Straight from the Brambles to Your Scoop: Meet THE Berry of Summer
Posted by Melissa Torres-Duran on
Boysenberry Oatmilk Sherbet (v)
Fresh off the bramble...
Sometime in the late 1920’s, a new berry emerged from the brambles in California. Rudolph Boysen, a Swedish immigrant-turned-horticulturist, spent his days experimenting with the berry plants on his Anaheim ranch and had produced a new hybrid: the boysenberry. This berry - dark purple, juicy, and intense, is a cross between a blackberry, loganberry, and raspberry. Growing on trailing vines and reaching up to 2.5 centimeters in length, this hulking hybrid is one of the largest of its kind.
However, it wasn’t an immediate success. Struggling to continuously produce viable fruit, Boysen soon turned his attention to a career with the Anaheim Parks Department. Word of these berries had already spread, and George W. Barrow, a prominent berry breeder from Maryland, traveled to come see these new berries. Barrow enlisted the help of Walter Knott, a local berry farmer. They tracked down the berry vines that Boysen cultivated, but unfortunately the vines withering away. Undeterred, Knott dug up the vines and brought them back to his farm in Buena Park. He nursed the vines back to life and was the first to commercially cultivate the berry. His wife, Mrs. Knott began to make jam preserves and sold them at the family’s farm stand, and the berry’s popularity quickly grew. People returned week after week to buy the jam and Knott decided to name the succulent berries after their originator.
The berry helped kick off Knott’s Berry Farm and is now even farmed outside of the US. New Zealand is now the world’s largest producer of this sweet and tangy fruit. Luckily for us, the boysenberry is still growing along the West Coast and we are able to share a bucket of berries in every scoop of our Boysenberry Oatmilk Sherbet (v).
Whether you’re enjoying them fresh off the bramble, from a stand at the farmer’s market, or grabbing a scoop at one of our shops, we hope you delight in this sherbet summer flavor. Don’t forget to tag us in your summer treat on social!