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The 2023 Wild Blueberry Holiday Gift Guide

‘Tis the season to indulge in the delightful allure of wild blueberries, and what better way to celebrate the holidays than by exploring an array of tantalizing wild blueberry products?! In this Wild Blueberry Holiday Gift Guide, we’ve curated a list of 10 exceptional products that cater to the palates of wild blueberry enthusiasts near and far. From delectable spreads to artisanal treats, these items promise to infuse the spirit of the season with the unique and vibrant essence of wild blueberries. Whether you’re seeking the perfect stocking stuffer for a loved one or simply looking to enhance your own festive celebrations, our gift guide has something for everyone. Discover, savor, and share the magic of wild blueberries this holiday season!

1. Stonewall Kitchen Wild Maine Blueberry Syrup – 8.5 oz, $8.95

Infuse your culinary creations with the distinctive flavor of Stonewall Kitchen’s Wild Maine Blueberry Syrup, a uniquely bright and flavorful addition that provides a wholesome dose of antioxidants. Perfectly versatile, this syrup enhances pancakes or French toast and adds a delightful touch when drizzled over ice cream or even a biscuit.

2. Worcester’s Wild Blueberry Jams & Jellies – 8 oz, $6.25

Indulge in the vibrant flavors of Worcester’s Wild Blueberry Jams & Jellies, where the jam boasts luscious pieces of wild blueberries and the jelly features strained fruit for a deliciously smooth texture. The original wild blueberry jam perfectly balances the natural sweetness of handpicked wild blueberries with just the right amount of sugar, creating a timeless spread for toast and pancakes, or for crafting the ultimate PB&J.

3. Planet Naskeag Wild Pickled Blueberries – 8 oz, $9.00

Discover an extraordinary flavor fusion with Planet Naskeag Wild Pickled Blueberries. Crafted from a carefully curated mix of organic ingredients—including wild blueberries, apple cider vinegar, salt, sugar, black peppercorns, and mustard seed—this unique creation strikes a balance between tartness and savory richness. This product can be used in a variety of ways, making it the perfect addition to your holiday gift list for those who appreciate the finer tastes in life.

4. Fields Fields Blueberries Organic Wild Blueberry Chips – 4 oz, $13.00

Experience the pure essence of wild blueberries in chip form with Fields Fields Organic Wild Blueberry Chips! Packed with antioxidants, these delightful chips not only support your immune system but also make for a kid-approved snack that combines health and taste in one delicious bite.

5. The Republic of Tea Wild Blueberry Black Tea Bags – 2.8 oz, $12.25

Enjoy a harmonious blend of flavors with The Republic of Tea Wild Blueberry Black Tea Bags. Revel in the sheer lushness of wild blueberries perfectly counterbalanced with the rich, malty notes of premium black tea, creating an infusion that delights whether served hot or over ice.

6. Better with Buckwheat Wild Blueberry Walnut Crisps – 4 oz, $6.99

Elevate your snacking experience with Better with Buckwheat Wild Blueberry Walnut Crisps—an exquisite blend of naturally gluten-free buckwheat, wild blueberries, California walnuts, and a hint of rosemary. Great with goat cheese or creamy blues, these crisps are also a deliciously satisfying treat on their own.

7. Bixby Chocolate Wild Blueberry Whippersnapper Bars – 6 bars, $15.40

Bite into the goodness of Bixby Chocolate’s Wild Blueberry Sea Salt Cashew Dark Chocolate Whippersnapper Candy Bars—a tempting vegan and gluten-free snacking candy bar made with organic dark chocolate, cashews, dried wild blueberries, organic brown rice crisps, and a touch of Maine sea salt. It’s a salty sweet snack rolled into one!

8. Bluet Maine Wild Blueberry Sparkling Wine – 6 cans, $35.94

Cheers to the season with Bluet Maine Wild Blueberry Sparkling Wine, a dazzling sensation that captures the essence of summer in Maine with the pure goodness of native wild blueberries. Not only is this sparkling wine a delightful and refreshing choice, but it’s also a healthier option—packed with antioxidants, low in alcohol, zero carbs, and free of sulfites—making it the perfect guilt-free indulgence for your holiday festivities. Wild blueberry alcohol is intended for individuals aged 21 and older.

9. Wyman’s Wild Blueberry Powder – 8 oz, $34.99

Add a burst of vibrant purple to your morning meals with Wyman’s Wild Blueberry Powder, a dietary supplement made by dehydrating and grinding wild blueberries. Spoon this wildly purple powder into your smoothies for a fruity kick, mix it into pancake or waffle batter to make breakfast vibrantly blue, or sneak some into your pasta sauce to add a serving of fruit for even the pickiest eaters.

10. Frozen Maine Wild Blueberries

Savor the goodness of Frozen Maine Wild Blueberries—a perfect freezer stuffer that adds a burst of flavor and nutrition to your breakfast, lunch, dinner, or dessert. Elevate your brain and whole-body health year round with these versatile gems. Plus, keeping this staple in your freezer ensures you can whip up delicious wild blueberry pancakes on Christmas morning. Yum! Find them in the freezer aisle of your local grocery store—just look for “wild” on the package.

We hope our gift guide has ignited your passion for these wild berries from Maine and inspired delightful culinary adventures. From antioxidant-rich snacks to indulgent treats, each wild blueberry product is a unique and thoughtful option for festive gifting and a colorful treat to enjoy at home with family and friends.

May your holidays be filled with the magic and flavor of wild blueberries, creating memorable moments and culinary joys for you and your loved ones. Cheers!

Quick & Easy Wild Blueberry Stuffed French Toast

If you’re expecting a house full of company for the holidays and you need a delicious easy-to-make breakfast then try this amazing Wild Blueberry Stuffed French Toast from our friends at Stonewall Kitchen. It’s truly tasty and requires only a few basic ingredients. Plus, it takes just a few minutes to make and can be prepared the day before so you can spend more time visiting than cooking. It’s a great choice for Christmas or New Year’s Eve.

There are two heroes in this recipe – frozen fresh Wild Blueberries and Stonewall Kitchen’s Wild Maine Blueberry Jam. Here in Maine, we love to eat our Wild Blueberries all year long. Wild Blueberries are nutritious, delicious, and an essential freezer staple that you can grab any day of the week.

To see Stonewall Kitchen Recipe Developer Kim Gallagher whip up this quick and easy Wild Blueberry Stuffed French Toast, watch our video. Here’s the complete recipe, too!

Stonewall Kitchen’s Amazing Wild Blueberry Jam

An interview with Stonewall Kitchen Product Developer Michele Cole

Michele Cole’s history with Stonewall Kitchen reaches back to the early days, when two young entrepreneurs named Jonathan King and Jim Stott had the bold idea to launch a specialty food business in Maine after creating their famous Wild Maine Blueberry Jam. It should be noted that Maine in 1991 was not exactly the epicenter of entrepreneurship: the local economy was struggling and the state was probably best known that year for ‘The Perfect Storm,” which ravaged the eastern seaboard and left thousands without power. But for King and Stott, it was the beginning of a love affair with gourmet food that has helped establish Maine’s reputation as a glowing constellation of innovative chefs and artisan foodmakers.

After more than twenty years of developing recipes for jams, chocolates, marinades, marmalades and buttered scones, Stonewall Kitchen’s resolve for the importance of flavor remains as strong as it did on day one. Product developer Michele Cole is unequivocal about the role that taste and ingredients have played in the success of the Stonewall Kitchen brand. She is as passionate as ever about her company’s founders and her role at Stonewall Kitchen today. Michele possesses a kind of lyrical reverence for food. When describing flavors, she often closes her eyes and seems to tap into a deep well of sensory experience. Her relationship with food transcends language and her tenure at Stonewall Kitchen could be summed up as a 20-year quest for the perfect gourmet creation.

As it turns out, Michele’s pursuit could also be viewed as the search to match or daresay rival the company’s very first product. Indeed, Stonewall Kitchen’s Wild Maine Blueberry Jam is not only the company’s very first creation, but remains their top selling product.

Stonewall Kitchen Maine Wild Blueberry Jam

To put it all into perspective, Stonewall Kitchen’s production team churns up and simmers its famous wild blueberry jam recipe once a month, averaging upwards of 35,000 13-ounce jars per batch. By the end of 2015, they expect to fill 40,000 jars per month. This does not take into account the popular Mini Wild Blueberry Jam, which averages 20,000 jars every 6 weeks. In total, Stonewall Kitchen is producing over a half-million jars of Wild Blueberry Jam per year. In the process, they are helping to spread the passion and appetite for Maine’s 10,000-year-old berry.

It was a pure pleasure to learn the story behind this simple, unadulterated jam, not to mention how one very special recipe in a beautiful glass jar, could spearhead Stonewall Kitchen’s two-decade long success story.

What are the values that customers associate with your brand?

Our customers are coming to us looking for high quality and authenticity. That is what we’re all about and it’s what they expect from us.

What are the key considerations that go into making Stonewall Kitchen foods?

Well, one thing is for sure, we are always looking to get a hold of the very best ingredients and we taste all kinds of them. Flavor is always number one for Stonewall Kitchen. We don’t do “regular.” We’re a specialty food company and every ingredient that we use has to pass our palate.

What do people seem to love about the Wild Blueberry Jam?

As soon as people taste it, they know they are enjoying something really different and really extraordinary. When people try it for the very first time, you can see from their expression just how special it is.

As a chef, what do you love about Wild Blueberries?

The Wild Blueberry is one of those truly exceptional fruits. It’s sweet, it’s tart, its got mineral notes, it’s juicy, and it’s not ordinary. There’s simply nothing like it. It’s just one of the best things in the world, and on top of that, it’s loaded with antioxidants.

Does using a frozen berry make it harder or easier from your standpoint as a chef?

Frozen Wild Blueberries are so easy to work with and the IQF (individually quick frozen) process really ensures that the quality remains intact. Wild Blueberries are great in sauces, jams and in baked goods, partly because they are small, and also because they freeze really well and thaw really well. A frozen Wild Blueberry is the second best thing, short of standing in a field and picking them yourself.

So the Wild Maine Blueberry Jam has become a staple for Stonewall Kitchen?

Wild Maine Blueberry Jam is the heart of our company. It’s how people identify us. There’s even a company policy at Stonewall Kitchen that states we simply cannot run out of Wild Blueberry Jam. Running out of Wild Blueberry Jam is our version of a tragedy.

Tell us the story of how the jam recipe was developed.

The Wild Maine Blueberry Jam got its start when founders Jim and Jonathan were going to farmers’ markets and bringing home products to test over a tiny stove in their home. They were experimenting with Wild Blueberries and Jim was trying to replicate the filling for his Aunt Pearl’s blueberry pie. Eventually, they ended up with this perfect recipe that uses Wild Blueberries, just a little bit of sugar, and a splash of lemon juice. Basically that is the very same recipe we use today.

What does the Wild Maine Blueberry Jam mean to your company today?

The Wild Maine Blueberry Jam is how we got our start as a specialty food company. It was those little Wild Blueberries that kicked it off. The Wild Maine Blueberry Jam has become the gold standard – everything else that we make at Stonewall Kitchen has to meet that high standard.

Here is how Stonewall Kitchen describes their number one selling product:

“Sweet, intensely flavorful wild Maine blueberries, a dash of sugar and a splash of lemon is all you’ll find in our top selling Wild Maine Blueberry Jam. Carefully crafted using only tiny, low-bush blueberries that grow and spread naturally across Maine, this is a delicious jam to enjoy on pancakes, breakfast breads or in an extra special PB&J.”

Jam-tastic!

Are Spreadable Servings Too Good to Be True?

Photo by oksidorIt’s officially summer, and if you’ve been thinking traffic jam, start thinking of a tastier, less stressful kind of jam – the kind that uses wild blueberries, raspberries, apricots, even cherries to spreadable, delicious effect.

After all, jam is really spreadable fruit, and potentially, one of the tastier ways to get a serving. But while the delicious fruits of summer are this food’s main ingredient, jam does present some hidden health dilemmas. It’s a valid question: is eating jam as a fruit serving cheating?

Getting the Best of Jam

Before we fully embrace jams, spreads, jellies and other preserves as a fruit serving boon to meet the fruit-and-vegetable-heavy requirements of our new MyPlate nutritional guidelines, keep in mind that sugar is the edible albatross of jam.

Jams are, generally speaking, loaded down with sugar, especially if they are from the grocery store shelf. Jams can be highly processed and include excess high fructose corn syrup, and they can be high in calories as well. Also, cooking fruit in the process of making jams and preserves can accelerate the loss of vitamins, eroding what was originally a nutritional powerhouse.

How can all this fruit, the cornerstone of healthy eating and disease prevention, take such an evil turn when it turns to mush? It doesn’t have to. While there are good reasons to remain cautious when it comes to jam intake, there are also many advantages to embracing pulverized produce as a topping for your scone, toast, yogurt or in a classic PB&J.

Jams come with concerns, like any other food, but if your goal is to eat widely and colorfully, it belongs on your plate, and it can enhance your healthy eating goals – particularly if you are up for a little preparation in your own kitchen.

Jam’s advantages:

It boosts energy. The sugars are perfect for snacking or adding to breakfast items for a quick oomph.
It has half the calories of butter as a topper, and is low in cholesterol.
It still has all the benefits of fruit, most notably, heart healthy, cancer fighting antioxidant power. It aids is maintaining healthy blood pressure, and when you make it yourself, it’s a concentrated wallop of nutrition.
It tastes amazing. Sweet and savory, and full of whole fruit pieces, jams and jellies are like candy without the empty calories.
It’s and ideal way to preserve the tastes of the season when the berries start flowing, for days later or months later.
If you are picking the fruit yourself to turn into jam, you can capture it when it’s fully ripe for the best nutritional value.

Enjoy Jam, Maintain Your Health

Low sugar fruit preserves are available on the store shelf, but an alternative to enjoying all the wonders of fruit in jam form without the high sugar content and preservatives is to make it yourself.

You can learn how to can (many communities offer canning classes this time of year) or go the simple route and mash fresh-picked fruit, add a little cinnamon, lemon and a dash of sugar, and spread. If you’ve got a hankering for real blueberry jam and you’re sitting on a few pints of blueberries from a local farm, for instance, here’s a simple way to create it that is ideal for the canning-phobic. We’ve used the principles of blueberry jam making from Real Simple:

Easy Wild Blueberry Jam

For 3 cups of blueberry jam, use 5 cups of wild blueberries, ½ cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice and ¼ teaspoon of kosher salt.

Combine and mash with a potato masher, cook over medium-high heat for 18-25 minutes and refrigerate.

You can also use frozen (any time of year): substitute two 10 ounce bags, and cook them for 2-3 minutes before mashing, then reduce the cooking time by the same.

Glazes: It’s All About the Grill

When is a fruit not fruit? When it’s a jam, jelly, sauce or glaze, of course, perfectly prepared to enliven barbecue and provide the zing to meats and other summer grilling items. Shannon Bissonnette has a handle on the full glazing picture. She is the owner and operator of Better Than Average Jams, Jellies and Sauces located in Mechanic Falls, Maine, and her specialty is fruit completely transformed, made from local ingredients that showcase unique flavors for spreading on breads or on BBQ.

Embrace the flavor of evolved fruit: add Raspberry Jalapeno Jam, Zesty Apple BBQ Glaze, or Blueberry Chipotle Stout BBQ Sauce to your outdoor grilling repertoire! You can read more about Shannon here (scroll down for the recipes).

Summer Jam: Spread the Love

Learn about preserving, and find organic blueberry jam recipes at Peace & Plenty Farm.

Remember that tomatoes benefit nutritionally from cooking! Try this Spicy Tomato Jam recipe.

Make a classic Strawberry Jam, or get the skinny on other classic combos such as Blueberry Rhubarb Jam on the ifood TV network.

The University of Maine Cooperative Extension has tips on making wild blueberry jam for preserving, among other ways to use and preserve Maine foods, such as fiddleheads.