Cocoa Mountain

Balnakeil Craft Village sits at almost the top-left corner of the British mainland, a former early-warning military base near Durness turned over to makers, and in among the huts is a chocolatier that draws people the length of the country. James Findlay and Paul Maden started Cocoa Mountain there in 2006, making truffles and what they will happily tell you is the best hot chocolate in Scotland — a genuinely serious cup, thick and dark, all the better for the drive it took to reach it. They have run it themselves ever since, adding a second café in Dornoch, and the remoteness is the whole appeal: to sit at the far north-west edge of the country with a hot chocolate that would hold its own in any city is a particular kind of pleasure. It opens for the season from spring; time a North Coast 500 run to land here mid-afternoon, cold and in need of exactly this.