Highland Smokery

Smoke hangs in the rafters of our Highland shed like memory — decades of fire, salt, and fish worked into timber that has seen more winters than I have. Highland Smokery began beside a loch where my father smoked trout for the hotel trade using oak and birch shavings from our own woodland. What was once a seasonal sideline became a name trusted by delis who understand that proper smoking cannot be hurried.

We work with salmon and trout from British waters, sourced through suppliers we audit for sustainability and welfare. Whole sides are dry-salted or brined with recipes refined over years, then hung in kilns where smoke drifts cool and slow. Hot-smoked and cold-smoked lines follow different traditions; kippers and mackerel recall the breakfasts of fishing ports along the Moray Firth. We avoid liquid smoke, colourings, and the shortcuts that make smoked fish taste of factory rather than fire.

Resting is as important as smoking. Fish leaves the kiln and settles so moisture and flavour find balance before slicing. Our team packs by hand, trims honestly, and wastes little — offcuts become pâté and training portions for staff meals. The Highlands demand self-reliance; our smokehouse grew from that same practicality.

We log every batch's wood mix and salting time, welcome chefs to see the kilns, and refuse orders that would push smoking faster than fish can safely take smoke. That discipline is how we sleep at night and how our customers know each slice will taste of wood and sea, not of hurry.

Today Highland Smokery supplies Maxwells with smoked fish that carries our climate and our standards. Tourism passes through; seasons turn; the loch stays. We intend to keep smoking the way our forebears did — respectfully, patiently, and with food worthy of the landscape that shaped us, for kitchens that value smoke as flavour rather than gimmick.

Values: Traditional smoking, sustainable sourcing