Buckfast makes burger debut

A Glasgow restaurant is celebrating the popularity in Scotland of Benedictine tonic wine brand Buckfast by adding the “Bucky” burger to its menu.

For £8, The Arches café and bar offers this dish of pork meat infused with a Buckfast and soy sauce reduction, which comes accompanied by root vegetable coleslaw, chips and the venue’s own pickle.

Popularly referred to as “Bucky”, or “commotion lotion”, Buckfast carries an abv of 15% and each 750ml bottle contains 37.5mg/100ml of caffeine, equivalent to more than eight cans of coke. It has been produced by the monks of Buckfast Abbey in Devon since 1890.

Despite the drink’s controversial association with anti-social behaviour, which earlier this year saw Scottish police forced to apologise to Buckfast’s distributors for asking a shopkeeper to remove the product from his shelves, The Arches chef Jass McNeill has defended the unusual flavour combination.

“Buckfast goes really well with pork because it’s so sweet,” he told the Daily Star, adding that the burger had been outselling the restaurant’s more traditional beef burger.

The Bucky burger is not the only alcoholic burger to appear on a restaurant menu recently. Earlier this year UK restaurant chain Honest Burger joined up with Scottish producer BrewDog to create the “BrewBurger”, which is infused with enough craft beer to require ID.