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Mulled Wine, South Dakota Style

By Katie Hunhoff

The warmth and spiciness of mulled wine makes it a favorite winter drink.

Our South Dakota Magazine crew started a coffee house called Muddy Mo’s in downtown Yankton a few years ago. On a frigid Saturday last winter, we decided to make mulled wine, both to warm our customers as they came in from the cold and also to try something new, which was the very inspiration for the shop.

Mulled wine is warmed wine with spices added, but a quick Google search shows recipes from across the world using varied ingredients and techniques. Not one to overthink, I quickly decided to mix an affordable red wine with some mulling spices from my local supermarket. Soon after pouring the simple concoction into a crockpot, a delicious cinnamon and orange aroma wafted through Muddy Mo’s — and it quickly drew customers who were happy to weigh in on my makeshift recipe.

“This is strong, too strong for mulled wine,” observed one kindly woman, who nevertheless drank several $2 glasses. Another visitor suggested that we add honey and offered to share his recipe. Someone asked if we could mix in a little apple cider next time. I don’t remember when something on our menu inspired so much conversation and interaction among customers.

Humans have been warming wine and adding spices since the dawn of the Roman Empire. The spice worked wonders to hide the taste of inferior wine, but it was also believed to strengthen immune systems during winter. Early recipes included saffron, pepper, laurel, dates, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, marjoram and cardamom.

Part of the fun of mulled wine is taking the ingredients and creating your own recipe. But, to ensure better success at the coffee shop this winter, I spoke to wine experts from across South Dakota. They were happy to share their recipes, along with ideas on what makes mulled wine the perfect winter drink.

SchadÈ Vineyard & Winery

VOLGA

Similar to our experience at Muddy Mo’s, Nancy Schade enjoys the community that mulled wine creates.”When you make it, it just brings people together. And there are opportunities to share recipes, because everyone has a different recipe,” she laughs. Jim and Nancy Schade founded the winery in 2000, and recently passed it on to new owners Dillon and Shelby Ringling.

Nancy recommends using SchadÈ’s Raspberry Apple Wine for mulling. The raspberries and apples are grown in South Dakota, giving a local taste to an internationally enjoyed drink. Nancy’s recipe is simple. She uses a 1:1 ratio of the Raspberry Apple wine and apple cider.”The cider gives the finished product a fuller flavor,” she says. Next, add mulling spice packets and warm the wine and cider in a crockpot (not to a boil). The winery sells its own mulling packets, but in a pinch, you can also find them at many supermarkets.

Prairie Berry

HILL CITY

Laura Schluckebier

Laura Schluckebier, the sales and hospitality manager at Prairie Berry, grew to love mulled wine during her time at the Hill City winery.”It’s made to share with other people,” she says.”As soon as the leaves change, people come in to have mulled wine next to our fireplace. The guests expect it.”

Mulling wine has also evolved into a family tradition for Schluckebier.”We go skiing at Terry Peak, then go home to drink mulled wine. Or we will split wood and then make mulled wine. It’s a tradition to do things outside in winter, then to share the drink. When you make it, it smells wonderful and it’s warming all around.”

Sandi Vojta, owner of Prairie Berry, became a fifth-generation winemaker at the age of 4 when she experimented with yeast and fermentation, she told us in a 2011 story for South Dakota Magazine. Her dad would take her out to pick chokecherries for wine, tying a piece of twine with a pail attached to her waist so she could pick berries with both hands.

Schluckebier recommends using Prairie Berry’s Pumpkin Bog for mulling. Made with South Dakota grown pumpkins, it’s slightly sweet with”undertones of cranberry and lemon zest.” Pour one bottle of Pumpkin Bog into a slow cooker on low heat. Add two tablespoons of light brown sugar, two tablespoons of mulling spice and orange slices. Leave on low for 45 minutes, making sure it does not boil.

After 25 years of producing internationally-award-winning wines, Prairie Berry will be closing soon. Sandi and her husband, Matt Keck, will continue selling as long as they have inventory. Pumpkin Bog was still available for purchase as this magazine went to print.

With the Wind Vineyard & Winery

ROSHOLT

Lisa Klein

Lisa Klein, who owns With The Wind along with her husband, Jeremiah, uses their Sacred Solitude wine for mulling. Made with locally grown Frontenac grapes, this dry red is complemented by Lisa’s recipe that includes orange juice and brown sugar.

Klein says mulled wine helps her embrace winter and everything that comes with it.”I’ve spent evenings wrapping presents while having mulled wine simmering on the stove,” Klein says.”We drink it while gathering with friends. During a frigid winter, it’s such a warm thing to serve your guests. You can’t get away from winter, so you have to embrace it.”

The Kleins have operated With the Wind for over 10 years. They hold wine tastings and events at their vineyard, where they tend to over 5,000 vines.

Sacred Solitude Mulled Wine

2 bottles of With the Wind Sacred Solitude wine

2 cups orange juice

3/4 cup (or to taste) brown sugar (or substitute maple syrup or agave)

2 oranges, sliced

1/2 cup fresh cranberries (optional)

10 whole cloves

6 cinnamon sticks

  1. Place a medium saucepan over medium-high heat on the stove.
  2. Add the orange juice and granulated sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
  3. Add the red wine and all of the spices and fruits. The spices will be whole, not ground in a container, so their flavors will infuse into the liquid.
  4. Reduce the heat to low and simmer the mulled wine for 30 minutes. At this point, taste and adjust the flavor as necessary. You can simmer for up to a couple hours. Garnish with cinnamon sticks, orange peel or cranberries.

Mulled Wine can be paired with many foods. In Europe, it is often served at festivals with roasted chestnuts, and it’s also common to serve with roasted meats during the holidays. We asked Prairie Berry and SchadÈ wineries to share their favorite recipes to make with mulled wine.

Nancy Schade’s Never Fail Apple Dessert

Mix and put in a 9×9 inch pan:

4 cups sliced apples

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon flour

pinch of nutmeg

3/4 cup sugar

Mix together and spread over apples:

3/4 cup oatmeal

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup melted butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes. Cool and serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

Prairie Berry Kitchen’s Classic Cheese Fondue

1/2 pound imported Swiss cheese, shredded

1/2 pound Gruyere cheese, shredded

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 garlic clove peeled

1 cup dry white wine

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon cherry brandy

1/2 teaspoon dry mustard

Pinch of nutmeg

Coat cheese in cornstarch. Rub fondue pot with garlic, then discard. Over medium heat, add wine and lemon juice. Bring to a simmer. Gradually stir in cheese, melting slowly to encourage a smooth texture. Stir in brandy, mustard and nutmeg. Serve with French bread, Granny Smith apples or blanched veggies.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the January/February 2025 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Watertown’s Pizza Champ

By John Andrews

Sean Dempsey’s innovative pizzas are turning heads in Watertown, where he owns Dempsey’s Brewery, Pub and Restaurant.

“Another 30 seconds,” Sean Dempsey says as he slides an Oktoberfest pizza back inside a 550-degree oven. A quick tap on the crust hadn’t produced the light knocking sound he wanted, indicating that it wasn’t quite done. There’s no timer in sight, but exactly half a minute later the pizza comes out and onto the counter, where Dempsey applies a brush of butter around the outside edges of the crust along with a little sea salt. Then come crumbles of sharp port cheddar cheese, a dash of oregano and tiny dollops of sweet lingonberries to complement the spicy sausage, dilly sauerkraut and spicy brown mustard.

This is not the simple cheese, pepperoni or sausage pizza that many of us have eaten all our lives. Dempsey’s daring creations are earning him a reputation among the best pizza makers in the world. And they might make him a pizza champion.

Dempsey was there the day in 1999 when his father Bill opened the Highland Laddie in a historic building on Watertown’s Broadway Avenue. Bill had long dreamed of a Celtic-themed pub; he occasionally donned a kilt and played bagpipes for customers. (The elder Dempsey was a pipe major for the Glacial Lakes Pipe and Drum Corps.)

Dempsey’s Brewery, Pub and Restaurant, as it became known in 2001, is largely unchanged 25 years later.

Flags still hang from the ceiling, a large mural of a castle in the Scottish highlands adorns the western dining room wall and its menu of burgers, steaks and pasta remains as popular as ever. But as Sean worked his way up through nearly every job in the restaurant — from bus boy to dishwasher to server to cook — it eventually became clear that he would have a future in the family business. He just needed to find a way to make his own mark.

Inspiration struck in 2013 when the Dempseys attended the International Pizza Expo and Conference in Las Vegas. It’s a trade show for all things pizza, where chefs explore new toppings, ingredients and baking methods. The Dempseys had begun offering pizzas a few years earlier, and like all good business owners, wanted to learn as much as they could.

Dempsey launched Danger von Dempsey’s, an offshoot of the original Watertown restaurant, to focus on pizza and craft beer.

“It was an eye-opener, because in my mind pizza had always been this dough you make, you put some cheese and sauce on it, bake it, cut it and you eat it when you’re drunk and it’s great,” he says.”But at the Pizza Expo I saw the different styles and how you could express yourself. You could get really creative with this and do things that other people haven’t done. That’s what sparked my interest.”

A year later, Dempsey traveled to San Francisco to study with Tony Gemigani, an international pizza champion who had launched the International School of Pizza and the United States School of Pizza, both under the Scuola Italiana Pizzaioli, an Italian school offering the most complete training of pizza chefs in the world. He is now the only certified pizzaiola (pizza maker) in South Dakota.

With that boost in experience, he went all-in on pizza. The kitchen at Dempsey’s took on the air of a science lab as he tweaked dough recipes and topping combinations. More importantly, he had to convince South Dakotans to trust his pizzas, a challenge in a region where national chains are the norm and people passionately debate the merits of pineapple on pizza.

“The first year was a nightmare,” he says.”I’d just gotten back from Tony’s school, and we bought a $20,000, two-ton double decker oven. We built an entire pizza room for it, and then when we started making pizzas people weren’t really wild about them. People like a lot of toppings and they want a large serving. Our pizzas were different, and they were a little more expensive. We spent a lot of time emphasizing the use of Italian ingredients, but still it was a solid year of educating. Why would you pay $18 for this pizza when you could get one at Domino’s for $6?”

Eventually customers warmed to his unique creations. That behemoth of an oven now cooks as many as 700 pizzas a week, ranging from a simple margherita featuring his house red sauce, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil and tomatoes to his more daring”pizza of the week.” The Argentine Horizon features roasted red pepper hummus, mozzarella, Argentine shrimp, red peppers, chives, cilantro and a squeeze of lemon. The Fisherman’s Hangover has shrimp, crab, shredded carrots, garlic, onions and lemon zest. The French Onion includes roast beef, French-fried onions, mushrooms and shallots.

About five minutes inside a 550-degree oven, give or take a few seconds, should give the pizza’s crust the perfect color and texture.

His pizzas are also turning heads around the globe. In 2017, the year after he took over ownership of the restaurant from his father, who is now enjoying retirement, Dempsey began competing at the International Pizza Challenge, part of the annual Las Vegas expo. He took 10th place in the traditional division and first in the Northwest region. He won the Northwest twice more, in 2018 and again in 2022, a year in which he also finished .02 points behind the overall winner in the traditional division.

Which brings us back to the Oktoberfest pizza. This is his 2024 competition pizza, which he presented to judges in Las Vegas in March and will bring to Naples, Italy in June, where he’ll compete internationally as a member of the United States Pizza Team, earned by virtue of his wins in Las Vegas. It was still a work in progress when we visited Dempsey’s kitchen in February, where he practiced baking it under competition conditions.

The Oktoberfest was inspired by a celebration he attended with relatives in Austria. While the original components are still there, he has tweaked the ingredients, including a sauerkraut made with whiskey and dill. He tried muenster cheese instead of the port cheddar, but it wasn’t strong enough. Same with the lingonberries blended into a drizzle. He’s experimenting with tiny pieces of Granny Smith apple and a German beer reduction drizzled over the top.

There’s beer in the dough, too, a constantly evolving combination of high-gluten flour and rye that ferments for four days and sits out for 10 hours before it’s stretched into a crust. Sausage slices are crisped in the oven before being placed on the pizza along with the German mustard base, mozzarella, red onion rings and sauerkraut.

The pizza goes into the oven for two and a half minutes, then is rotated and cooked another two and half minutes, give or take a few seconds based on the crust’s color and texture. After a minute of rest, he adds the crumbles of sharp port cheddar cheese and spoons of lingonberries, all arranged so that a single bite includes every component and the slices — cut with pizza shears to protect the integrity of the crust — are uniformly topped.

Dempsey hopes the Oktoberfest is enough to put him over the top in competitions this year. Even if it’s not, South Dakotans have already demonstrated their willingness to”try weird things on pizza,” as he puts it. His Danger von Dempsey’s, an offshoot of the original Dempsey’s featuring pizzas and craft beer, has expanded to Aberdeen, Brookings and the Watertown airport. Sauerkraut, shrimp — and maybe even pineapple — on pizza is here to stay.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 2024 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Tasty Theatrics of the Wine Cellar

By Bernie Hunhoff

The Wine Cellar is in the heart of Rapid City, near Art Alley, the Alex Johnson Hotel and Prairie Edge Trading Company.

Christy Land waited on her first table when she was 13 years old and living with her family in the small town of Philip, 85 miles northeast of Rapid City.

“Just slinging eggs and coffee for cowboys and ranchers,” she says.”I wasn’t even legal age for work, and I loved it. I saw it as such a great way to meet people.”

She soon found that knowing one’s way around a restaurant is economic security.”It’s what put me through college at Montana State, and it allowed me to travel across the country,” she says. It also brought her home.

Land was living in California at age 30 when she returned to Rapid City for a family wedding and realized,”that I was supposed to be here. I was never lonelier than when I was surrounded by 20 million people in the valley.”

Family, friends and West River’s outdoor landscapes had been calling.”I was planning to be here two weeks, but I never went back to California,” she says. She quickly found work at some of Rapid City’s top dining establishments, including Arrowhead Country Club and Botticelli’s.

In 2006 she began to serve diners at the Wine Cellar, a cozy restaurant on Sixth Street, midway between two downtown Rapid City icons, the Alex Johnson Hotel and Prairie Edge. Curt Pochardt started the Wine Cellar in 1998, along with an adjacent wine store. Customers could buy wine at Once Upon a Vine and bring the bottle next door to enjoy with their lunch and dinner. Pochardt sold the eatery to Pamela Light and Tammy Sellars in 2001.

“I was working here when my mom passed away,” Land says.”I didn’t know what to do and then one day Pamela suggested that I should buy the Wine Cellar. At first, I thought ‘no thank you,’ but my stepdad told me we should do this. He said it’ll be fun. We can work together.”

Her stepdad is Dave Hirning, a longtime Black Hills contractor.”I think it was perhaps his way of making sure I had a career and wasn’t just galavanting around the country,” she laughs.

Christy Land credits her stepfather Dave Hirning for the restaurant’s success. “I want people to know that I couldn’t do it without him there by my side every day,” she says.

She told Hirning,”Okay, let’s do this. But you have to be there every day with me.” Though he continues to work in construction, he has kept his promise: he does everything from playing host to cooking and washing dishes.”He especially watches to be sure the recipes are followed,” Land says.”I couldn’t do this without him.”

The result is Rapid City restaurant history. Hirning and Land have not only kept the Wine Cellar open but cemented it as a downtown destination. Entrepreneurs celebrate successes there over the filet mignon or the fabled mushroom lasagna. Families meet for birthday parties. Lovers linger in alcoves called”The Alley,” a romantic hideaway behind the main dining area.

The Wine Cellar has also become a go-to place for community fundraisers, including Cinco de Meow, held every May to raise money for the West River Spay and Neuter Coalition which seeks to prevent an over-population of dogs and cats by assisting low-income pet owners.

The cozy establishment has only about a dozen small tables, all with black tablecloths and candles. Blond oak floorboards, shiny with the charming blemishes of old wood, also add warmth to the interior. Midway between the dining area and a small kitchen is the aforementioned alley because long ago it was an actual alley between two old buildings that are now connected.

“It’s all so much fun,” Land says.”I love it. Dave loves it. I really love people and I love to create a place for them to come and enjoy.”

Watch Land, who is 50, and her small staff — all dressed in black — in action on a busy Saturday night and you soon recognize that they are not only serving food; there is a unique entertainment vibe in the air that one can almost taste.

Land says it’s as intentional as the sauce on the lasagna. She studied photography, media and theater at Montana State, and she readily acknowledges that her style of restauranting involves performance.
“You have to set aside everything going on in your own personal life,” she explains.”You are there for your guests. You need to know what you are doing, in the kitchen and in the dining room. You have to be able to read your audience and it has to be genuine. I really love people so it’s natural for me.”

She says the challenge, in these days of low unemployment, is to recruit and keep good staff.”I’d rather be short-staffed than have people who aren’t here for the right reason,” she says.”You can teach anybody how to wait on a table, but you can’t teach them to really care.”

Other issues have arisen that have been the demise of many independent eateries. For example, the costs and availability of food from corporate suppliers is so daunting that Land and her team now make nearly everything from scratch.”Even before the supply chain issues, we always tried to use local foods, much in the same concept as European cuisine served in the small restaurants there,” she says.”So much of what you might buy is full of preservatives and chemicals, so it’s just easier and healthier to make it yourself. Staying small gives us more control over quality and consistency.”

She buys honeycomb from a Colorado woman who has been raising bees for 70 years.”We get wonderful chicken from a farm in Nebraska. A family from Caputa provides fresh vegetables and our mushrooms come from Alan Carner’s Black Hills Mushrooms.” Bison meat is raised near the Badlands on author Dan O’Brien’s Wild Idea Ranch. She is a regular shopper at the Black Hills Farmers Market.

Just as the food represents the region, in a less tangible way the Wine Cellar is also a reflection of all the restaurants where Land worked.”I learned a lot about wines from Luigi Tuorletti, who ran Botticelli’s,” she says.”After our shift was over, he would sometimes have us try wines — really fine wines that I wouldn’t normally have been familiar with. I got to talk to Luigi the other day and I thanked him for all his mentoring.”

Land’s childhood friends from Philip sometimes step through the door, along with people she served at Arrowhead and other establishments.

“I love that about the Wine Cellar, the way it brings all these people together in a fun way,” she says.

Diners say the same.”Just the service. The food. The people.” That’s how veterinarian Lynn Steadman explains why he’ll drive 90 miles from Chadron, Nebraska.”It is sort of a European-California fusion,” he says.”It’s a different vibe. It’s a limited menu but everything is made fresh. The cuisine doesn’t follow any one path but it’s just good and it’s different.”

Diners will find only about a dozen tables inside the cozy Wine Cellar, all draped with black cloths and featuring a candle.

Steadman says the Wine Cellar garners attention far and wide.”The thing that amazes me is that you can mention this place and, though it’s a small place, everyone knows about it. You’ll go somewhere and be talking to a diverse group of people, and if you start talking about restaurants someone will soon recommend the Wine Cellar. It has a very devoted following.”

He credits Christy Land.”She makes it look easy, but she takes great pride in what she does,” he says.”I’ve observed that she is very concerned that each diner who comes in the door has a good experience.”

James Humen was dining just two tables away from the Nebraska veterinarian. He and his wife brought their two young children on a Saturday evening. The kids were sharing the filet mignon and wondering if they had room for chocolate cake.

Humen appreciates the atmosphere and the food.”This is one of the only chef-driven restaurants in Rapid City. I like the idea that he is in the back in the kitchen, just creating and seeing what he can do for the customers.”

Oh, yes, the food. A writer could wax on about the Wine Cellar for hundreds of words and not get around to the main attractions — the Wild Idea buffalo sliders with roasted tomato jam, carmelized onions and mushrooms; the pan-seared sea scallops on a small bed of risotto, topped with strawberries and basil; or the house filet mignon, Angus beef chargrilled with the house steak rub and mushroom demi-glace.

There’s a story behind every menu item. The risotto, made of arboreo rice, has no cream and is gluten free; it tastes so good that some might consider it a main course. The mushroom lasagna, a vegetarian feature, is richly layered with spinach, tomato, cheeses and a red sauce made — like most everything — right there in the restaurant, in a space not much bigger than a typical residential kitchen.

Curt Pochardt, who founded the diner in 1998, says it more than meets the vision he had at the outset.”They are truly cooking and creating fine foods,” he says.”Nothing comes frozen off a truck. Christy and her group have a level of expertise beyond anything we could do, and beyond what most anybody is doing today.”

He’s a fan of the Cellar’s thin crust pizzas, which include the wild boar sausage, roasted vegetable, Italian fromage, pesto and a traditional pepperoni.”Twenty-five years ago, we thought it was a good thing for our town,” Pochardt says.”I think it is even more important today to have places like the Wine Cellar. The fact that Christy and her stepdad are willing and eager to keep it going strong is something that a lot of people obviously appreciate.”

Those people are easy to meet. They are gathered, five nights a week, around the black-clothed tables on Sixth Street.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 2023 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Turton’s Jelly Makers

By Bernie Hunhoff

Char Barrie has blazed a trail for other jelly makers and home kitchen entrepreneurs. She’s known for quality products and a tireless approach to marketing, thanks in part to her husband Rolland, who still enjoys forays to fairs and shows.

Life is sweeter in South Dakota thanks to Char Barrie, the Turton woman who turned a family farmstead into a popular jelly factory.

Growing up as one of five”Navy brats” in Oklahoma, there was never enough food in the house, so she began to cook at her mother’s knee. When the family moved to South Dakota in 1967, she learned even more from her grandmother in Doland, who introduced her to the wild berries and plums of Spink County.

She married Rolland Barrie, a farmer from Turton. They have six daughters. When their grandchildren began to arrive, Char filled some of the many baby food jars with jellies to give as gifts. Friends suggested that she sell her rhubarb jelly at a VFW crafts show in Doland in 1995. Soon, there weren’t enough grandbabies, so she began to order jelly jars by the hundreds. Today, Char’s Kitchen is likely the biggest jelly maker in South Dakota.

The home-grown business is headquartered in The Jelly House, a quaint little blue-and-white building that was formerly home to a bachelor farmer.”Mr. Huber was a nice old man,” Char says.”He lived five miles east of here. When he was older, he played cards all day at the kitchen table.”

The Barries moved the house, which is only 14 feet wide, to their farmyard in 1999 when they realized that the jelly business was outgrowing the kitchen. A few years later, they built a storage and shipping building next to The Jelly House. The newer building also stores Rolland’s 1946 Ford coupe, which happens to be the same purple color as the popular chokecherry jelly.

“Ford stopped manufacturing cars in 1942 and they started making Jeeps and tanks for the army,” he said.”This was one of the first cars built after the war.”

Rolland helps with packaging and shipping the jellies, and he tends a produce garden where some of the rhubarb and other fruits and vegetables are grown. In the early years, he and Char loaded their car with boxes of jellies and spent weekends at arts and crafts shows. They weren’t always successful.

“You learn to not take it too personal,” Rolland says.”You can be Jimi Hendrix at the Castlewood gymnasium, and just because no one shows up doesn’t mean you aren’t good on the guitar.”

Though Char’s Kitchen now sells jellies and other products online and at 34 shops and stores throughout the Dakotas and Minnesota, the Barries continue to pack boxes in a car and travel to shows.”We still do about 15 a year,” Char says.”It’s a chance to meet the customers face to face. We learn what they like, and it’s pretty sweet when someone says, ‘I love your jams.’ I never get tired of that.”

Years of cultivating customer relations at the shows is evidence of a marketing savvy and commitment that sets Char’s jellies apart from her competitors, says Kevin Fiedler, who operates Ken’s Super Fair Foods Store in Aberdeen and five surrounding towns in northeast South Dakota.

Fiedler watched the Barries’ business grow from the very beginning.”Char came to us as a wholesaler to purchase some of her supplies, the jars and lids and sugars and other products. We love having South Dakota products, so it was a no-brainer to find a nice location for her products on our shelves and they sell very well.”

The Aberdeen grocer says he sells cheaper jellies, but customers are loyal to the Turton jelly maker.”When you know something is produced in your backyard and you know the commitment and the consistent quality that Char provides, then you figure it’s sure worth the value.”

Fiedler believes her unique products also grab attention.”You’re not going to find Welches or Smuckers putting out a rhubarb or a South Dakota chokecherry jelly,” he laughs. And you aren’t likely to find those companies competing to pick the wild fruits that grow along the Spink County backroads.

Big-time competitors would also be jealous of the business networks that the Barries have fostered. For example, the staff at Ken’s Grocery in Aberdeen saves watermelon rinds that the Barries pickle and sell in jars (the rinds taste like peaches). Youth from the Hillside Hutterite Colony at Doland help to pick berries, and the colony gardeners grow cucumbers and green beans for them.

Kristi Barrie, a shirttail relative, is Char’s steady assistant with the jelly-making when she’s not running the Turton post office. Other neighbors and relatives also assist during busy seasons, such as when they make and package hundreds of jars of corn cob jelly for Mitchell’s Corn Palace gift shop.

Many South Dakota food hobbyists have dreamed of starting a home-based business, and some have tried. Few of them sell like the Barries.

On a summer afternoon, Char agreed to halt jelly-making long enough to share her thoughts on why she’s succeeded in a challenging and competitive food-making industry when so many others struggle. As she related her journey, Rolland drove the old Ford out of the shed so we could get a closer look.

“What really helped me was starting out slowly,” she says.”We made our mistakes when we were small. It has taken me 25 years to get where I am, and it really blossomed in just the last few years.”

Char didn’t use the word”persistence,” but it surely defines her approach and personality. Just as she was beginning, state health officials began to regulate cottage foods, a term used by bureaucrats that does seem to describe The Jelly House. Laws and regulations have been evolving ever since. Rather than fight the trend, she worked with lawmakers and bureaucrats to write reasonable regulations. In 2004 she was issued South Dakota’s first home-based food service license.

She invests in advertising and marketing campaigns, juggles the supply-chain issues and inflationary cost pressures that small businesses face today, and still finds time to launch products.

“Our newest is corn relish,” she says.”We had some people asking for it. Rolland didn’t think he’d like the cabbage, but he says it’s good.”

The Barries have also started to make syrups for pancakes, waffles and ice cream.”We are doing chokecherry, raspberry, cinnamon, elderberry and four varieties with rhubarb — strawberry, blueberry, raspberry and apricot rhubarb.”

“Oh, we also make a pickled asparagus,” she says.”It’s very good with beer.”

For special orders and gift baskets, she wraps festive cloth around the lids of the 8-ounce and 16-ounce jelly jars. The fabric designs in the shipping room include walleye, camouflage and farm implements.”You never know what’s going to catch peoples’ eyes,” she laughs.”Rolland loves it when I go to the fabric store.”

“That’s an hour-and-a-half stop,” he groans.

On a typical day at the farm, Rolland tends to the garden while Char and Kristie work in the kitchen. She says there are a lot of steps to the process of jelly-making.”First, we wash the fruits and vegetables. Then we cook the fruit to get the juice. You have to measure the sugar. You have all the jars sterilized, washed and ready. You mix the jelly. You fill the jars, label them — some we decorate with the fabric.”

She says most jars are handled five times, and maybe more if they are packed and loaded for a craft fair.

Last year, Char’s Kitchen used 12,000 jars. Annually, she averages 2 tons of sugar, 1,000 pounds of rhubarb and 1,600 pounds of chokecherries.

Strawberry-rhubarb jelly is the most popular product, followed closely by raspberry-rhubarb, blueberry-rhubarb and apricot-rhubarb.”South Dakotans do like rhubarb,” Char says. Chokecherry is also a good seller. Char’s Kitchen also produces apple butter, pickles, salsas and other spreads and sauces.

The Barries are in their early 70s and showing no signs of slowing the pace.”We do take time off for blizzards, holidays and fishing,” Char says.”We like to go walleye fishing at Mobridge. Other than that, you’ll find us here making jelly.”

Unless, of course, you see the couple cruising Spink County’s rural roads in their chokecherry-purple Ford coupe.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the September/October 2023 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Saved by Sauerkraut

By Katie Hunhoff

Wade Jorgenson was a longtime kraut lover, but he never attempted to make it until Larry Betlach of Brookings offered to show him in 2007.”Larry was tired of me for asking him for his sauerkraut, so he taught me how to make it myself,” Wade laughs.

Jorgenson, who lives in Hayti, also remembers when Betlach came back six weeks later to check the sauerkraut’s progress.”He skimmed the gunk off the top and just took a bite from the pail. I about dropped over dead seeing that. But he said, ‘Hey, that’s good kraut!'”

On that day, Jorgenson never could have guessed the role that sauerkraut would play in his life. A few years later, his wife Tiffany began to sell patch quilts at craft fairs for some extra money. She didn’t have much luck. Then a lady came by her booth and asked why she didn’t try selling her husband’s sauerkraut.

Tiffany brought along some jars at the next craft show and sold them all. The Jorgenson Kraut and Pickle Company was born.

Unfortunately, a new challenge came just as they were starting to find success. Diabetes runs in the Jorgenson family, and Wade inherited the gene. Diagnosed with renal disease, he was placed on a kidney transplant list five years ago.

He was surviving on kidney dialysis, but the treatments and the disease sapped his time and energy. Soon he was unable to work, so the Jorgensons became a one income family. Luckily, sauerkraut sales paid the bills. Even more importantly, says Tiffany, the business gave Wade purpose through those hard years.

“We thought he could eventually get back to work, but his health got worse,” Tiffany says.”Making sauerkraut gave him freedom. We have no deadlines, and we just sell what we can make so there is less pressure. Plus Wade is passionate about it. He wants everyone to love sauerkraut.” Now they process about 2,500 pounds of cabbage a year and can’t keep up with the demand.

Despite the volume, Wade is as excited as ever about sharing kraut — both by the jar and in conversation. He says while there are basic rules for making sauerkraut, it is an art.”You have to go through the steps but then you have to have faith.”

The rules are simple. After shredding the cabbage, it’s a common safety measure to add 3 tablespoons of salt for every 5 pounds of cabbage. If you want to add seasoning, mix it at the same time as the salt. Then”smash” or”massage” the cabbage and it will naturally release water, which turns to brine. Next, fill your fermentation containers, which can range from wide mouth canning jars to 5-gallon buckets. Wade covers his containers with plates and then weighs them down with bowling balls. The weight is there to keep the cabbage under the brine. Next, cover the container to keep out the air, allowing it to ferment.

“Then it’s safe,” he says.”I’ve never had a problem with anything bothering it after it starts fermenting. Everything is afraid of it.”

Be sure the sauerkraut is stored in a controlled environment. It typically takes six to eight weeks to ferment.”We keep it at 70 degrees or so. Then I taste it to know when it’s ready. It’s a leap of faith to eat something that’s rotting in your basement,” he jokes.

As for the layer of”gunk” that collects on top of the kraut, Wade says that’s normal. Betlach’s dad passed on a secret remedy for the gunk-averse.”Once everything is ready to ferment, put full clean cabbage leaves on top and then the weights over it. Then the leaves, not the kraut, will be what spoils.”

Wade experimented for two years before developing the recipe he now sells. He won’t share it entirely, but he does acknowledge that he uses dill weed, dill seed and caraway. Developing your own recipe is part of the fun, he says.”We just make one recipe to sell. But it’s fun to try new things. Add jalapeno or garlic. Maybe juniper berries.”

Food-making comes naturally to Wade. He worked as a cook through college at South Dakota State University, and before that he whipped up roasted chicken and steaks as a high schooler at his parents’ Pheasant Lanes in Hayti.

Wade and Tiffany, both Hayti natives, were married in 2010. Their son, Jeter, a fourth grader, helps with the production but his specialty is marketing.”He’s such a good little salesman and loves talking to customers about sauerkraut,” says Tiffany.

After five years of waiting on a transplant list, Jorgenson was notified by the University of Minnesota Medical Center that an anonymous live donor is giving a kidney. It’s something the Jorgensons thought would never happen. Even while waiting for the transplant, Wade was already thinking about next year’s sauerkraut production.”With a new kidney I think we can make twice what we did this summer,” he said.

“He has big plans,” laughs Tiffany.”He’s a dreamer for sure.”

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the September/October 2023 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Spink’s Cheese Makers

By Bernie Hunhoff

When milk prices soured in 2018, members of the Spink Hutterite Colony considered selling their dairy cows. Then someone offered a better idea. Why not start a cheese factory?

Now their Kasemeister cheeses (pronounced Kay-sah-meister) are sold in 140 stores throughout the Dakotas and Minnesota, and the colony’s cows are as happy as ever.

“The most popular sellers are cheddar, gouda, baby Swiss and Colby,” says Jeremy Wipf, who manages the cheese factory with help from four full-timers and a dozen part-timers. They work in a gleaming, state-of-the-art stainless-steel plant designed with the help of consultants. However, cheese-making is not entirely new to the Hutterite families; for generations, they’ve made pane cheese, using recipes that date back to their European roots.

Though most of the cheeses are sold in stores, the colony also established a small gift shop in the front of the factory. The shelves and coolers feature jams, honey, pickles, canned goods, chicken pot pies and all the cheese varieties. The shopkeepers sell a few cold beverages and offer free samples of the cheeses, including a rich and crumbly white cheddar”Special Reserve” that is aged for four years.

The cheese factory is located just east of the colony farm, across a field from the happy cows, at 39685 182nd Street. It is about 30 miles northwest of Huron, or 9 miles south of Frankfort.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the September/October 2023 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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The Wonder of Dandelions

By Katie Hunhoff

Marla Bull Bear helps manage summer camps on the Rosebud Reservation designed to connect teens with their Lakota roots.

Dandelions are a scourge for people who think of beautiful city lawns as a monoculture of green rectangles. But the yellow flowers are like most things in life; the better you know them, the more you like them.

“Dandelions are absolutely amazing,” says Marla Bull Bear, a Herrick woman who often teaches youth about the wonders of nature in South Dakota.”It’s a plant that’s seen as a noxious weed until we realize how wonderful they are as a medicine and health benefit. That is what really got me interested in dandelions.”

“The entire plant is useful, as well as being extremely healthy,” says Bull Bear, who serves as executive director of the Lakota Youth Development.”The flowers are good in tea, the leaves can be used in any type of salad. And the roots can be used as a poor man’s coffee.”

Bull Bear roasts the dandelion roots, grinds them, and uses the grounds to supplement her coffee, making it last longer. People with a sensitivity to caffeine can use the dandelion roots as a complete coffee replacement.”To me, the grounds taste like dandelions,” she laughs. She describes it as a rich, earthy taste.

She uses the yellow flower to steep tea. It results in a mild taste, especially when sweetened with honey.

Once people open their minds to dandelions being a part of their diet, the benefits are almost overwhelming. Dandelions are more nutrient dense than lettuce, spinach, broccoli and other greens. They have a long tap root which pulls minerals from deep within the earth. Even dandelions grown in poor soil are still full of nutrition. To name some health benefits, dandelions are high in iron, vitamin A, B, C, K and E, calcium, copper, magnesium, potassium, zinc, antioxidants and fiber. In fact, dandelions are so hardy and nutritious that some families survived on them during the Great Depression.

Dandelions are also believed to have medicinal uses. Their milky juice can treat fungal infections on skin. The roots and greens are natural detoxifiers and diuretics, supporting the kidneys and liver and also the gallbladder. Dandelions may lower blood pressure and even calm your nerves.

If the numerous benefits of dandelions inspire you to start foraging, Bull Bear has a big disclaimer. It isn’t safe to eat dandelions that grow on a lawn sprayed with chemicals or pesticides.”Plants absorb chemicals out of the earth. So when lawns have been exposed it can take three to four years for the effects to leave,” she says. And even if your own lawn hasn’t been sprayed, chemicals can spread from nearby lawns through pollinators or the air.

“We have horrible mindsets about our lawns. And most lawns could feed a family for a year if we turned them into gardens,” she says.”We would all be healthier if we got out and dug in the dirt and got some sunshine. Our health issues and the earth are all connected. If we are being unhealthy with the land and our environment, it will come back to haunt us,” she says.

Even country dandelions, growing far from city lawns, may not be safe to harvest. Bull Bear asks that foragers avoid road ditches due to car exhaust and chemical sprays that may drift from neighboring fields and pastures. Even dandelions that grow by lakes and ponds may be problematic.”If the river or creek floods there are all manner of things in the flood water that can contaminate plants.”

Part of Bull Bear’s work with Lakota Youth Development is to teach kids about safe foraging and having respect for the land.”When we work with our youth here and think about plants it’s about building relationships between them and the plant nation. ‘What can it do for us?’ and ‘What harm can it do?’ It’s like making a relationship with people. And we can help them and benefit from what gifts they have to offer.”

Once you find an area that has untouched dandelions, foraging can begin. Bull Bear has three rules of thumb. The first is to never harvest more than you need, which is a guessing game for beginners. Second, never harvest more than one third of the plant in a given area so you leave the system strong. And finally, she recommends making an offering, a prayer or thank you, to the plant nation.

Dandelions are not a part of Native American folklore or legend. They were originally brought here by the pilgrims who knew the many benefits.”It’s a fairly new plant as far as Lakota history. But that doesn’t mean it’s not on our list of medicines,” Bull Bear says.

Bull Bear has seen many kids enjoy dandelions.”Every child is drawn to them. To pick them by the handfuls to give to grandma, or to make a wish while blowing their seeds. It has a real attraction for kids. If we want to get kids interested in foraging and their natural environment, dandelions are a great first plant.”

Dandelion Tea

1 tablespoon of rinsed and drained yellow dandelion petals

1 cup hot water

Add honey to taste

Let steep 2-3 minutes

Dandelion Flower Cookies

1 cup coconut oil

1 cup honey

4 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla or almond (optional)

2 cups oatmeal

1 cup rinsed yellow, dandelion flower petals

2 cups flour

Mix all together. Drop by tablespoons onto a greased baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees F for 10-15 minutes. Let cool before serving.

Dandelion Greens

4 tablespoons butter

1 onion

4 tablespoons flour

2 cups heavy cream or half and half

4 handfuls of rinsed dandelion leaves (either young leaves or older, longer leaves work well in this recipe).

Steam dandelion greens and drain. Chop onion and saute in butter (or olive oil). Brown flour in butter and onions, then take off heat and slowly stir in
milk. Stir over low heat until thickened. My husband loves basil so I usually sprinkle in a bit of basil at this point. Next add the dandelion greens and
cook for 5-10 minutes. This dish is good with a little shredded cheese sprinkled on top.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 2023 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

Honey from dandelion and a Cup of tea. Selective focus.
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Tapping Into Something Sweet

By John Andrews

Professors and students at South Dakota State University in Brookings have tapped maple trees in McCrory Gardens since 2013.

We planted an autumn blaze maple tree in our front yard in November of 2017. We wanted to enjoy the fiery red and orange leaves every fall, and fortunately, with our prevalent northwest winds, we have yet to rake a single leaf. It never entered our minds that in a few years, after the trunk adds a few more inches of girth, our colorful tree could be the source of a sweet treat.

Canada produces 80 percent of the world’s maple syrup. In the United States, Vermont leads the way with more than 2 million gallons a year, accounting for roughly half of the nation’s maple syrup output. It’s a springtime ritual most closely associated with our northeastern states and our collegial neighbors to the north, but any northern tier state with a similar climate is a potential source of maple syrup, including South Dakota, where syrup hobbyists could one day create a new commercial industry.

No document identifies the first person to ever drive a tap into a maple tree and turn its oozing sap into a sugary delight, but Native Americans have been doing it for centuries. Oral histories provide several origin stories. One recounts using maple sap instead of water to cook venison for a chief. Another, according to the Michigan Maple Syrup Association, passed through generations of Chippewa and Ottawa. It describes a god who saw that his people were becoming lazy as they drank the pure maple syrup that flowed from the trees, so he cast a spell that turned the syrup into sap that required processing before it could be consumed. Northeastern tribes celebrated the first full moon of the spring as the Sugar Moon. A maple dance was among the celebratory expressions.

Indigenous people shared their methods with Europeans who arrived on the continent in the 17th century. The Algonquins made V-shaped incisions in the trees and then inserted concave bark or reeds to run the sap into clay buckets or tightly woven baskets. The colonists amended the process by using augers to drill tapholes.

Canada and the northeastern United States have dominated the maple syrup industry because of the preponderance of sugar maple trees, but any of the roughly 132 species within the genus Acer can be tapped for syrup, including the silver, red and amur maples scattered among the 25 acres of formal display gardens and 45 acres of arboretum inside McCrory Gardens in Brookings. Every spring since 2013, professors and students at South Dakota State University have tapped the Gardens’ maples to make syrup.

The venture began when Peter Schaefer, a professor of plant science and arboretum curator at McCrory Gardens, got a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to investigate maple syrup production in silver maples. The annual project is now overseen by Chris Schlenker, McCrory’s horticulture and grounds manager.”The idea was that farmers might have windrows of silver maples that grow pretty well in South Dakota,” Schlenker says.”We wanted to see how those could almost become a cash crop by producing maple syrup from them.”

Nathan Mueller taps maple trees on his property on the edge of Marvin. He uses distilled water jugs to collect sap, which runs for three or four weeks in early spring.

McCrory’s staff identified about 30 mature maples that could be tapped and headed out in late February when the weather turned favorable. The season begins when daytime temperatures stay above freezing and then dip below freezing overnight. That fluctuation tells the tree’s sap to begin flowing.

Sap is the lifeblood of the tree. During winter, trees store starch in their roots. In late winter and early spring, that starch is converted to sugar.”As temperatures rise, the tree is essentially starting to prime itself, getting ready for bud and leaf development,” Schlenker says.”It’s a complicated action when you look at how the sap actually flows. There are these air spaces, or vacuoles. At night, when it freezes, they expand, and during the day when it warms up, they contract. So it’s not really a push of the sap coming up, it’s more the upper parts of the tree pulling it up.”

Size rather than age determines a tree’s readiness for tapping. A trunk between 10 and 14 inches in diameter at 4 feet off the ground can support one tap. A diameter of 18 to 24 inches can take two. Schlenker recommends not exceeding two taps because it can be detrimental to the tree.

Using a cordless drill and a 7/16-inch drill bit, make a hole 1 1/2 to 2 inches deep, angling it slightly upward so gravity will help the sap flow. Supplies that can be purchased at stores like Runnings or Farm Fleet include taps, also called spiles, that are 7/16 of an inch thick, though some spiles are 5/16 of an inch. Make sure any wood shavings or sawdust are removed from the hole before tapping in the spile. Take care not to split the wood around the hole, otherwise sap will simply leak around it.

There are a variety of receptacles available for collecting sap, but after dealing with the elements for nearly a decade, Schlenker and his team have found a favorite.”One thing we have to deal with in South Dakota is the wind,” he says.”We found that the best way was to use a five-gallon bucket with a brick on top of the lid. Then we drill a hole into the side and run tubing from the spile right into the bucket. That helps keeps out any insects that might be starting to emerge in the spring, any debris or rainwater or snow melt. It keeps the sap a lot cleaner for processing.”

Once the sap begins running, a single tap will yield about 10 gallons over the course of the season, which averages between three and four weeks. As the tree begins to bud, the sap will become milky, and it’s time to stop collecting.”That’s when the tree is starting to carry more than just water and sugar in its sap,” Schlenker says.”There are some additional nutrients that makes the flavor a little funky.”

Sap can be stored for about a week before boiling begins. Schlenker recommends boiling outside because it requires between 40 and 45 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon of syrup. That excess moisture is better left outside or someplace where it can dissipate. McCrory Gardens utilizes an evaporator, but hobbyists could use flat metal pans (to increase the surface area) over an outdoor fire.

Chris Schlender, the horticulture and ground manager at McCrory Gardens, watches sap as it boils in an evaporator. It takes between 40 and 45 gallons of sap to produce a single gallon of syrup.

The average sugar content of raw sap from a sugar maple is 2 percent on the Brix scale, a measure of the number of grams of sucrose found per 100 grams of liquid. (It’s named for German mathematician and engineer Adolf Brix, who helped develop it in the 19th century.) Silver, red, amur and other species of maple fall below that. Maple syrup is achieved when the sap reaches 66 percent sugar content, which happens when it’s heated to about 7 degrees above the boiling point of water. Schlenker and his team do most of the boiling in their evaporator and finish it in a turkey fryer or on a stovetop, closely monitoring the temperature with a candy thermometer until it reaches 219.7 degrees. Then the syrup is heated once more, filtered, bottled and sold in the McCrory Gardens gift shop.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, McCrory Gardens hosted workshops where attendees learned the ins and outs of syrup making. Those educational opportunities have since turned virtual, but there are hobbyists around the state who are tapping their own backyard trees.

Grant County Weed Supervisor Nathan Mueller has family in northern Wisconsin, where sugar shacks dot the landscape.”I go back to visit my mom and sister over there and you get exposed to it, you know?” he says.”I got to help people who were hauling it in with Belgian horses, sitting in the sugar shack. I brought some maple trees back from Wisconsin and just got tapping them for a hobby.”

That was about five years ago. Since then, he’s tapped box elder trees (also known as Manitoba maple) and black walnuts.”You can’t hardly kill a box elder tree so what the heck,” he says.”It turned out to be pretty cool syrup. It has a little more caramel flavor than maple.”

Now he’s hoping to get more people involved. Last summer, he led a group of Grant County 4-Hers in identifying trees to tap this spring.”If we can educate kids and get them out, I think it will be a cool experience,” he says.”They’ll make their own syrup and maybe bring it to the state fair. It gives them a better understanding of tree identification and a cool product at the end.”

With the right equipment and knowledge, maple syrup-making seems accessible to most South Dakotans, but maybe not for a city dweller with just one tree.”There are several different types of maple trees in South Dakota that are big enough to actually tap,” Mueller says.”But whether you want to do it to your prime tree in your front yard, I don’t know. That’s up to you.”

He has a point. For now, perhaps we’ll just watch our tree grow and appreciate it for its sweet beauty.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 2022 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Mitchell’s Gingerbread Architect

By Laura Johnson Andrews

Barb Feilmeier does some of her best dreaming in grocery store snack aisles, envisioning new ways to use cookies, crackers and other foods to decorate her intricate Christmas creations. The Mitchell woman has been building with gingerbread for 50 years, but these are not your ordinary cookie houses. Feilmeier has recreated everything from the Corn Palace to the South Dakota State Capitol.

Feilmeier was at home with four young children when she made her first gingerbread structure, a church, in 1970, based on instructions she found in Family Circle. It’s been part of her holiday routine ever since. Her early efforts were relatively simple, but that changed after she retired from her job as a medical technologist in 2005.”I got carried away,” she says.

A lot of prep work goes into Feilmeier’s most elaborate buildings. First, she chooses a subject, which usually has personal significance. She recreated Ireland’s Kilcolgan Castle after taking a family trip there in 2018 and commemorated her and husband Leon’s 50th anniversary in 2011 by replicating the Church of Saint Mary in Sioux Falls. Feilmeier takes reference photos and plots out the dimensions of each piece to scale. Then she makes a model out of paper to make sure each section fits together perfectly. In 2016, when she made her son-in-law Kelly Kramer’s Chevrolet dealership — complete with fondant people, a candy Lego counter, Life Savers toilet and a baby grand piano fabricated from melba toast — she made multiple passes through the building to understand the layout.”I couldn’t figure it out. I used my kids’ Lego blocks to figure out where it was all supposed to be.”

Once the pattern has been worked out to her satisfaction, the mixing, baking, decorating and assembly begins. These steps come with their own hazards. One year when her children were young, she went to assemble her house, only to discover a section of gingerbread was missing.”Some little darling came along and ate one of the sides,” Feilmeier remembers. (Decades later, the crime remains unsolved.) Then there was the year a wayward nudge sent a fully-decorated section of gingerbread shattering to the floor.”I broke the whole front of St. Peter’s Basilica,” she says.

Feilmeier keeps a detailed scrapbook containing plans and photos of each year’s creations and has given presentations on her gingerbread architecture to local groups, but when the holidays are over, she’s ready to say goodbye to the buildings themselves.”I have no problem getting a garbage bag and smashing them and throwing them out,” she says.”I’m already thinking about what I’m going to do next year.”

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the January/February 2021 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

Barb Feilmeier of Mitchell celebrated her 50th anniversary of making gingerbread houses for Christmas by constructing an 1880s village, incorporating the first pattern she made, a gingerbread church, plus other new additions. The village was displayed at the Carnegie Resource Center in Mitchell in November 2020.
Barb Feilmeier of Mitchell celebrated her 50th anniversary of making gingerbread houses for Christmas by constructing an 1880s village, incorporating the first pattern she made, a gingerbread church, plus other new additions. The village was displayed at the Carnegie Resource Center in Mitchell in November 2020.
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A Living Drink

By John Andrews

Jacob Fokken was 20 and drinking maybe one or two sodas every day. Soon, he began feeling that something wasn’t quite right with his health, so he decided to eliminate those sugary drinks.”I quit cold turkey, which isn’t how a lot of things go,” he says.”I substituted with tea, black coffee and at the same time I found kombucha. The nature of the kombucha satisfied everything that I ever craved in a soda, plus it was low in sugar and had probiotics.”

That life change eventually turned into a family business called Songbird Kombucha, though it took some time to get there. Fokken drank kombucha for about six years before he tried making it. Kombucha is an ancient food that dates back more than 2,000 years. It’s a fermented drink made with tea, sugar, bacteria and yeast, and then infused with different flavors. Kombucha’s probiotic benefits include promoting a healthy immune system and relieving stomach and intestinal ailments.

Fokken found himself working at the Sioux Falls Food Coop, where he revived its dormant kombucha line.”I just dove in and experimented for a year and really enjoyed it,” he says.”Plus, I was able to serve it to people at the register. People were trying it, and I had this growing confidence in brewing it. It just grew and grew.”

In February 2020, Fokken and his wife Elsa launched Songbird Kombucha. Their rotation of about 20 flavors features a variety of fruit and herb combinations, such as blueberry lavender, orange licorice anise and rhubarb cinnamon. Find Songbird Kombucha on tap in Sioux Falls, Vermillion, Yankton, Hartford, Jefferson and Mitchell or visit the Fokkens’ storefront at 1712 S. Minnesota Avenue in Sioux Falls.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 2023 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.