What do you get when a cacao farmer teams up with an acupuncturist and craniosacral therapist? Based on Beans and Berries, the result is a bar that sells herbal elixirs and cacao-based beverages.
Kelly Sheridan, whose other business is Abundant Source Wellness, said she makes the herbal honey vinegars and herbal syrups that go into Beans and Berries’s drinks. On the other side of the collaborative business, Gordon South’s Cloud Forest Cacao works with a regenerative farmers collective in the Rio Mayo region of Peru to sell their beans at places such as the Durango Farmers Market.
In the process, he helps the Quechua people he works with plant more trees and uplifts their quality of life by getting them a fair wage for their beans, Sheridan said.
“We’re working on improving the lives of farmers in Peru, and in doing that, we bring amazing cacao as well,” South said.
Beans and Berries sells blocks of criollo cacao at the market, which people can use to make beverages at home, as well as herbal kombucha, herbal sodas, cacao with herbal syrups and elixirs and slushies. Sheridan said the products are made in a commercial kitchen in Ignacio.
She said this is Beans and Berries’ first year at the farmers market, but she and South hope to eventually grow the business into a brick-and-mortar cacao and elixir bar in Durango. They are also currently looking to get their products into existing stores, bars and coffee shops, possibly as ingredients in cocktails and mocktails.
“We’re just making our entry into the community this year,” she said.
Sheridan said she has had the vision for Beans and Berries since she was in her twenties. It resurfaced in her thirties when she was working in a restaurant that employed a potion maker.
“He made all these herbal preparations, and I was like, ‘That’s my dream job,” she said. “I’ve been making these products for sale in my individual office for years, and I met Gordon and he was doing the cacao thing, and we were like, ‘Let’s team up and see if it will take hold in the Durango community.’”
While Beans and Berries does not have its own website yet, Abundant Source Wellness can be found at www.abundantsourcewellness.com and Cloud Forest Cacao can be found at www.cloudforestcacao.store.
ngonzales@durangoherald.com
