Simple Goodness Syrups: a Sister Business to Happy Camper Cocktails

Simple Goodness Syrups is, quite literally, a Sister Business to Happy Camper Cocktail Company. 

Appropriately, this new venture of ours is launching the week of International Sisterhood Day. My sister and I have been sisters since my birth in 1988 and business partners since earlier this year. 

Who are the Simple Goodness Sisters?

For those of your who don't already follow along on our little corner of the interwebs, here is the backstory. As we matured into the lovely young ladies we are today, we realized we could combine a few of our new favorite hobbies: eating, drinking and gardening. We began to be very interested in pulling the purest and most vibrant flavors possible from the foods we grew in order to make tastier food and drinks at home. Venise was drawing from her college experiences on ranches in Montana, while I was fascinated by environmental science and sustainable farming after college in food-centric Portland. We both felt a strong connection to the economy, thrift, reverence, and routine of small family farms after hearing stories from our grandparents, both sets of whom raised their kids in Kent, WA on small plots of land that they farmed for their own uses. Venise ended up buying a 10 acre farm in Buckley and slowly bringing it back to life with her husband, farmer Ross. For me, my passion for ethically raised food and fascination with farm to bar cocktails coincided with the end of my corporate career and the start of the Happy Camper Cocktail Company. We began crafting our own cocktail mixers using the ingredients from my own small garden and the farms of others: our neighbors, friends, and mentors in the farm community here on the Plateau. Soon enough, I went knocking on the door of my sister's farm looking for some help growing our "garden to glass" cocktail ingredients.

Photo by Rylea of Bow and Arrows Photography

I had been having trouble sourcing locally for events, which was a huge problem considering that the part of my company I was MOST proud of was the quality of our ingredients and our support of local farms. Certain items, mostly herbs and flowers, were increasingly hard to source in the growing quantities I needed. She had a 1 acre field free after forgoing a garlic planting, and agreed to plant it in herbs and edible flowers for Happy Camper Cocktails. 

One year, much hardwork and much googling later (we un-sheepishly farm by google, being first generation farmers who hold other jobs outside of the farm and frequently do not know what we're doing), and our herbs are growing steadily. They will mature in 2-3 more years, and until then we harvest them carefully to keep the plant healthy. We do not spray pesticides on the farm and maintain all organic practices for farming, though we have not paid for the expensive "organic" label certification. (I say "we," but the farming is 98% Venise and Ross, I just come when the SOS is called to weed the wilds in-between the mulch plastic, no spray means much more hardwork.)

So we grow our own "farm to bar" botanical cocktails, and now we grow them for your home bar as well.

Photo by Rylea of Bow and Arrows Photography

At Happy Camper Cocktails, we add garden to glass goodness to our signature cocktails in a few ways- fresh juices, tinctures, bitters, shrubs, syrups and garnishes are all components we use to bring the ultimate tastiness and freshness to our drinks. By far, a guest favorite has emerged. Our syrups have proven extremely popular in our event cocktails and we've been fielding requests for the 3 years since our launch to bottle them up so our clients can recreate our drinks at home.

With Simple Goodness Syrups, my sister and I combined forces, and we finally listened, unable to turn down a single additional request. We went through the arduous process of learning to make a product, source our largest batch of "farm to bar" ingredients yet (100 pounds of locally foraged huckleberries! 2 pounds of sustainable grown, female farmer grown Mexican vanilla beans! 100 pounds of Sumner, WA organically grown rhubarb!), bottle it according to FDA standards, create a recipe appropriate for a bottling facility and a 72 gallon batch, etc., etc...

To say there was a learning curve would be an understatement but to say these syrups are the best in Washington state would not be an overstatement, in my humble opinion. We put our hearts and souls into these syrups. We made decisions carefully, even when they were more expensive and meant less profit, because we wanted a product we could be THAT proud of. We bottled a locally and sustainable-grown product with zero preservatives or additives and we did so in a recyclable bottle made in America. Effyeah! We did it for you guys and now you can finally buy them. 

Without further ado, here is the link: http://simple-goodness-sisters.mybigcommerce.com

Thank you for your support along the way, your demand for this product, and your patience as we will inevitably mess up this fulfillment and shipping process at least a few times!

Photo by Rylea of Bow and Arrows photography

Pay no attention to my freaky eyes, I am very happy to be launching these and am apparently bad at photobooths. This is maybe the only photo in our history in which Venise is more photogenic. Win some, dimsum. Photo by Erin Perkins' That 70's photo Bus