Balbirnie House - Scotland's 2020 Wedding Hotel of the Year!

In the week leading to 26th April Balbirnie House was notified that the 2020 Scottish Hotel Awards would be taking place in The Virtual World. 

The brigade were then informed of this, via our Closed Group 'Balbirnie Buddies' Facebook page, which we have in situ during lockdown, to keep everyone fully appraised of progress whilst trading is suspended. 

So, on the Sunday evening for the awards ceremony, the team got our kilts, tuxedos, gladrags and ballgowns on, grabbed some 'refreshments', and headed on over to meet for the awards ceremony via Zoom video and audio. 

For those who attended, it was to be a 4 hour conversation which I'm very sure, none of us will ever forget. 

Vibe manager Angela Ferguson and Special Events Sarah Rees were delivering a continual flow of information from The Scottish Hotel Awards Facebook page. 
A few screen grabs taken prior to the dancing starting: 

Next morning:

Truly remarkable circumstances. Yet again! 

And so, into the newspapers: 

Fife Free Press: Fife hotel breaks records with 14th award

(Image credit via Isobel Russell)

The Courier: Balbirnie House Hotel clinches top wedding accolade for record-breaking 14th year

Image credit via Rob Thomson/ Lifetime Photography.

Well, over the last 12 months we've certainly found ourselves in unexpected circumstances, thereby delivering an ongoing flow of information for the judges of The Scottish Hotel Awards scheme. 

Worth highlighting, Best Wedding Destination Hotel on the Planet.

Our 3 decades of Hospitality summarised in under 20 minutes on YouTube - Today is Not a Dress Rehearsal for Tomorrow. 

Following which, we saw Balbirnie breaking new ground with The Contemplation of Social and Sensory.

And so, onwards we go. 

The in-house tradition of having multiple team meetings every last Tuesday of the month 12 noon - 4pm, considering our ongoing evolution continues, albeit we're paused during this temporary lockdown. These meetings tend to be about remaining ahead of the curve, continually embracing change as we always need to keep finding new ways to work, without losing sight of where we've come from. 

Nearly every single wedding client 27th March - 19th July 2020 has now successfully postponed and re-scheduled their intended special days. We continue to remain in a very carefully managed holding pattern, working with future clients one week at a time, allowing for at least 2 calendar months of contemplation. And stating the very obvious, we cannot wait for the day that we can welcome our colleagues back to Balbirnie, and then open again for guests. 

As part of our evolution, at the point of suspending trading, we were about to go live as Scotland's first hotel to deliver a completely new approach to how we highlight our wedding and banqueting menus, with a full shift into online and visual. 

So, this will be the first part of our updates for the consideration of judges for the 2021 Scottish Hotel Awards!

A quick taster of this project, and a massive thanks to Executive Chef Oscar Sinjorgo, our kitchen brigade, and all of the team who have been involved with delivering this unprecedented project in conjunction with Naomi Vance Photography.

As always over these recent years, we are so very inspired by the Archie Forrest artwork collection throughout Balbirnie House, Scotland's leading contemporary Colourist painter's 'Electricity with Paint' focussing us each day on vibrant colours. 

For the first time ever, here's a snapshot of what our new 2020 banqueting would have been delivering 1st May 2020 onwards, and will be delivering when we fully re-open. 

5 contemporary Scotland food photographs, from 300 taken on the day! 

Showing future clients how individual dishes 'fit together' within the structure of a multiple course menu: 

This main course below is Breast of chicken 'Vallee d'Auge', with caramelised apple, mushrooms and a Calvados creme fraiche sauce. It's our best selling banquet main course, of all time! 

Best wishes one and all, and congratulations to all 2020 Scottish Hotel award winners. 

Nicholas / MD Balbirnie House 

WOOD? OR FOOD? 😂

My family and I have the great pleasure of living in Balbirnie Park, it really is an absolutely amazing place to live, such wonderful walks and running trails on the doorstep, in the beautiful and ever-changing landscape, within which Balbirnie House itself sits, as the centrepiece.

We live in an old estate cottage which we acquired more than 20 years ago, which we then extended 15 years ago. 

Well before we acquired the cottage, the previous owners had planted what I think they thought would eventually be a Leylandii hedge, seemingly thinking that the hedge would provide some form of protection from winds from the north. But what they actually planted were Leylandii Cypress trees, which over the course of time grew with some of the largest becoming 100 ft tall, threatening the cottage every time there was a storm. 

So, after much ongoing dialogue with Fife Council upon whose land those trees were growing (there's a tree preservation order in Balbirnie Park), it was eventually agreed, specifically because the trees were not native to the park, that they could be taken down and the threat to property removed, on the proviso that I paid the ensuing £3,500.00 lumberjack bill. 

So, 3 years ago, professional lumberjacks were contracted in for a few days, and those trees were chopped down. The lumberjacks left the trees chopped into large sections, huge logs which would eventually need to be chopped further into smaller logs, eventually for burning in our house log burner.

So, summer 2018 we brought in a commercial log splitter, and then we started chopping! One epic day of work with five of us cleared half of the chopped down trees. 

Summer 2019 then saw the creation of an external log store. 

Fast forward to March 2020 and the global pandemic CoronaVirus lockdown, and I'm contemplating ways to keep myself busy at home. So, I thought I'd 'take on' the rest of the project on my own. 

At my 2020 start point the remainder of the chopped down trees were fairly overgrown, covered in brambles and moss. Basically, in a massive pile stretching from what you see below, for 20 metres or so towards the woodland at the back. 

So, I cleared the undergrowth, and one by one I began to remove moss, tree bark etc. Some of the logs were certainly beasts to shift, as you can see from the size of each disc. 

To give some scale as to what I was lifting: 

There was one log, which was seemingly even heavier than the others. I tried, and I tried, but it just wasn't shifting. So I said to myself, 'right then heaviest of the heaviest logs, I'm gonna need to leave you until later!' 

Here is the large log in question, moss removed and waiting to be lifted: 

So, I went into the house, and got my strength up with a lovely bowl of soup, spicy red pepper, aubergine, red onion and Santini tomato broth. Delicious.

Went back out and had another go at shifting the heavy log. Nope, still not shifting! Food obviously not nutritional enough! 

So I left the heavy log, and got on with shifting other logs. Helped now, by using the Balbirnie House 'suspended trade' keg-shifting trolley. 

Onwards I pressed! 

The harder I worked, the luckier I got with the shifting of the logs! 

Debris to the left, logs to the right. 

Accumulating big chunks ready for future splitting. 

On day 4 of this, I was nearly finished, all that remained was the shifting of that final heavy log. So, for lunch that day I had a bowl of self-invented IronMan soup. This is a base soup of supermarket 'Gorgeous Greens', into a mixture of sautéed garlic, spinach and chilli. I can assure you it is tasty and nutritious beyond belief! Should you wish to do so, you can add further greens, chicken, chorizo and potato. It is, an experience. 

If Heisenberg were to make a soup, this would surely be it! 

Strengthened by my IronMan soup, I headed to finally take care of the heavy log, muttering away to myself, 'It's judgement day for the heavy log!' 

Oh I tried to lift the log, but it just wasn't shifting. So I started cussin' away, as you do! 'C'mon ya big Jessie, get your back intae it! Goddamn it Sweet Jiminy Cricket you are an IronMan! That's it, get the knees bent, straight back, here we, here we go, heave ho!!!' 

But nothing. It just wasn't for shifting. 

So I thought I'd get my axe, and try and leverage it upwards from underneath. 

It was at that point that I realised that it wasn't a log, it was a tree stump! 

Oh My Sides! I sat on it and laughed for 20 minutes! 

'The hotel manager and the unliftable log'

(Image via Isobel Russell)

Best wishes one and all, 

Nicholas / MD Balbirnie House