Pheasant Plucker

“I’m not a pheasant plucker, I’m a pheasant plucker’s son,
I’m only plucking pheasants ’till the pheasant plucker comes”

Try that out after a few pheasant pluckers …..

This cider is one of my favourites, a very smooth, a little bit sweet, easy drinking scrumpy, made in Zumerset and reasonably strong at 6%.

Comforting to know that the back of the bottle declared “not a single pheasant was hurt in making this cider”.

The 2 litre bottle is dirt cheap at £2.25 (most of the beers and ciders are).  The local off-licence (bottlo) always seems to have a regular stock – in fact the guy who runs the office licence has been there as long anyone can remember (since I was at school). It has been couple of years since I was last here but it is like I have never been away.

For those interested, the pheasant shooting season starts now but really gets underway the beginning of November, fortunately for the pheasants I am not much of a shot – not sure if will be doing any this trip .. my middle brother, the farmer, is still busy ploughing and planting winter wheat …. but if I get the chance, I really enjoy the day out, particularly if we are on big country estate where we will not shoot but drive(beat) the pheasants. The shooting on these days is for the landed gentry or people with more money than sense.

The other good use for pheasant apart from eating and shooting is that one of the best trout fishing flies ever made (pheasant tail nymph – name gives it away) is entirely out of the tail feathers of a pheasant –anyone interested, please let me know, more than happy to give a demo of how to tie. Hopefully should get a few decent trout on one these over the next month.