Faced with an abundance of fruit and vegetables from her walled garden, Veronica Molloy’s mother-in-law taught her how to make preserves. To this day, any new products are still based on those basic family recipes handed down through the generations.
After selling her preserves at markets and winning prizes for them, local shops started showing an interest in stocking them and things snowballed from there. Veronica now has five employees and makes over 80 products, but her outstanding jams, jellies, chutneys, curds and marmalade are all still made by hand in small batches of 20 jars to preserve the flavour.
Jams include such tempting varieties as strawberry and champagne, blackcurrant and Irish stout, gooseberry and elderflower or Connemara Irish whiskey heather marmalade, while more unusual preserves include an Irish coffee curd and a parsley jelly.
Just as Veronica’s mother-in-law taught her how to make preserves, Veronica travelled to Tanzania in 2007 and again in 2009 as part of a group of 40 with the Playing for Life charity, where she in turn taught 14 women to preserve the fruits and vegetables that were in season there at the time, such as mangoes, passion fruit, pineapple, bananas, tomatoes and chillies.
Crossogue Preserves are stocked in all the Avoca, Kilkenny Design and Butler’s Pantry shops as well as select gift shops and delis around Ireland. They also export to the US, Brussels and Finland and have recently entered the UK market. Well worth seeking out.
