WHEN SELECTING OUR PRODUCTS, WE ATTACH PARTICULAR IMPORTANCE
TO ENSURE THAT ONLY THE BEST
INGREDIENTS ARE USED.
OUR SALMON IS NATURALLY PRODUCED
welfare standards.
Why are we, at Ardshealach Smokehouse, producing our produce using traditional methods?
We are proud of the fact that everything we produce is done by hand and truly believe it produces a superior product to more industrial methods. Economically it’s easy to decide that the modern processes are faster and cheaper but we take pride in our award winning products. So why do we put the extra effort into producing traditionally and by hand?
The machines used for pin-boning, slicing and filleting go for quantity over quality and so are harmful to the meat. The processes are very fast and rough which produces big holes in the surface. Doing this by hand has a much higher degree of precision and is much gentler.
For the actual smoking process, a lot of factors come into play such as relative humidity, outside temperature and variation of sizes. Our expert smoker is in charge of adjusting all variables accordingly to ensure a consistent taste is achieved. One of the key factors is time; time for the fish to dry or cheese to soak up the smoke. Being able to make adjustments to the time a process takes is a true skill that we’ve developed over the years.
Our smoke is produced by burning the shavings of old whiskey barrels. We believe this adds another dimension of flavour to our produce. We don’t use artificial flavours or inject the product with liquid smoke.
We think the natural methods we use are always the healthier ways, real food for better health. The extra time, the extra effort, passion and love that we put into our product are the reasons that our produce is award winning. Traditional, natural production combined with real skill truly shows a stark contrast with modern industrial production. We believe in quality not quantity.