Hickoryworks
A Foodist Factory
~ by Chrissy Alspaugh
Show trash to Gordon Jones and Sherrie Yarling, and they’ ll show you treasure.
That ingenuity, combined with a complete disregard for sentiments that an idea can’ t be done, propelled the couple to open the nation’ s first factory turning the old, fallen bark of shagbark hickory trees into luscious syrup.
Now, the pair proudly supplies a whole menu of syrups, salts, and sauces to more than 300 restaurants nationwide.
And they’ ve done it all over the last 20 years as a two-person operation, tucked away in a secluded Brown County operation known as Hickoryworks.
Jones’ entrance into the syrup world was as unlikely as him ever settling into one career.
The Montana-native confides that he met folks“ with more money than God,” as he blurred through 17 different careers zigzagging the country in just a few short decades in his early life. A few of those jobs placed him as executive vice president and publisher launching Playgirl magazine; a radio broadcasting advertising director working with clients including John( then Cougar) Mellencamp, Kenny Rogers and Glen Campbell; and selling luxury Palm Beach condominiums at the Biltmore Hotel.
In the mid-1980s, Jones“ looked up a girl I’ d dated in the’ 70s,” he said, shooting a sly smirk to Yarling. She soon moved to Palm Beach, where it took them just three short years to grow tired of Florida’ s“ terminal summer” and fast-paced life.
So they pointed their Cadillac north and didn’ t stop until they reached Yarling’ s family property in northern Brown County. Life slowed. They bought a 70-foot mobile home and, on a whim, started raising dinner plate-sized shitake mushrooms and selling them for a pretty price to local upscale restaurants. One day an elderly man
photos by Chrissy Alspaugh
stopped to ask about buying, for firewood, the tops of some oak trees Jones had logged for growing mushrooms. The man happened to mention that his great-greatgrandmother used to make syrup from the bark of hickory trees— just like the ones surrounding them. Intrigued, Jones took a stab at his own shagbark syrup.“ It was awful!” the now 72-year-old said, laughing. But Jones tried again, and this time he saw great promise. Soon, he was bringing samples to the chefs buying the shitakes. Even today, Jones doesn’ t specialize in suggesting creative uses for the heavy syrup.“ One chef would just find something they loved it for, and they’ d tell someone else,” he said.“ Before we knew it, we were getting calls for gallons.”
To simplify production, Jones called on skills he’ d acquired growing up working with his dad in hardware
16 Our Brown County • Sept./ Oct. 2014