This is what you should drink with grouse

‘W e’re probably the UK’s oldest shooting school, offering a feast of shooting on London’s outskirts, including a vermin stand with a semi-automatic shotgun,’ boasted droll instructor, Richard Weller.

Joining a double-decker bus load of the UK’s top chefs, including crack shots Claude Bosi of Bibendum, Robin Gill (The Dairy) and Steve Drake (Sorrel), I came to the ivy-clad West London Shooting School in Northolt to shatter clays simulating running rabbits, fluttering pigeons and warbling grouse. Our aim, under cerulean skies: to celebrate the red grouse’s brief season, from the Glorious Twelfth of August to 10 December, before eating one that afternoon in tartan comfort.

In the name of dinner, I recall landing one portly bird years ago on a Highland moor. Urgently plucked, then barbecued, the specimen was served pink in a remote bothy with a delicate Dalwhinnie single malt. Combining sweet wildflower scents with understated peatiness, the dram dreamily captured the filmic scenery.

Having pulled triggers manically at the final game flyer flush, albeit hitting more foliage than clays as gunpowder clouds formed, our team headed for Boisdale, Belgravia. With jazz, a fine Scotch selection and some of the capital’s best game dishes, the restaurant, along with its three siblings, serves up to 150 birds a week.

Here, savoury grouse with cobnuts, corrupting goose-fat potatoes and poached bittersweet crab apples were served with Piper Heidsieck’s ‘Rare’ 2002 flagship, a formidable, layered, rested champagne that cuddled the bilberry and blood sauce-stroked flesh. Defining single malts from The Balvenie followed, comprising the fulsome 12-year-old, depthful 17, and the honeyed, spicy, single-barrel 25-year-old.