Hearth & Birch – Winter Grain Drinking Set
Two winter grain tonics of root, barley, bark, and quiet heat – one for steadiness and clarity, one for softening and rest.
 
Hearth & Birch
Hearth & Heart
 
This two-piece Winter Grain Drinking Set is built from roots, grains, and woodland medicines – a way of drinking warmth, strength, and grounded clarity through the cold season.
 
Where some winter drinks soothe, these sustain. Barley malt, oats, roasted roots, berries, bark, and spice are worked slowly into fine powders, toasted with care and sifted for a clean, ceremonial mouthfeel. The result is not sweetness or indulgence, but depth – food you drink to hold the body steady through frost mornings and dark evenings.
 
These blends belong to the hearth rather than the sea. They carry the weight of kiln grain, forest floor, bitter root, and gentle smoke. Each cup feeds tired bones, warms the core, and settles the body into its natural winter pace.
 
Taken together, the set moves from daylight steadiness to evening softening – without heaviness, without excess.
 
Hearth & Birch
Dandelion, barley, and chaga winter grain tonic.
 
This is a grounding, clarifying drink built around roasted dandelion root, deep-toasted oats, and barley malt, with chaga folded in gently at the end to preserve its woodland depth. Hemp hearts add quiet nourishment and body, while cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom bring warmth without sweetness. A trace of cacao and smoked salt anchors the blend low and mineral.
 
On the palate, it opens with kiln grain and hearth warmth, then moves into dandelion earth and forest tannin before finishing clean and steady, with a soft pepper hum like heat held in banked coals.
 
This is a morning or mid-day cup – for clarity, steadiness, and grounded winter strength.
 
Flavour notes
Toasted oat and malt
Dandelion earth
Chaga forest depth
Quiet spice and mineral finish
 
Hearth & Heart
Hawthorn, barley, cacao, and birch night brew.
 
The night blend is rounder, softer, and more inward. Deep-toasted oats and barley form a warm, creamy base, layered with hawthorn berry and leaf for their gentle fruit-and-flower roundness. Cacao nib and husk bring dusk-dark depth without sweetness, while birch bark and leaf adds a soft woodland sweetness that carries through the cup.
 
Spice is used with restraint – enough to warm, not stimulate. A faint trace of smoked salt sits far back, barely perceptible, like the memory of a fire rather than its flame.
 
On the palate, it moves from warm grain into soft berry and cacao dusk, finishing with a sense of release – shoulders lowering, breath lengthening, the body coming home.
 
This is a night cup – for softening, rest, and inward turning.
 
Flavour notes
Creamy grain
Hawthorn fruit and leaf
Cacao woodiness
Birch sweetness and quiet warmth
 
Serving suggestions
For each blend:
Use 1½ to 2 teaspoons per cup.
Whisk with a splash of warm water until smooth.
Add hot milk – oat or raw cow’s milk suits the grain body best.
Froth gently if desired.
For Hearth & Birch, a pinch of barley malt dusted on the foam adds warmth.
For Hearth & Heart, a single drop of birch syrup on the foam may be served beside the cup, not stirred in.
Pause before drinking. These are cups for attention.
 
Storage
Store in airtight glass jars on a cool, dark shelf.
Keep dry. Use a dry spoon.
 
Shelf life
Best enjoyed within 6 months for peak aroma and warmth.
 
Winter Hearth Soulfoods – Mother Tongue of the Cailleach Country
The Winter Soulfoods collection is an immersive body of work set in Cailleach country – the boglands of Béarra – approached as ecosystem, archive, threshold, and kitchen. It imagines what it might mean to work from within the Cailleach’s own domain, drawing flavour, nourishment, and craft from deep ground, slow water, turf fire, and time.
 
The bog is not treated as symbol or backdrop. It is a keeper of strata – layers of matter and memory held intact. A place where time is thickened rather than spent. A preservative ground where fermentation, storage, and patience are not techniques, but ways of living in relationship with the land around you, and the land within you.
 
Within this terrain, food is ceremony and commitment. Ingredients are gathered as the year unfolds, worked slowly, and held back for winter – not for spectacle, but for sustenance. Grain warmth, root bitterness, woodland depth, and gentle heat shape flavours meant to be met with attention, feeding the body deeply, strengthening bones, warming, steadying, and restoring through the dark months.
 
These soulfoods are acts of natural pace and continuity – ways of staying in relationship with place, season, and deep time. Crafted through hand, hearth, and long devotion, they carry the quiet authority of a path walked faithfully, day after day, in preparation for the dark.