Keeping Scottish Culture and Tradition Alive

Webster’s Scottish Shortbread Company is the second chapter in the Macdonalds’ lives

By Linda Quinlan

 

The Scottish way of eating shortbread is in the morning with tea or in the evening — with whiskey.

Traditional Scottish shortbread isn’t a meal, said Ian Macdonald, explaining that it’s more of a sweet biscuit that can be eaten any time.”

He should know. He’s been making or watching family members make traditional Scottish shortbread since he was a wee lad.

At 65, Macdonald and his wife, Maggie, have now opened their own bakery and gift shop, the Scottish Shortbread Company, at 700 Ridge Road, Webster.

“We kind of stumbled into having a store,” Macdonald said. He’d been making shortbread “forever,” he explained and even had an oven in the office of his previous business, Historic Sign and Restoration, on Mount Read Boulevard in Rochester.

“I used to bake for [sign] customers and as gifts,” Macdonald said.

He and Maggie eventually added several ovens to the basement of their Webster home and started selling shortbread at a booth at the Windmill Market in Penn Yan in 2021. They had also been traveling to sell their shortbread at Highland games and Scottish festivals in Canada and throughout the U.S., including Florida in winter.

They got so busy that the business outgrew their home.

He finally closed his sign business a year ago and Maggie quit her corporate job.

In August 2024, they moved baking operations to a small portion of the space that now houses their store. They outgrew that space in four or five months.

By January 2025, they realized they needed a packaging area, more equipment and space to fill online orders. They knocked out a wall in their space, expanded and opened the retail store in April.

The couple still sells shortbread at the Windmill and festivals every weekend, too, has a robust online business and even a wholesale business. Local shops, in Rochester and as far as the River Rat Cheese Shop in the Thousand Islands, now carry the company’s shortbreads.

As the shop has caught on, they’ve added a gift shop area featuring their own etched glasses with traditional Scottish images, like the thistle and lion rampant, that Ian Macdonald designed himself. They also feature imported gifts from Scotland, like pottery mugs, lamb’s wool scarves, Harris tweed flasks and teas from Scotland. They feature watercolor artwork by Ian’s sister, too. Just recently, they started packaging their own coffees, right now featuring a dark roast and a Highland Grog combining whiskey and coffee flavors.

While not something they sell, Macdonald does offer customers a chance to try a sip of one of several traditional Scottish whiskeys he keeps on hand.

Another recently added product is Hobnobs, crunchy oat biscuits made with dark chocolate on top. They’re also referred to as “digestive biscuits,” Ian Macdonald said.

The shortbread recipe, using just the finest Irish butter, flour and sugar, was handed down from Macdonald’s grandmother and mother. His grandmother wouldn’t share her recipe for years, Macdonald recalls, but explains it’s not so much the ingredients as the technique with which it is made.

His father, John Arnott Macdonald, was born in Airdrie, Scotland. He immigrated, with his parents, John Arnott and Elizabeth, to Canada and eventually the U.S.  His grandmother worked as a domestic and neither she nor her husband ever drove a day in their lives, Macdonald said.

Macdonald grew up in Webster, lived all over the U.S., he said and returned to Webster around 30 years ago.

Maggie Macdonald has two sons, Will and Hayden, and he has two daughters, Amber and Jocelyn. They have several grandchildren.

Macdonald calls the shortbread business his second chapter in life.

While his mother and grandmother only made traditional Scottish shortbread, he and Maggie have added flavors like toffee, whiskey pecan, cherry almond, cinnamon and one made with Barry’s Irish cream liqueur. The Barrys formerly owned a popular Irish pub in Webster.

Another flavor that is a favorite of customers is “millionaire’s shortbread,” topped with caramel, dark chocolate and Celtic salt.

Visitors to the shop may see pictures of the couple’s Scottish ancestors on the wall.

He really has become more aware of his family’s heritage and history since opening the business, Macdonald said. “This is really all about keeping Scottish heritage and culture alive.”

He made his first trip to Scotland in 2005, armed with a 1978 letter from a cousin there. He was able to track down that cousin and others, he recalled and the welcome he received “was like Tom Cruise must have come to town.”

He’s been back to Scotland two more times since then and hopes to take Maggie soon.

“There’s no place like Scotland,” Macdonald said. “It’s not a place you visit; it’s more a place you feel … It’s organically endearing.”

He owns six different kilts and wears them at the Windmill on Saturdays. He even wore his kilt and full “Prince Charley,” an outfit with a kilt, jacket and vest, during a visit to the White House, where former First Lady Dr. Jill Biden hosted a reception for his daughter, Amber, who had been her speech writer.

Sadly, a condition affecting his hands means Ian Macdonald can no longer make the shortbread himself. Maggie and a new head baker, Joanna Trejo, have taken over those duties.

Everyone that works in and for the business is people they know and trust, Macdonald said and yes, they do put them in kilts.

“It’s important,” Macdonald said with a twinkle.