Growing Buckwheat Culture
I was not expecting for buckwheat to be such a big part of my life or that it would get me and my friends into Vogue Magazine.
I probably should have read the signs. Especially the one that reads “Worlds Largest Pancake” that hangs 20 minutes from my childhood home. That sign hangs from Birkett Mills in Penn Yan, New York. One of the country’s largest buckwheat processing facilities. If you have ever been to Penn Yan you might have recognized that the flower beds are mulched with the hulls of buckwheat.
Most people including myself who live in New York have no culture of eating or drinking buckwheat even though so much of it grows right in our state.
Buckwheat is an essential tool for farmers. It has unmatched potential in rotations and can yield two crops a year if you play it right. Not only is it great for soil health but there are many studies pointing towards human health benefits.
My time at Blue Hill has been spent developing recipes for beverages using buckwheat as a part of the larger goal of creating a galaxy of products to help build culture in the US around this grain. We first developed a tea and most recently a soda in our bar.
It’s the most important crop we are not eating or drinking enough of.
-our new canner
-tartary buckwheat
-buckwheat tea in @greggfmoore bone china tea cups
- @aluzmore in the trial plot
-harvest photos from 2025 @stonebarns
- @thebirkettmills
-early grain tea days with @beee_kim@aluzmore@mariageyman@voguemagazine
Currently foraging for new growth on @stonebarns spruce trees, also known as spruce tips. For hundreds of years people have used them for a punch of vitamin c after a cold winter. If you time it right, the tips have a perfect balance of citrus and piney aroma.
There are a few preparations we always return to, as well as new discoveries each spring — this year we are making a variation on a cheong using pear syrup for the bar.
@chefdanbarber@jamesplynch
Cherry blossoms are here and we are rushing to collect as much as @nickhukezalie will let us store in the walk in.
Processing into cordials, vermouth, cheong and salts for the dining room.
@bluehillfarm@chefdanbarber
Every April our ornamental apple trees come alive and start to produce their first new leaves. We have fallen in love with them because they are rich in polyphenols that you would usually see in traditional tea. Each year we gather a group and harvest as much of this new growth as we can to transform it into “black tea” for the dining room. The last few years we have found success with freezing the buds to evenly bruise and oxidize them.
@chefdanbarber@jamesplynch
Magnolias are starting to bloom here in the lower Hudson Valley. Rick, Jules and I have been busy mapping out the different colored trees across town and trying to catch them just as the flowers begin to open. We pick them for their ginger and cardamom flavors. Right now Rick is picking them for “ginger gari” and we are wilting, bruising, and fermenting them for black tea.
Unopened serviceberry blossoms are among the first ingredients we forage each spring. We’re drawn to them for their intense marzipan and almond-like fragrance. This year, we’re pushing the boundaries of that profile—experimenting with different enzymes to unlock and amplify those aromas for our non-alcoholic beverages.
@chefdanbarber@rick.vonhagn@jamesplynch
Most people are familiar with the Belgian endive only from seeing the white and green bulbs wrapped in plastic at the grocery store. Those leaves are only one third of the endive plant, which is trimmed at the base of a root that can be as large as a carrot or parsnip.
Millions of endives grow in the US each year, meaning lots of roots are left behind. The endive is a member of the chicory family, for which the most common use is the famous New Orleans style coffee that developed out of necessity to extend coffee supplies during naval blockades and shortages in the 1800s. The root is roasted and blended with coffee grounds, resulting in an earthy, chocolatey coffee with an underlying sweetness. In our beverage program at BHSB, we’ve found two additional techniques that have made it a staple behind our bar:.
Endive Root Amazake— using koji fermentation to draw out the natural sweetness hidden in the root and create new flavors and sweeteners in beverages
Roasted as a bittering agent for adding complexity in non-alcoholic beverages
Currently, we are exploring the use of enzymes to digest the root even further and bring out the natural sweetness in this curious and versatile plant
@chefdanbarber@jasongrauer@rick.vonhagn@grace_jorgs@jamesplynch
@stonebarns has been experimenting with growing cold-weather radicchio. To survive the winter it is protected by a thick layer of leaves which are bitter and often frost damaged. Typically, they’re removed at harvest and head to compost. Instead, we’ve harnessed that bitterness and flavor at the bar, using it to build the texture and tannin that’s usually missing from low/no-alcohol beverages.
The trim is used in two ways:
1) a marmalade that adds brightness and tannin to @sustainableseedsystemslab Meg’s Song barley
2) a maceration in unripe grape juice, alongside local @yuzu_lemons citrus and juniper
@chefdanbarber@grace_jorgs@jamesplynch
BLUE HILL At Stone Barns 🥃
Dive into the liquid language of Donovan Ingram, Beverage Innovator in Blue Hill, where beverages are shaped by time, not effect.
Innovation rooted in restraint and depth.
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#bluehillatstonebarns #bluehill #bluehillfarm #artofcocktails
Sweet woodruff went unnoticed by me for so many years, but thanks to @rick.vonhagn I can say that this is now my second season working with this spring forage.
Woodruff has a compound called coumarin that when withered, gives intense vanilla-like and hay aromas. Historically, used in a spring aromatized wine called maywine which features strawberries.
I love being able to use wine in cocktails, especially when it’s riesling. We are mixing woodruff with Selbach-Oster, famous for their off-dry styles and sundial vineyards.
-woodruff tincture for 2026
-woodruff outside the bar window
-Juliana harvesting woodruff last year
-Rick withering the leaves
-painting of woodruff found in the book The natural history of plants from 1899
-non alcoholic in our pairing: verjus infused with woodruff and norwich strawberries
-Zeltinger Sonnenuhr the famous sundial vineyard
Like most I’ve always loved spring for the magnolia blooms that line the streets. Ive always thought of it as just a pretty flower.
I wouldn’t have thought to ever eat it.
Magnolia has a rich history of culinary use throughout the world—pickled for condiments like gari or made into teas. During my time at Blue Hill I have had the chance to see many of its forms and in the last few years have been experimenting with its use in our non-alcoholic program.
-withering magnolia for black tea
-Jordan’s photos from last year of our magnolia non-alcohol on the menu with magnolia cordial and ginger kombucha
-Yellow magnolia drying for white tea
-Rick bruising magnolia for black tea
-Boundbrook rice amazake with fresh, pickled and magnolia tea for our dessert pairing in our NA progression
Sassafras harvest. Over the years it has become a spring ritual for me. It’s one of the first big projects of the season and the goal is so simple—making soda.
Sassafras is a laurel native to eastern North America. Known for its aromatic properties: most notably its use in root beer.
Charles Hires, a pharmacist from Philadelphia, was the first to commercialize it and announced the product at the 1876 Worlds Fair. He and many other commercial root beers use extracts of sassafras and other barks like wintergreen or birch. The sweetener was often molasses.
This non-alcoholic beverage takes inspiration from the original synthesis but uses the cambium layer or thin aromatic layer between the bark and hardwood of sassafras root, black cherry, birch and is sweetened entirely with sorghum syrup.
-Grove non-alcoholic cocktail on the menu. Fresh sassafras root, black cherry bark, birch bark, stone barns ginger, @nextstepproduce sorghum syrup
-Stripping sassafras cambium
-Jack Algiere leading our annual team harvest of sassafras
-Vintage Hires root tea ads
-Phily’s World Fair 1876
-Rick and I digging earlier this spring
