Way Down Yonder And Are You Really Looking For a Snail Farm?

We did a mini-tour of the northern county this past Saturday. We started with a trip to Legges in Bromyard (see the Scotch Egg post) . Great butcher!

From there, we decided to find Dunkerton's Cider Mill (makers of the infamous band-aid flavored cider) but en route ended up at a place called Monkland Dairy. When it started in 1988, this was the only place in Herefordshire making hard cheeses. It was a fun place and the jovial ladies behind the counters definitely were excited about cheese and getting you to taste it.

We decided to stay for a lunch (they had a very small menu with cheese and coffee at the center of it): I had a bleu cheese Ploughman's Lunch (picture at top left) and Rachel had the tomato, lemon, and thyme soup. We bought a handful of cheeses to take home, too. The shop was a little out of the way for us but conveniently, they have a store right in Hereford, too. I like the starting line of their brochure, "An over indulgence while dining with friends led the Hindles to a life of cheese..."

In between the dairy and the cider mill, we wandered around in very quaint Pembridge, including its church and bell tower. There is a restaurant in town, the New Inn, that we heard from our landlady should be worth a trip back (but I was too full on cheese.)

From there, finally to the cider mill and its side-shop selling chocolates, ice cream, and nougat. We didn't know there was a chocolate shop at the cider mill. It had just a small retail shop under the name of "Williams & Dunkerton" with handmade truffles and such; apparently most of their business is doing cakes and special events. I bought some liquor truffles with chocolate, amaretto, and coffee liquors -- I've eaten most of them already and I'm not disappointed so far. Rachel bought some nougat (very good.) The chocolate shop was the high-point of the Dunkerton's experience.

The cider mill wasn't very impressive and the 'tasting' of cider was a little more ... um ... rustic than I was hoping for. Billy Ray Cyrus's English cousin was working the 'store'. Billy grabbed a questionably clean glass from some hidden shelf, gave it a quick rinse, and asked what we wanted to try. You couldn't sample most of the ciders (especially not the interesting ones). I tried the dry cider, then Rachel tried the sweet. We then tried the medium sweet, which (its logical, I guess) was just a pull of each of dry and sweet. Wow, I said to Billy, we could make that at home. I bought a couple of bottles that Billy seemed to hold in higher regard than the rest (we couldn't taste these) but I won't be going back anytime soon. Dunkerton's is easily available in local shops; I'm not sure why anyone would make a repeat trip to the mill. No sign of band-aids, by the way.

Lastly, we once again attempted to locate the snail farm hidden in SAS territory. After asking several locals, including one nice lady who questioned more than once with a smile on her face if we were really looking for a snail farm, we finally came to the conclusion that the snail farm is no more or at the least not open to the public anymore. I think this leaves a hole in the global snail market that I may work on filling. Anyone found a blog on snail husbandry or whatever its called?

Cheers!