions can be preserved in raw, live apple cider vinegar and taken as a daily shot? Our kitchen quickly filled with bottles and jars of varying prototypes. We even started labelling them. Our foraging walks took on a new level of importance in the autumn we were busy harvesting sloes, rosehips, hawthorn berries and other hedgerow bounty. We bought a dehydrator and jars filled with berries, leaves and flowers took their place on our kitchen shelves.

We bought a small woodland in Aberdeenshire, as you do. Soon after taking over our custodianship of Osgar Woods, the whole East coast of Scotland was battered by 3 big storms; Arwen Malik and Corrie.

They came, they saw and they conquered.

The immense power of mother nature should never be underestimated in the space of a week, we lost over 200 mature trees, which was sad. We gained, however clearings that we could only ever have dreamed of. Springtime awakened dormant seeds in the soil as sunlight hit the forest floor for the first time in decades. Foxgloves, sorrel and wild raspberries shot up as though they had some sort of deadline. We decided to take advantage of this fertility by adding our own biodiversity plan. Fruit trees and shrubs are planted, with plans for many more. I think we are the only people actively growing stinging nettles on purpose. They have their own place in our food forest. Every part of this amazing is both edible and beneficial.

There is a story about a Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner with a slightly different business model. You go and see him when you are well, he checks you over, perhaps once a month and you would pay him for the service. You have a regular outgoing payment and you would simply fit it in to your monthly budget. When you become unwell, the payments stop. you will receive free treatment until you are well again. It is in his financial interest to get you back to wellness as quickly as possible. And back onto his ‘payment plan’.

Stinging nettle has been used for hundreds of years to treat painful muscles and joints, eczema, arthritis, gout, and anaemia. Today, many people use it to treat urinary problems during the early stages of an enlarged prostate (called benign prostatic hyperplasia or BPH).

One day in the woods, we met Dorota. A genuine forest spirit in human form we became really good friends she has an amazing sense of wonder and an appetite for learning and she knows much more about mushrooms than we do. Anyway, one day Dorota was in a different woodland, where she met David. David has many many fascinating things I could tell you about, but we’ll save that for another day. The important fact to know at this stage of the story is that David has an orchard. He planted it himself many years ago and is now harvesting a unique blend of rare and heirloom apples and making amazing cider. He can tailor the apple choice, the yeast selection and the fermentation process to produce a very specific high alcohol cider. This is the cider that we use to create our small batch artisan vinegars which we then mature slowly in oak barrels.

These oak barrels started life as sherry casks. Their fired oak became infused with the rich flavours of the Spanish fortified wine, this flavouring is sought after by Scottish distilleries who reuse these casks to age their whisky. We’re really keen on reusing, recycling, upcycling and ultimately, not throwing things out. So we found an artist who works with dismantled whisky barrels, giving the aged oak a new life as beautiful furniture. Occasionally, he finds the small sherry casks that are ideal for maturing vinegar.

We got hold of a couple of these. It was at this point that we realised that our kitchen shelves were no longer suitable for our obsession. We sought out premises. We love Kirriemuir, the gateway to the glens, the history, the colourful independent shops (and people) and, above all the sense of community. And so we made the “Wee Red Town” our home.

Our brews are matured in the old bank vaults on Bank Street. The thick red sandstone walls provide the stability of temperature that is needed to allow the colonies of acetobacter to convert the alcohol in the cider into vinegar and then to mature into the rich assembly of flavours we are looking for in our finished products.