You’ve probably seen the commercials — farmers in waders, standing in water, harvesting cranberries for juice. It turns out, Wisconsin and Massachusetts are the two states that produce the most cranberries.
However, there is one farm — albeit just one — in New York growing the tarty fruit full scale.
Welcome to Deer River Cranberries.
“We get about 1,000,000 pounds of berries every year from this — from the 80 acres that we have of cranberry bogs,” farmer Tasha Brown said.
Deer River Cranberries/Davis Family Farm in Brasher Falls has 15 cranberry bogs.
“The vines will last outlast our lifetime,” Brown added.
It is the only full-scale grower and harvester of cranberries in all of New York, as production was cut back at a 607-acre Oswego County farm a few years back. That farm is currently for sale.
“We have cornfields and dairy farms, but this is very one of a kind around here,” Brown added.
The tarty berries are not only delicious, but they are also popular. In fact, hundreds of people visit Deer River every weekend during October harvesting season to not only get some cranberries, but to see the process of how they're made — which is kind of like how you've seen on TV, but not exactly.
“They'll say, 'well, [where are] the cranberries? And when I point to the dry bog and I said, 'this is actually where they grow. They grow in the sand instead of in the water.' They look at me like I'm kind of crazy,” Brown said with a laugh.
Water is a big part of the process. In fact, the people here use water from the nearby Deer River to help flood each one of the bogs. From there, the cranberries are put in a machine to help agitate.
“It moves the water to pull the berries off the vines,” Brown added.
As the berries float to the top, the farmers will get in the water, waders and all, and help gather.
“We take the booms and space them together, and then there's like a vacuum that goes into the water and it sucks up the berries,” she added.
A vacuum pumps the berries into a cleaner and sorter, which then takes the good, clean berries and dumps them into a truck.
“To see the amount of effort in ... the care that goes into harvesting the berries and the environment where they're harvested ... that just all adds to the value,” Nine Pin Cider Works Owner Alejandro Del Peral said.
That is critical for del Peral and his Albany cidery.
“We've traveled all over the state and have looked for New York growers of every type of fruit imaginable,” he said of finding this farm.
On this day, del Peral was at Deer River to pick up about 10,000 pounds of cranberries as his company starts work on a new canned cranberry cider.
“This is a place that is not on the map, really. I mean, even the Google Maps has trouble getting you here. But, it's just an incredible New York resource for great quality New York fruit,” he added.
They are words Brown does not take lightly, knowing the pride and effort she and the Davis Family Farm team puts in.
"Ninety-five percent of our employees have been here for years. They come back every year knowing that what we're doing is very powerful,” she said.
As for that new Nine Pin cranberry cider, del Peral says you'll see it on store shelves in about six to eight weeks.