Burns Night: a time to eat, drink and be poetically merry

If life is starting to drag a little because your hilarious mates have lost their bantering sparkle in this driest of months, fear not.

January goes out with a bang next week, with Burns Night on the 25th — a double-pronged riposte to teetotallers and vegans alike. Scotland’s ‘national day’ purportedly celebrates its national bard, Robert Burns, author of many a Scottish poem, but in reality provides an excuse for Scots and non-Scots alike to sink buckets of whisky in the name of literature and history. Tartan, kilts and sporrans optional.

‘There aren’t many days in the year — or your life — when you sit around with a group of friends spouting great poetry, drinking whisky and eating a huge sausage,’ says Andy Waugh, founder of Scottish restaurant Mac & Wild. ‘Burns is a great excuse for a knees-up and you don’t have to be Scottish to enjoy a drink or two to celebrate. Everyone has a bit of Scottish in them somewhere.’

Gripe about cultural appropriation if you like, but the rest of us will have fallen down a haggis Scotch egg rabbit hole on 25 January. Because tradition is not what London Burns Night is about. At Temper City there’s those aforementioned Scotch eggs and deep-fried Mars bars paired with malt whisky in a four-course dinner, plus a Scottish quiz compered by comedian Hardeep Singh Kohli. Craft London is serving up an English spin on tradition, with Yorkshire lamb haggis and Compass Box whisky makers on hand to talk you through your tasting.

Real anti-traditionalists have Quo Vadis’s second annual alternative Burns Night with heavy metal kebab restaurant Black Axe Mangal (there will be haggis and chef Jeremy Lee in a kilt; there might also be pink penis-shaped meringues if last year is anything to go by). And then there’s the venison-revering Mac & Wild, which has a full-on week of whisky-chocolate pairings and haggis-making workshops, culminating in two debauched dinners on the day itself, involving Highland pipers, neeps and tatties (the double-carb act of turnips and potatoes) and shots of Talisker drunk through a bone marrow whisky luge.

But what if you’re one of the many people who erroneously claim to hate whisky? Not an excuse not to throw on a kilt and hit the city. First off, you need an Irn Bru cocktail — the fizzy orange party fuel you never knew you needed that appears as a spritz at Temper and in daiquiris at Mac & Wild. Then there’s the new wave of whisky brands aiming, inevitably, to make the old-man-sipping-by-the-fire drink more millennial-friendly. Take Copper Dog, which bills itself as the ‘democratic face of whisky’ — and also happens to be the brainchild of king of clubs, Piers Adam, owner of Mahiki. Made with a blend of eight single malts from Speyside, it’s got a light, fruity-vanilla taste that (promise) is gentle enough to sip neat with a dash of water to open it up. Still too hardcore? Try it mixed with fresh Granny Smith apple juice in an apple dog, as found across festivals from Bestival to Isle of Wight, a ridiculously gluggable cocktail that doubles as a pretty good hair of the dog.

More of a Fabric head than a Mahiki millennial? There’s an easy-drinking whisky out east for you too. Founded by DJ TommyD, 808 aims to get clubbers drinking whisky in the same industrial quantities as they do vodka. ‘Traditional whisky can have a certain Marmite effect, you either love it or hate it,’ says TommyD. ‘8O8 is about breaking down those barriers, “remixing” the liquid, making it sweeter, less harsh, more versatile and more soulful.’ A blended grain whisky without the malty richness of traditional stuff, this is whisky designed to be shotted — or even mixed with Monster or Red Bull — rather than savoured. Purists might weep into their Glenlivet 25-year-old but 8O8 is the most ordered whisky at Ministry of Sound. Sophisticated? Not really. Fun? Absolutely.

Hatred of haggis is no excuse to bow out of Burns Night either. Sure, a stuffed sheep’s stomach isn’t everyone’s cup of Veganuary green juice, but what about cullen skink (thick, creamy smoked haddock and potato soup) at Boisdale, Corazon’s venison and pickled turnip tacos or Speyside whisky-cured scallops chased with whisky caramels at Corrigan’s Mayfair? Burns Night: a welcome poke in the eye to the bland no-booze, no-meat abstemiousness of January. Embrace your inner Scot and fling caution to the Highland wind.