Welcome to The Pellicle Mixtape, a brand-new feature, which we’ll hopefully be running on the last Friday of every month.

In this feature, I’ll be asking people from across the food and drink industry to create a playlist set to a theme of their choosing. The hope is to get a small insight into that person and their place of work through, not only their song choices, but through the thought process and level of obsessiveness they put into their mixtape. I’ll also be asking them what they’ve been enjoying eating and drinking recently and finding out what else has been exciting them in the world of food and drink.

Since this is the first in the series, I have the pleasure of interviewing a person I know very well, who is in equal parts extrovert and socially awkward—me.

Volume 1— Jonathan Hamilton: Brewer and Co-Founder of Pellicle

Around two months ago, after almost four years in London, I decided to leave my job making barrel-aged and mixed-fermentation beers at Beavertown’s Tempus Project, and move back to Scotland.

I first moved from Northern Ireland to Edinburgh in 2008 to undertake a degree in Chemistry. Aside from a year working for The Man in big pharma, I remained in the city for eight years, completed my degree, started another in Brewing and Distilling, and got my first job in the brewing industry.

In the time between leaving Scotland and my return, I lived and worked in London, brewed a lot of beers, got to travel the world, made lifelong connections, and saw my friends and colleagues go on to do incredible things. But at the back of my mind, I always missed Edinburgh. This year I started to visit the city more regularly, and each time, it became more difficult to leave.

This mixtape is inspired by a longing for a return to my favourite place—the place I think of as home.

This mix took a lot longer to make than expected. This was initially meant to be an example; something to use as a blueprint for future instalments. Instead, it dominated the last few weeks of my life, thanks to my own dumb self-imposed rules:

The mix should be no longer than 80-minutes—the maximum permitted length of a CD-R.
The mix should be no more than twenty songs in length.
There should be no more than one song by any artist.

A lot of songs made it to the first draft, only to be cut, added back, and then cut again. The final playlist is a mix of some of my all-time favourite Scottish bands—Boards of Canada, Cocteau Twins, Arab Strap, Mogwai—alongside some lesser-known bands who I have always loved, and some that are new to me.

Bands such as Stapleton and Copy Haho might not be very well-known outside of certain circles but certainly made up part of a larger collective of Scottish indie/emo bands. Sadly my favourite of all these bands—Avast! From Dundee—aren’t available on many streaming services but you can listen to their debut (and only) album, Faultlines, here.

One of my favourite things about making mixes like this is that I end up discovering at least a few new bands/songs in the process. Making this I discovered the fantastic Life Without Buildings; a Glasgow Art School band who released just one album almost two decades ago, which despite featuring elements of many of the bands I already listen to, I had never heard of.

Overall, I’m pretty stoked on the mix, which features a nice range of voices, accents and genres and is thankfully not too morose.

Enjoy! x

What have you been drinking recently?

Having moved back to Scotland a few things have been reintroduced into my life. These include semi-regular pints of Tennent’s in a beautiful old pubs which haven’t pandered to modern beer trends, and well-kept pints of Fyne Ales Jarl at Kay’s Bar in Edinburgh. I thought I would also share a few of my favourite recent drinking experiences.

These include drinking alternating pints of Jarl and Hill Farmstead Anna with the Newbarns Brewery team (ahem!) at Fyne Ales the day before the World Stone Skimming Championships (yes, this is how I like to spend my free time) on Easdale Island. The bounty of brewery-fresh pints of Jarl teamed with our excitable attitudes after a cross-country drive on an unexpected, but more-than-welcome sunny day in late September led to an impromptu Ceilidh by a fire pit. A further few pints of what we collectively agree to be one of our favourite beers (and a benchmark for our own future endeavours) led to another impromptu dance, in the form of a drunken limbo.

A recent pint of Donzoko Northern Helles whilst propping up the bar at the Free Trade Inn overlooking the city of Newcastle as the sun set one final time before the clocks went back was especially stunning. Drinking Riesling after picking grapes all day for Weingut Rita & Rudolf Trossen in Mosel was another highlight.

But the thing that has made me happiest about my return to Scotland is the reintroduction of whisky into my life. Whisky is not something that people in London drink, or at least, not outside of hotel bars and private members clubs. On the rare occasions in the past when I’d found a bar with a few decent drams and ordered one, it’s been met with raised eyebrows from friends.

Back in Scotland, however, this is not the case. The widespread availability of good whisky brings with it my favourite way to end a night at the pub; the “hauf an a hauf” (half and half). The half and half, sometimes called a half and a nip refers to a half-pint of beer and a whisky, and differs from the American boilermaker which is usually a shot of bourbon (or another spirit) alongside a bottle of cheap beer.

A half and half can come in many forms; from a half-pint of 80/- and a nip of Famous Grouse or Bells, to a carefully selected single malt and half-pint of stout. For me it usually means a malt of the moment (a single malt which is on special offer in that pub at that time) and a half of dark beer, ideally on cask, allowing me to savour the last half hour in the pub before the lights signalling “go home” come on.

Where/What have you been eating recently?

Keeping with the same theme as the rest of my mixtape, I have definitely been over-indulging in Scottish delicacies which I wouldn’t have been able to find in London. Often these are items of Scottish cuisine which I would have previously not gone out of my way to seek out, partly because of their ease of availability. But now that I’m back, I’m not making that mistake again. It’s been an endless cholesterol-fest of Macaroni Pies from Pie Maker in Edinburgh, Fish and Chips from Anstruther Fish Bar, Scotch Pies from Clarkes Bakery in Dundee, and Bridies from McLaren Bakers in Forfar.

However, my favourite recent food experience came in the form of a 30-mile round trip from Broughty Ferry to Arbroath, on a not-too-pleasant day in October to visit the smokehouses and purchase some smokies direct from the source. I was told I could get smokies in Broughty Ferry, a few minutes walk from the flat in which I was staying, but simply purchasing some smoked fish was not the point.

The point was to go and explore this small seaside town, and the local produce it is known nationwide for—the Arbroath smokie. The cycle was flat, but not necessarily smooth, and on a less-than-appropriate single speed bike, but it took in some stunning scenery all along the Angus seaside. There are quite a few options when you get to Arbroath for your smokies but a bit of prior research told me that M&M Spink was the real deal.

I did a quick wander around the town since I had cycled all the way there, and returned to the harbour where I had parked my bike. I walked down a side-street, which seemed like I was about to wander into someone’s back garden, and found myself at a small counter selling a range of fresh and smoked fish, including the famous Arbroath smokies. I handed over my fiver and was presented with two smokies in return, thankfully vacuum sealed for the journey back.

Successful in my mission, I got back on my bike and headed back towards the Ferry. It was now getting darker, colder and wetter, but the thought of dinner kept me going. That night I prepared one of the most locally-sourced meals I’ve ever prepared—Cullen Skink using the Smokies I had picked up, leeks, potatoes and onions from the veg box delivered fresh from the farm. A hearty loaf was baked to go alongside. It was one of my favourite meals in recent times.

What have you been reading recently?

As with many things in my life, I have a pretty bad habit of making my hobbies into my job, and since starting this publication, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to read outside of the magazine without my editing hat on.

That said, what I do get to read is a lot of excellent upcoming features for Pellicle before anyone else, which is obviously great. Without giving too much away or picking favourites, and as a reward for making it to this stage of what is admittedly a very self-indulgent post, here are a couple of things I’ve been reading that will be on the website soon.

For her first article for the magazine, Hollie Stephens has an excellent travel story on the legendary New York watering hole McSorley’s Ale House illustrated by regular contributor James Albon. You may recognise his work from previous pieces such as Anthony Gladman’s profile of Andrew Nielsen of Le Grappin winery, or Alex Duell’s trip to El Naufragio in Mexico.

Another new face coming soon to Pellicle is Lucy Lovell with her story of Vinyes Tortuga winery and the Catalonian natural wine scene. She was just over there for the harvest and has submitted an excellent profile of the winemakers framed within the context of a flourishing natural wine scene in the region, alongside some of her fantastic photography.

Outside of reading drafts for our own website, a recent piece on Good Beer Hunting by Beth Demmon on witchcraft and brewing was a fascinating, detailed and well-researched piece on a subject that is rarely talked about. Aside from that I’m just waiting eagerly waiting for the latest issue of Noble Rot to arrive in the post. It’s no secret that Noble Rot is one of our biggest influences for this publication. Their carefully-balanced tone which is both knowledgeable and satirical in equal amounts and beautiful design work pushes us harder each time the new issue arrives.

Cover photo by James Porteous