Apple, Raisin and Cinnamon Adaptogen Granola

Courtesy Paula Grainger

This recipe uses codonopsis and ashwaganda for a gentle adaptogenic boost, but use whichever herb powders you like best, and add a few handfuls of goji berries to up the adaptogenic ante. As well as in granola, Grainger recommends using dried herbs and adaptogen powders in teas, smoothies and soups.

3½ cups jumbo rolled oats 1 cup pecans ½ cup slivered almonds 3 tablespoons raw, shelled sunflower seeds 3 tablespoons raw, shelled pumpkin seeds ½ teaspoon sea salt flakes 3 tablespoons coconut oil 1/3 cup maple syrup ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon 2 teaspoons codonopsis powder 1 teaspoon ashwaganda powder ½ cup raisins ¼ cup dried apple rings, chopped Preheat the oven to 340° F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine the oats, nuts and seeds in a large bowl. Sprinkle with salt. Set aside.

Put the coconut oil and maple syrup in a small saucepan, set over low heat and melt them together. Then stir in the cinnamon, codonopsis and ashwaganda powders.

Pour the liquid ingredients onto the dry ones and combine using a couple of wooden spoons or, if you don’t mind getting sticky, your hands. Spread the mixture evenly over the prepared baking tray. Bake for 25–35 minutes. Stir the mixture 2 or 3 times and keep checking it, because if the granola burns, it will taste bitter. It should be light toasty brown and smell delicious when ready. Set aside to cool and crisp up.

Transfer cooled mixture to a clean bowl and stir in the raisins and chopped dried apple. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 month. Serve with milk or yogurt, or just enjoy handfuls straight from the jar. Makes 1 pound 9 ounces.

EDIBLE NOTABLES WESTSIDE WATER

A new blended whiskey draws attention to local bartenders’ secret

BY MARK C. ANDERSON PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHELLE MAGDALENA

The turning point was…pain points. Aptos entrepreneur John Spagnola visited various restaurants and talked with bartenders and beverage directors about the anguish they experience in procuring quality spirits.

But that wasn’t the original plan. He started with an idea for an app to let consumers customize a spirit to their specs, craft a label and have it sent to their home. The app never happened; it turns out it’s illegal for producers to sell directly to anyone without a liquor license.

But what ultimately did emerge could disrupt the liquor industry—and has already revolutionized the spirits program for a range of restaurants in and around Santa Cruz.

Spagnola pivoted from people to places and started doing his rounds. Bar pros liked the idea of a customizable and branded bottle, but their complaints proved even more compelling. Good quality spirits are hard to find at a reasonable price. Certain minimums are required for delivery and/or discounts from distributors. Costs for things like shipping and tax can be hidden. And the games distributors play—requiring purchases of less desirable spirits in order to access nicer whiskey options, for instance—get old quickly.

“Every bar had their own horror story,” says Spagnola, now CEO of 2-year-old startup Ublendit Spirits. “It got me thinking, ‘Can we have a customer service experience that’s all about what the bars want?’”

That is what he and Ublendit have achieved. By slowly vetting all the options for the purest base spirits on the market, including super-proof ethanol, from big and experienced producers like J.B. Thome and Midwest Grain Products, or MGP, the Ublendit team has an affordable starting product, Spagnola explains. By proofing down with hyper-distilled water, applying proprietary recipes and (potentially) barrel aging at their own distillery, they make

John Spagnola of Ublendit Spirits is out to disrupt the liquor world.

“We were trying to make a product that was approachable and distinct— we were very intentional stylistically.”

it their own. By cutting out the middleman and working directly with restaurants and bars, they have been able to sidestep the chunky distributor markup and focus on client needs.

Today, partner businesses can taste and select from the dozens of gins, rums, whiskeys, vodkas and more in Ublendit’s portfolio, or create something unique, then design a label. Printing, graphic design, Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) approvals and legal consulting are included. Required purchase minimums are not.

Suddenly partners like Hula’s, Back Nine, Kianti’s and Britannia Arms are among those that have their own branded bottles. Barkeeps can rep their own stuff, businesses enjoy better margins and customers save a buck.

“Restaurants get something they can be proud of, and if they sell one drink, it pays for the bottle,” Spagnola says. “We don’t worry about a sales pitch, we drop off the product and prices, and let them taste. They feel like we’re on their side.”

Jason Cichon is bar manager at The Catalyst Club, an early adopter. He worked with Ublendit developers on a popular Catalyst Vodka with a light cucumber-kiwi-red clover flavor. “Hanging out in the lab coat designing liquor from the ground up is a playground for any bar manager,” he says. “They made the whole process very involved and fun.”

Ublendit’s first customer might be its biggest believer. After 47 years in the industry across 14 night clubs, personality-plus Chuck Oliver owns Number 1 Broadway in Los Gatos. In non-pandemic times, he reverses a timeworn bar tradition: He graduates clients from back-shelf bottles to his well brand, Chuck Oliver Vodka, using blind taste tests. (He stocks a total of six different Ublendit spirits under his own label.) Oliver estimates he’s done 200 three-way tests, versus Grey Goose and Tito’s, and his namesake has won 180 times.

“I’ve been in this business a long time,” he says. “It’s a no-brainer to have your own spirit.”

So why hasn’t someone tried the Ublendit model before?

“That’s what I’ve asked a lot,” Spagnola says. He acknowledges the compliance arena—getting labels and ABVs exactly right, braving exhaustive TTB audits—can be terrifying.

“Old-school guys say we can’t keep up, that we’re going to switch our model, that we can’t do so many different choices,” he says, “but if Amazon can have 2 trillion [products], we can have a couple thousand.”

Despite the worldwide—and ongoing— state of crisis for restaurant and bar businesses, Ublendit has been setting records, with 50,000 bottles shipped in July. The day I initially spoke with its team, they were buying the first of two 3,000-gallon stainless-steel

Spagnola and JP Ditkowsky (right) toast with other members of the Ublendit team.

holding tanks and an automated bottling line. A new facility is deep into the planning stages; it could potentially make Ublendit a 28,000-square-foot anchor tenant of a buzzedabout mixed use building in Scotts Valley.

Part of that growth is the evolution of Ublendit’s own brands, including Santa Cruz-inspired Westside Water whiskey. Like so many of Ublendit’s developments, it emerged from restaurant requests: Buyers wanted a blended whiskey that could compete with mainstream brands and save them cash. Ublendit’s development team, led by JP Ditkowsky and Tyler Derheim and informed by a lot of bartender taste tests, spent seven months tinkering with the formula.

“We were trying to make a product that was approachable and distinct—we were very intentional stylistically,” Ditkowsky says. “The final blend came together harmoniously.”

Ublendit’s first house brand, Hideout Vodka, got its start when Spagnola and his sales team approached Grocery Outlet about an exclusive product. While initially skeptical, immediate popularity—1,000 cases sold in two weeks—meant Grocery Outlet’s liquor buyer had a hit on their hands. Ublendit has since reached an agreement to add Hideout peach, mandarin orange, vanilla and raspberry vodkas (and to sell Hideout outside of GO, albeit always at a higher price).

At the start of the pandemic shelter-inplace orders, I noticed GO began stocking this new vodka with a grizzly on it for $6.99. My bunker’s bar didn’t have vodka, so I figured: What was there to lose?

Sure enough, it blew me away: A perfectly defensible, even above average, fifth of vodka, for a fraction of the price of inferior spirits. When I found out it was made locally, all the better.

In other words, Ublendit Spirits spoke for itself. Which is something a lot of people are starting to hear.

Mark C. Anderson is a roving writer, editor and entrepreneur loosely based in Monterey County. Follow and/or reach him on Twitter and Instagram via @MontereyMCA.

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WHAT’S IN SEASON

A burst of flavor and color to brighten up the dreary days of winter

BY JAMIE COLLINS PHOTOGRAPHY BY PATRICK TREGENZA SYLING BY DIANE GSELL

Robin Gammons and his wife Nancy have been growing kiwis on their farm in Aromas for more than 30 years.

I distinctly remember falling in love with kiwifruit. It was the summer of 1989 and I was on a road trip in a camper with my best friend Mindy and my aunt and uncle. We were headed up the coast from Los Angeles to Canada and I remember every time we stopped to gather provisions, I bought loads of kiwis. I ate them obsessively while we played gin rummy, bracing myself on the curves of Highway 1 while looking out the window at the dramatic coastline. This is also when I fell in love with Big Sur and the Central Coast. I credit the vitamins and sugar in those kiwis for helping me beat my friend in countless card games during our long trek.

Surprisingly, kiwis have more vitamin C than an orange per cup. Just one cup of kiwifruit has 276% of our necessary vitamin C, which boosts our immune system to ward off colds and flu. Too bad sailors didn’t know about kiwis when they suffered from scurvy; they could have loaded up on the long storing, tasty fruits instead of eating lemons! Kiwis have a lot of fiber and an important enzyme that helps digest proteins called protease. If you eat a couple each day, they will also help reduce blood clotting and fat in the bloodstream.

Name Dropping Kiwifruit is native to China and dates back to the 12th century. It was originally called Chinese gooseberry—yet oddly it is not actually in the gooseberry family. Over time, plants migrated to New Zealand, leading to the beginning of commercial cultivation in the early 20th century when both American and British soldiers became fond of the fruit. By the 1950s kiwis began to be exported to Great Britain and California. But it was during The Cold War and the name Chinese gooseberry was not going to help market this exciting, new fruit. The name was briefly changed to “melonettes” but shippers quickly realized that name wasn’t going to work either, because both melons and berries had high import tariffs. Brainstorming ensued at a New Zealand marketing firm leading to the name kiwifruit and that became the official name in 1959 in a nod to the place it became popular. Kiwi is a type of bird, but also a common nickname for people from New Zealand.

Currently China produces half of the world’s kiwifruit, Italy the second most and New Zealand the third. The U.S. has about 8,000 acres in production, with most of the kiwi farms in California. The world currently produces about 170,000 acres, equal to an estimated 1.7 million tons of kiwifruit.

Actinidia deliciosa, the fuzzy light brown kiwi we are used to eating, are the size of a large chicken egg and have black edible seeds within their striking green flesh. However, New Zealand kiwi grower-shipper Zespri offers a “sun gold” yellow kiwi that is much sweeter, and will be introducing a red fleshed variety, described as having “berry-tinged flavor.” However, all have fuzzy skin.

There are also smooth-skinned “hardy” kiwis, Actinidia arguta and Actinidia kolomikta, which can survive temperatures down to 10 degrees. These cousins to the common fuzzy kiwi are the size of a grape and can be eaten whole. The plant, grown in the Pacific Northwest, is more of a bush than a vine, and looks completely different than its kiwi cousin. Hardy kiwis have become a novelty, and are now being marketed as “kiwi berries.” There is also a rare hardy kiwi with red skin that Rare Fruit Grower groups are propagating, however it is not yet available commercially.

Kiwis are harvested in November and ripen off the vine over the winter.

Growing Kiwis

For planting, pick a site that has full sun, is protected from the wind and has well-drained soil. Kiwis do well on drip irrigation and like to be kept moist, however soil needs to be well draining because they are susceptible to root rot. Both female and male plants are needed to produce fruit, so for every eight females you will need one male plant for even pollination. Plants will need to be spaced 10–15 feet apart as they grow vigorously and produce heavy fruit—up to 100 pounds per vine. A sturdy T-bar trellis system is required and it needs to be tall enough to be able to walk under to harvest the hanging fruits.

Even though kiwis reach their full size around August, you must wait to harvest the vines until the seeds have turned black. By late October through mid-November the fruit will have developed enough sugar content to be harvested. But at harvest they are still hard and inedible until they further ripen off the vine. Sugar content goes from 4% at harvest to 15% when ripe. Kiwis will also ripen on the vine, but farmers take the crop off all at once and store it until they sell it. In this way, kiwifruit are a great crop to store, sell and eat all winter long.

In the winter, plant a cover crop between the rows and turn it under in the spring. Kiwis take about four years to grow a full crop, although you will get a few fruit before then. In the spring, summer and fall, apply a well-balanced, organic pellet fertilizer.

Kiwis need to be pruned heavily (70% off the vine) each December to let in light to ripen the fruit and keep diseases and fungus away. Fruit forms on new growth, so it is important to cut off old growth to stimulate the new.

Four Sisters Farm

Four Sisters Farm grows two acres of certified organic kiwis, along with specialty greens and flowers in Aromas. Nancy and Robin Gammons named their farm Four Sisters after the four daughters they had within six years in the 1970s. Robin’s father planted the original orchard on their property in 1986 after reading that kiwis were the exciting, up-and-coming specialty crop that would grow well in their microclimate. Yields in earlier years were up to 40,000 pounds a season, but they still harvest from this orchard. After 30 years in production, the kiwi vines continue to produce a crop that would make Robin’s dad proud, but closer to 14,000 pounds per acre. Four Sisters Farm kiwis are sold at three farmers’ markets—Downtown Santa Cruz, Berkeley and Ferry Plaza in San Francisco. Nancy says originally kiwis were overplanted in California, as people learned about the interesting new fruit. Farmers thought they would make a lot of money on kiwis and then found out differently. For Four Sisters, however, it is a great crop going into fall and winter when its other crops are finishing up. They start harvesting in the beginning of November and sell them all winter until they run out, usually in April. One of the Gammons daughters is interested in farming and as Nancy says, “One out of four isn’t bad!” Her daughter Jill grows flowers on the farm and utilizes beautiful, twisted kiwi vines in her floral arrangements.

How To Eat

I love kiwis on fruit tarts. I once peeled, sliced and dipped them in melted chocolate and froze them for a tasty treat. I have made delicious kiwi lime curd and a kiwi chutney, and included kiwis in a fresh salsa. Try mixing chopped kiwis with mangos, papaya and fresh mint, and placing on top of a fish dish or simply eat on top of yogurt.

There are many ways to skin a kiwi, if you will. I learned the easiest method from a child I babysat long ago. Cut in half and scoop with a spoon. You can also cut off both of the ends and remove the skin gently by pushing a spoon inside along the inside of the peel until the round chunk of kiwi falls out. This is the easiest way to get the whole kiwi out to slice it prettily for tarts, and makes quick work of peeling. I asked Nancy of Four Sisters Farm how she cuts and eats her kiwi fruit and she said she eats them like an apple, fuzz and all! I was surprised at her response, and thought her hard core, but then what farmer isn’t?

I wondered if there were any benefits to eating the skin and it turns out kiwi skin has 50% more fiber than the fruit itself. The skin contains pectic polysaccharides that retain water and form a gel which is good for your gut. It also has cellulose, hemicelluloses and pectin, which add bulk and facilitate efficient digestion. So go ahead and slice the kiwis thinly with the skin attached to be sure to reap all the benefits. Or throw them in a blender, skin and all, to make a fabulous smoothie—your stomach will thank you!

Jamie Collins is the owner of Serendipity Farms and attends all of the Santa Cruz Community Farmers’ Markets, where you can find her fresh organic fruit, vegetables and nutrient-dense prepared food items.