Forget the cold! Enjoy hilarious toasts, warm whisky, the skirl of bagpipes, and poetic haggis at Rural Hill’s Scottish Supper.
Historic Rural Hill, Huntersville, NC
December, 2025
When you gather at Historic Rural Hill, already the undeniable premier location for Scottish culture in the Charlotte area, as home to the Loch Norman Higbrings the poetry to life. It begins with the invocation of the Selkirk Grace, a humble prayer that reminds us to cherish the food we have.
Then comes the heart-rousing highlight: the piping in of the haggis. As the great bagpipes skirl—a sound that seems to pull the mist from the Scottish glens right into the historic center at Rural Hill, the haggis, “the great chieftain o’ the puddin’-race,” is ceremoniously carried in on a platter. A speaker performs the famous recitation of Burns’s poem, “Address to a Haggis,” culminating in the dramatic slicing of the dish with a knife (sgian dubh), marking the official start of the feast of traditional flavors, all chased down with generous, warming drams of Scotch whisky.
The evening flows into the formal toasts: the serious, heartfelt “Immortal Memory” to the Bard, followed by the famously humorous exchanges of the “Toast to the Lassies” and the “Reply to the Laddies,” which flicker with the same lighthearted sparring found in Burns’s own works. The night finds its inevitable peace, as all great Scottish gatherings must, with everyone joining hands across the table to sing the cherished words of “Auld Lang Syne.”
By stepping onto this historic landscape on January 23rd & 24th, you join the chorus of the Ploughman Poet. It is a night where the poetry of the 18th century feels as fresh and clean as the mountain air after a rain shower, and where the values Burns chland Games, you are not merely observing history; you become a participant, weaving a thread in that living tradition. The evening is a beautiful, theatrical embrace of ritual that hampioned are beautifully revived, wrapping the cold Carolina January in a distinctly unforgettable warmth. Join us for this profound moment of fellowship and culture.
