I'll drink to that where we get behind the scenes of the beverage business.

I'm Levy Dalton.

I'm Erin Scala and here's our show today. Oh, So a lot of us run not only wine programs but bar programs too. And there's certain ingredients that come in and out of fashion, kind of like wines come in and out of fashion behind the bar.

And one of those ingredients is cranberry juice cocktail.

And in fact, cranberry juice cocktail has really changed.

It's shaped a new generation of cocktails and it's especially

helped cocktails in the 90s. But where do cranberries come from and what's the

history of cranberry production in the US? Did you know that cranberries are just one of a few fruits that are native to North America,

and they were a wild diet staple of Native Americans for centuries on end,

long before the colonial times.

As early as 1683 pilgrim settlers were using cranberries,

they were making juices out of them and eating them for food.

Later on, in 1816, cranberries started to be cultivated

and seriously marketed to urban populations.

So 1816, these are the times of,

you know, kind of the Wild Wild West,

and people were going

cranberries in these bogs up in New England and then selling them

either canned or fresh.

So you know in the 1800s you could find canned cranberries and fresh

cranberries being sold. And the real boon for cranberries and fresh cranberries being sold.

And the real boon for cranberry production

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