Cheering For The Chestnut

lyleestill9
1 day ago
5 min read

🎶 Chestnuts roasting on an open fire... 🎶

It’s true. We are going to make another batch of Chestnut Rum Cream. If you didn’t get one at this year’s Chestnut Carnival, reserve your bottle for pickup right before Christmas (details about reservation and pickup - and serving suggestions - at the bottom of this post).

In the meantime, here’s the backstory on all this chestnut stuff:

I never set out to change the culinary landscape. If that’s what we are doing, it’s accidental. Thirty-five years ago, I started planting chestnut trees just to grow something to eat. That put me outside of the “Save the American Chestnut” movement, which was fine with me.

I’m not much of a joiner. I’m not much of an orchardist either. “Gentleman farmer” is probably the best description. Curious. Up for new ideas. Hungry.

When my chestnut trees started dropping fruit, I was elated. At first, eating chestnuts was a

novelty that even my children would indulge. As the harvest grew, the family grew sick of chestnuts. That’s when I started foisting them on the neighbors. That’s when I started delivering chestnuts door to door.

When it became apparent that I was going to have more chestnuts than we could handle, we

started looking for markets. One year my son Arlo sold most of our crop to Mr. Lee at Grand

Asia Market in Cary. It was a desultory dollar per pound.

Our chestnuts were huge and high-shouldered compared to any of the products for sale in local stores — mostly from Italy, and France. The competition’s fruit was dried up, hardened kernels. Still is.

We started hiring people to shell our harvest. Zach. Anthony. Devonte. The best way to turn a ten-dollar-a-pound product into a twenty-dollar-a-pound product is to hire people to shell nuts. It’s tough work. Chestnuts can only be shelled when hot. Sharp knives, high temperatures, and perfect timing are required.

A few years ago, I got some shelling machines from Korea. Apparently, chestnuts are a street

food in Seoul. The blight that destroyed the American chestnut tree did not affect trees in the Pacific Rim. Chestnuts never vanished from the Asian diet.

With shelling machines in hand, I partnered up with Zach Petersen from Rock County Chestnuts. He’s an actual chestnut grower. Zach and I created Chestnut Carnival at the Plant in Pittsboro, NC, in 2023. He was going to roast chestnuts and serve them. I was going to create chestnut rum and chestnut whiskey and chestnut cocktails at the Fair Game Beverage Company.

We were stunned by the interest level. A great crowd of people came down Lorax Lane to the Plant in Pittsboro for a celebration of all things chestnut.

My chestnut whiskey was disgusting. Sweet, syrupy, and gross. My chestnut rum was

astonishing—rich, clean, and surprisingly smooth. It raised eyebrows and pulled cocktails

through the till.

Freshly bottled Chestnut Rum Cream made with chestnuts foraged at The Plant

Enter Lisa Pigeon. For Chestnut Carnival II, she took Fair Game chestnut rum and created our first “House Made Liqueur.” Chestnut Rum Cream was born—rich, silky, and full of the nutty earthiness of fresh chestnuts. I still remember the staff meeting after that Carnival. As we did our usual postmortem, everyone was stunned by how many cocktails had flown out the door. We had given out samples of the rum cream, and the drinks practically sold themselves. That was the beginning of our liqueur program.

By year three we had acquired the proper licensure to produce bottles. Chestnut Carnival 2025 was a record-setting day.

Chestnut Rum Cream felt like a hit record—made from fruit in the yard, rich and well rounded. It was as if an Irish Cream had taken a walk in the North Carolina woods. It appears to be a great candidate to become a seasonal classic. Move over spiked eggnog, here comes Chestnut Rum Cream.

Another headline from our third annual Chestnut Carnival was the arrival of chestnut flour. I

brought in a hundred pounds from Route 9 Cooperative in Ohio. It caught the interest of Danny at Redtail Grains in Mebane. He’s a miller. He showed up with his artisanal grits, polenta, spelt, etc., and a pancake mix with 25% chestnut flour. Bingo. Sold out.

Here’s hoping that we can move a sheller into Redtail Grains and get some local flour production for next year’s carnival. Here’s hoping that some of these chestnut products get traction. Here’s hoping the momentum builds.

Nearly every chestnut vendor sold out this year - clearly we're not the only ones in Pittsboro cheering for chestnuts!

Maddie at Blue Tail Bakery sold out of her chestnut creations. Tami Whit, our original chestnut flour miller, had a great day selling chestnuts in the shell and baked goods. BMC Brewing had a chestnut brown ale on tap. Kingston 99 featured chestnut-battered shrimp. Nora and Hans at Ta Contento offered a chestnut caramel empanada.

The week before Chestnut Carnival 2025, Lisa dropped a chestnut pasta, Meadow made chestnut snowball cookies. Both Meadow and Samantha introduced us to chestnut cakes.

Every year Rachel up at Rachel’s Native Plants sells a bunch of chestnut trees.

I had a customer say to me, “You know, in thirty years, there is going to be a bunch of people around here eating chestnut everything. With chestnut trees dropping fruit all over the place.”

That came as a startling realization to me. She was right. A big caloric drop is going to get

gobbled up in our foodshed. Our culinary landscape will have changed.

After thirty-five years of promoting the local economy and local food, I guess it’s true. I’m still

cheering for the chestnut…

And Chestnut Rum Cream? We have enough nuts to make another batch, and we’re going to do it right before the holidays. We’re making bottles to order.

Orders for rum cream must be placed by December 18th, with pickup December 22nd or 23rd — just in time to drink on Christmas Eve and to spike coffee Christmas morning. We can’t sell liquor online, so put down $10 to reserve the bottle and pay the remaining $39.99 when you pick it up at Fair Game.

Reserve here: https://www.fairgamebeverage.com/_paylink/AZqdh6UT