You don't get to be executive chef of an event center without a little knowledge of absolutely everything culinary, but when we asked the Hawai'i Convention Center's Doug Rothenburger if there were any Scottish desserts that DON'T have whiskey in them, he put chin in hand and stared off into space. Stumped!

Rothenburger is the go-to guy for Sunday's Burns Night celebration of the Hawaii Caledonian Society, and he can pretty much handle everything. Last week he fed Gloria Estefan's backstage partyers (”;a lot of low-fat, healthy stuff”;), about 1,000 people for a restaurant-chain convention and another 1,400 for a Christian fellowship conference.

“;A constant challenge!”; he grins. “;The neatest part is that every day is different.”;

This week's challenge is traditional Scots cuisine, a phrase that is coupled with “;notoriously unhealthy”; throughout the Internet. Scotland, after all, is the home of the deep-fried Mars bar.

And haggis. We can't skip haggis, that most feared of foodstuffs, that steaming concoction of animal bits that even coyotes would skip. It's an entirely undeserved rep, says Rothenburger, as it's basically a sausage, and while nobody enjoys viewing sausage preparation, as it's too much like politics, pepole still eat the sausage.

“;Everything I read on haggis reinforces how no part of an animal is wasted. It is entirely consumed,”; shrugged Rothenburger, who studied 40 haggis recipes and even flew a study sample in from Scotland before choosing a recipe. “;You really can't buy haggis in the U.S., as the government doesn't want Americans eating stuff like lamb lungs.”;

What Scots consumed came from the land, says Rothenburger. “;Peasant food. Bangers. Mash. Shepherd's pie. Root vegetables. Tatties and neeps, which is potatoes and turnips. Simple, hearty food.”;

The trick, of course, is not to prepare what looks and tastes like a simple, savory home-cooked Scottish meal, but to do it times several hundred. In the convention center kitchen—which is like a battleship with roaring fans, freshly mopped floors and gleaming banks of stainless-steel sinks and stoves—Rothenburger pulls his most useful appliance from his pocket: a calculator. “;I'm forever figuring out mass quantities.”;

He whipped up in something like 20 minutes a classic Scots dessert called Tipsy Laird. Although he made his own spongecake, raspberry jam and custard, Rothenburger allowed as you can use off-the-shelf items.

A cup of custard with a heart of spongecake and jam, with a topping of whipped cream, diced, dried bing cherries and freshly sizzled almonds, the secret ingredients are sherry and Drambuie whiskey.

How much whiskey?

“;About a teaspoon,”; said Rothenburger, sprinkling the Drambuie as if it were made of gold. “;The whiskey gives it an unusual flavor. But, frankly, you add whiskey until it tastes right.”;

The Scots are on to something.