Strawberries are the first local fruit to arrive in the spring, but they’re gone by May. However, thanks to these three companies, you can enjoy their flavor all year long.
Sparkling strawberry lemonade
Farm-to-can? Yes, it’s a thing, and Devil’s Foot Beverage Co. of Asheville, founded by Jacob Baumann and Ben Colvin, has been brewing nonalcoholic soft drinks made with real fruit since 2017. We just tried their Pink Robots sparkling strawberry lemonade and loved it. Light and refreshing, it’s the antithesis of super sweet sodas, and has lots more flavor than fruit-flavored seltzers. There are just five ingredients — water, organic lemon juice, organic cane sugar, South Carolina honey and strawberries — and each flavor has less than 18 grams of sugar per can. Sparkling peach and blueberry lemonades and sparkling cherry limeade also are among the dozen flavors available, which include their flagship ginger beers.
$2.49 per 12-ounce can, $42 per case of 24 cans. Available at Candler Park Market, Ale Yeah, My Friend’s Bottle Shop, Branded Barrel and shop.devilsfootbrew.com.
Credit: Courtesy of James Carr
Credit: Courtesy of James Carr
Strawberry lemonade cocktail syrup
Farmers Jam began in 2018 as a band of farmers who got together to perform music. It wasn’t long before they also began producing jam, the sweet fruity kind, with sales funding an annual fruit tree giveaway for small farms and gardens. In January 2022, Farmers Jam was able to give away 174 fruit trees. The selection of jams on offer changes with the seasons, but right now you can buy their strawberry lemonade jam, as well as a brand new strawberry lemonade cocktail syrup, both made from organic strawberries sourced from farms in Georgia and South Carolina and made in a Decatur kitchen. The website features cocktail recipes, including strawberry lemonade gin and tonic (or vodka and soda), a strawberry lemon mule from Midway Pub and a strawberry lemon Old-Fashioned from Little Bear. Our taste-testers tried it in cocktails, but we’ve really been loving it mixed with either sparkling or plain water, where the hint of mint really comes through at the end. Next in production will be peach and basil cocktail syrup. We were lucky to snag a tiny preview bottle — amazing.
Cocktail syrup: $6.99 per 4-ounce bottle, $12.99 per 8-ounce bottle, $21.99 per 16-ounce bottle. Jam: $12 per 8-ounce jar. Available at thefarmersjam.com and occasionally at farmers markets.
Credit: Courtesy of Heidi Kalpak, The Pink Peach
Credit: Courtesy of Heidi Kalpak, The Pink Peach
Strawberry jalapeño jam
Brandi Britt Boswell grew up in a family that preserved the bounty of their garden and the fields around them in Newberry, Florida. She loved creating homemade jams, in particular. In 2020, Boswell was making jalapeño jams with fruit that she and her husband Matt sourced from local farms, and giving the jams to friends and family, when she heeded what she kept hearing: “You need to start selling these.” They named the Greensboro-based company Three B’s, after Boswell’s initials, and it offers peach, blueberry and strawberry jalapeño jams. The strawberry flavor was a finalist in the jams and jellies category of this year’s University of Georgia Flavor of Georgia competition. It’s loose in consistency, which makes it perfect for the four uses Boswell lists on the label — dip, drizzle, glaze and marinade. Their website offers recipes, ranging from a strawberry jalapeño jam margarita to glazed pork tenderloin. We loved the bits of strawberry throughout the jam, as well as the fact that it was hot, without being overwhelmingly so. We’re even using it as a dip for carrot sticks.
$10 per 10-ounce jar. Available at Lucy’s Market and threebsjams.com.
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