Syrup seeped in distinction

Trafalgar, Indiana

At first glance, the story of Hickoryworks shagbark syrup in Trafalgar, Indiana, sounds like a business fairy tale: A chance meeting with a mysterious stranger leads to acquisition of a secret recipe that results in a national gourmet goldmine. But chat with owner Gordon Jones and his real recipe for success comes through: Passion for a unique product, savvy marketing and public relations, and keeping things small, hands-on and fun instead of falling into the “bigger is better” conventional mindset.

With roots and decades of experience in the corporate world of sales, advertising and management, Gordon and his wife, Sherrie Yarling, a seventeen year paralegal, escaped the white-collar career track in 1990 and built a secluded log cabin on 64 acres of Sherrie’s family land of rolling hills about 30 miles south of Indianapolis. “We first grew and sold shiitake mushrooms, thinking that this would be a unique, high end product that local premium restaurants would be interested ,” explains Gordon. “We started cold-calling area chefs and developing relationships and sales interest,” explains Gordon. While gaining a following, the couple realized that shiitakes have a short, unpredictable growing season and required labor-intensive lifting and moving of the logs where the mushrooms grow.

Then came a chance roadside encounter with a mysterious stranger. While Gordon and Sherrie were working up downed trees on their land, an old man pulled up and asked if he could buy some firewood. Noticing a shagbark hickory tree nearby, the man told Gordon of a unique syrup his great, great grandmother made from the bark of such trees. Striking a deal with this man to give him free firewood, he reappeared a few weeks later with the tattered recipe on yellowed parchment, a piece of paper Gordon and Sherrie protect like gold today since they are the only two who fully know its contents. “It makes me feel a little like Colonel Sanders with a secret recipe,” Gordon says with a smile, adding that business has grown one hundred percent every year since the company’s founding in 1991.

Hickoryworks shagbark syrup is extracted from the bark of the shagbark tree through a process of heating Gordondescribes as “a combination between a wok and a pressure cooker to render the extract, which is then cooled and aged like a fine wine. The whole process takes about three and a half weeks.” Different from maple syrup, shagbark syrup doesn’t use tree sap. Rather, it’s a sugar syrup flavored with extract from the tree bark. Even Gordon admits the mystery behind the flavoring: “We’re not exactly sure where the extract comes from. We think it comes from the thin lining on the bark’s underside.”

The unique flavor and versatility of shagbark syrup prompted Gordon and Sherrie to embark on a targeted marketing effort to upscale chefs, sending free samples and asking for their comments and recipes. These, in turn, became free product endorsements to post on the growing Hickoryworks’ website. Drawing first on the area Indiana chefs with whom they had already developed a relationship through their mushrooms sales, Gordon read various culinary and food trade publications such as Food Arts, Packaging Digest and Gourmet magazine looking for names of up-and-coming chefs to send a Hickoryworks sample to.

Chefs raved about the uniqueness and versatility of Hickoryworks shagbark syrup, using it on almost anything calling for sugar or maple syrup, such as glazes over beef, pork, chicken or fish, as well as a drink mixer and in salad dressing. It’s also been used as an ingredient in bakery goods or served straight over ice cream and pancakes. Tim Mally, then executive chef at Ye Olde Library Restaurant in Carmel, Indiana, gave a testimonial in the spirit of other devoted chefs: “It’s one of the most unique things I’ve ever tasted. It has an earthy, smoky flavor without all the maple kick. Once I tasted and tested it, I found its applications are almost boundless.”
With chefs creating a buzz around Hickoryworks, the media soon came calling. “Gourmet magazine ran an article in 2002, describing the syrup as ‘shagadelic.’ We shipped out 3,450 bottles in the 45 days after that article ran,” Gordon explains. Hickoryworks sells bottled syrup through both retail and wholesale channels in a variety of sizes ranging from 3.5 ounces to gallons with pumps for restaurant use. With further press in Midwest Living and Taste of Home and a feature on “Food Finds” on the FoodNetwork, Gordon and Sherrie built a small on-site processing building to handle the full process of making and packaging the syrup and keep up with demand.

Despite such national attention and tempting offers for large-scale distribution, Gordon and Sherrie remain firmly committed to keeping Hickoryworks small and manageable. They remain the company’s only two employees, paying local folks to forage the hickory bark which sheds naturally from the tree and from downed trees. “I’m like a Benedictine Monk making syrup. This is an artisan process that takes time to make. We’re having fun making it at this speed and that’s how I want to keep it,” adds Gordon.

By keeping the recipe a secret and being the only ones who make it, Sherrie and Gordon have not felt the need to patent the syrup. “My lawyer said if you want to save $5,000 in patent fees, don’t write the process down and don’t explain it to anyone,” Gordon explains. “That way no one can copy your process and no one can take your patent application, look at your process and modify it slightly.” Committed to local economies, Gordon and Sherrie personally ship orders out of their town of Trafalgar. “We’re the largest single shipper in the history of the Trafalger Post Office, a town with a population of less than one thousand,” adds Gordon.

Gordon and Sherrie attend three local weekly farmers’ markers, two seasonal and one year-round. Besides sales,the markets provide public relations and marketing opportunites, including meeting the head chef for the Indiana Governor who started using shagbark syrup early on at state events. Farmers’ markets also provide testing grounds for new products such as a barbeque sauce using shagbark syrup. They’re also experimenting with a sugar free syrup to tap into the growing diabetic market, a certified organic version of the syrup and his latest venture, hulless puff caramel corn that’s flavored with Hickoryworks syrup. “Not only does this stuff have an addictive taste, it doesn’t stick to braces,” Gorden adds with a smile.