Lots of people see us out and about in the summer months, towing The Jam Butty slowly around the UK's canal system and dispensing jammy cheer wherever we go. Sometime you will find us moored up near some productive trees or bushes, turning the warm fruit into preserves which we can enjoy all year round, but people often ask what we do during the long cold winter months.

Our preserve making activity is actually a year round activity and we thought we would record a log of what we do through the seasons, running with one post per month. Hopefully this will give you a flavour of what we do and why we enjoy the anticipation of  the year each years sequence of harvests.

First and foremost its probably best to explain that whilst we do live on our boats from late April to early October and use this time to make the bulk of our jams, we also have a home ashore. Its here we spend our winters, catching up with friends in our local community and, of course, making the seasonal preserves which are best undertaken during those short damp days.

For us the gap beween Christmas and New Year mean only one thing - Marmalade, or more specifically Seville Marmalade.

Seville Oranges come, as you may imagine, from Spain but whereas us British love to use them to make a sharp tangy spread for our toast, the Spanish see them as just a decorative fruit. However, one mans meat and all that.... 

So sometime in that dead gap between the two Christmas festivals you will find us as the Birmingham Wholesale Market in search of the finest Sevilles. Ideally we will buy the organic Sevilles which offer the best testure and a great taste, and 20kg is usually enough for our needs.

Marmalades, more than any other product line, test our desire to incorporate natures bounty. The bottom line is that citrus fruit dont grow in the UK and if we want to sell marmalades we have to accept that we will use imported ingredients. However, wo do like to include a taste of the hedgerow wherever we can, and to this end we add some hedgerow flavoured alchohol to some of our marmalades.

We apply this principle to our Sloe Whisky Seville Marmalade, with the sloes adding an autumnal depth to the whisky, which has always worked well with marmalade. This is probably our most traditional marmalade and is a constant feature on our stall throughout the season. The quality of this marmalade was recognised by the judges in this years Marmalade Awards who awarded it a silver accolade.

A close cousin is our Sloe Gin Fizz Marmalade. This is a marmalade based on the same Seville recipie but includes Sloe Gin with a shot of Presecco added just before bottling. This produced an altogether lighter marmalade with just a touch of effervesence and comes a close second in terms of popularity.

A third Seville based marmalade is our Singletons Whisky Marmalade, a limited edition product line which we produce each year in memory of Helen's farther. His name was Singleton and when he discovered the Singleton distillery in Scotland their product became his tipple of choice. We sell this marmalade at a higher price than our other marmalades and all profits go the MacMillan, as a thank you for their care and support during the last months of his life. With just 100 jars made each year this product line is usually sold out within weeks of its production.

The Sevilles also offer one of the three citrus fruit we use in our Three Fruit Marmalade. One Seville orance is added to grepefruit and lemon to produce a light bright preserve with a strong tang of refreshing grapefruit.

New for 2018 we produced a few batches of Graapefruit and Hibiscus, a marmalade full of that strong grapefruit taste infused with the vivid pink of Hibiscus. 

Whilt I have talked a lot about Seville Orange Marmalade, we also turn our attention to limes in January. In this case we add a shot of Medlar Brandy to each batch and so infuse that mellow apple / caramel flavour of this most unusual fruit. I have to admit that whilst this is a fantastic marmalade, it isnt one of my favourite to make. Limes are tough little things and the task of getting the pith from their skins is both slow and painful on the thumbs. But, no gain without pain. This marmalade was also awarded a silver award in the 2018 Marmalade Awards.