Our Salters Gregorie and Malky work together, looking after the pan and the tower, perfecting their ‘paidling’, drawing off the salt and carefully ensuring that each batch is of the highest quality with the perfect ‘crystal crunch factor’ every time.

Blackthorn Master Salter Gregorie has lived and breathed salt since day 1 as his family has been involved in all things salt for 5 generations.

Our ways are patient, gentle and sustainable: Scottish West Coast sea water is slowly trickled through the country’s only graduation thorn tower whilst being evaporated by the exhilarating West Coast winds.

The first stages of the Blackthorn journey are wild and solely require nature: West Coast seas and winds.

Reminiscent of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, our imposing tower of thorns sits facing the sea and the mountains of Arran. This spiky structure is incredibly effective as well as being visually impressive: it enables a significant acceleration of the evaporation process required for sea salt production.

Sea water is dribbled through 54 wooden taps and a series of channels which are checked and adjusted daily according to the weather.

The sea water seeps along every twig and thorn, maximising exposure to our powerful and persistent coastal winds (and any sun that might be showing face). The emerging droplets partially evaporate and any remaining liquid becomes a more concentrated brine.

The final stage is all skill and alchemy: we take the now exceptionally salty brine, add our Salters and their intricate knowledge of our salt, some gentle heat and nothing else... at all.

It took years to perfect our unique method of harnessing the wind and sea to ensure we create a better salt, a ‘salt of the world’ as well as ‘for the world’ and one that we are proud of.

Historically, it took a single day and night to make a batch of salt in Scotland with an alarming ratio for coal to salt of 8:1; the Dutch used to take 6 days, making a superior salt at a greater cost of coal.

The environmental consequences are obvious and even today, the power required to release the salt from our seas is pretty substantial unless you live in sunnier climes and are able to evaporate by solar. Which is why we at Blackthorn are so proud to have revived the ancient thorn-tower evaporation process which evaporates 90% of the water by wind and sun alone.

As seen on the Hairy Bikers Go Local