Journal

At Christmas creating a cheeseboard throws up all sorts of possibilities. Our advice is to go for a limited selection of best-quality artisan cheeses. Your dining room table doesn’t need to resemble your local cheesemonger or supermarket, in terms of range and number of cheeses you offer your family or guests!

If there’s one cheese that speaks of Christmas here in the UK, it has to be a blue cheese, ideally a Stilton and for ‘gold standard’ it has to be a Colston Bassett. Rich, creamy, tangy and full of flavour. The cheese has been around for a long time, with first mention of it back in the 1720’s and it appears to have been first marketed by Cooper Thornhill of the Bell Inn in the village of Stilton.

The delicious Italian sweet bread that arrives in our shops at the start of December each year has acquired cult status amongst some of our long-standing customers. There’s just something about that light, fluffy, sweet, vanilla baked bread with jewels of vine and candied fruits that just sings of Christmas.

Many of us will be partying at home this Christmas season, so we’ve lined up our top 5 favourite drinks to get you in the mood.