Orchard & Ember still pours every copper kettle by eye, pulls every amber ribbon by hand, and tucks botanical hard drops into keepsake gift tins — the same heritage candy craft your grandmother trusted, one small batch at a time.
Batch 62-114 · Pulled Tuesday · 40-lb copper kettles
Every drop in the pantry begins with orchard fruit grown in the Wenatchee valley, copper-boiled sugar, and a two-person pull. Batch-stamped Tuesdays; tinned by hand; tucked into keepsake gift tins for the candy dish at home.
The original counter drop since 1962 — sassafras root, a whisper of blackstrap molasses, and a finish that lingers like the end of a screen-door summer. Our best-loved handmade hard candy for devotees of the retro candy counter.
The drop your grandmother kept in the cut-glass dish by the telephone — horehound leaf steeped in cream honey, pulled to a soft brass glow. A heritage candy craft signature and the backbone of our holiday sweet assortments.
Green orchard apple picked at first bite, brightened with malic snap and rolled in a whisper of sugar pearls. The little-green-drop energy of the 1970s, rebuilt for grown palates and the classic family candy dish.
Bartlett pear simmered with clove, cinnamon bark, and a breath of nutmeg — then pulled copper-dark and tucked into muslin. Our most-requested specialty gift for grandparents and the centerpiece of tasting boxes.
Dusk-hued wild plum slow-simmered with garden sage — dark, savory, a little mysterious. The drop for the connoisseur who thinks the classic candy dish deserves one genuinely surprising guest.
Our huckleberry-lacquer keepsake tins were designed in 1974 and re-pressed ever since — the kind of tin that ends up holding buttons, postcards, and birthday candles for the next thirty years. Each is filled and ribboned by hand.
Pick the occasion, then choose three drops. We will compose the tasting flight right here on the card — exactly as we would slide it across the marble counter.
Choose any three — your flight is tucked below.
Orchard & Ember · Flight Ticket
Choose an occasion above, then tuck in three drops.
Pairing notes appear here once an occasion is chosen.
Tucked by hand in Wenatchee · Batch-stamped every Tuesday
Choose a drop from the deck. Each card carries what our counter staff would tell you before sliding it across the marble — flavor notes, texture, batch size, and the moment it made for.
Batch 62-114, forty pounds a kettle. The sassafras is steeped whole, never powdered, and the pull is longer than it has any right to be — that is where the glass-crack finish comes from.
BATCH 62-114 · 40 LB KETTLE · KEEP COOL & DRY · BEST WITHIN 9 MONTHS
Batch 62-098. Horehound is bitter on its own; the wildflower honey tames it into something your whole family will recognize before you say the name.
BATCH 62-098 · 40 LB KETTLE · VEGAN-FREE CLAIMS NONE · KEEP DRY
Batch 62-131. We press first-drop orchard apples from the two rows by the north fence and brighten the batch with malic acid — the pucker arrives before the sweetness does.
BATCH 62-131 · 40 LB KETTLE · SUGAR-PEARL RIM · GLUTEN-CONSCIOUS KITCHEN
Batch 62-142. Bartletts simmered low with clove and cinnamon bark until the whole kitchen smells like a 1978 church basement at harvest supper.
BATCH 62-142 · 40 LB KETTLE · HOLIDAY FAVORITE · BEST AS A GIFT
Batch 62-157. The odd one in the flight, on purpose. Wild plum from the creek line, garden sage from behind the copper shed, pulled darkest of all five.
BATCH 62-157 · 40 LB KETTLE · LIMITED PULLS · ASK AT THE COUNTER
Edwin and Maribel Hart opened a twelve-foot counter in Wenatchee in the autumn of 1962 with one copper kettle, a marble slab salvaged from a soda fountain, and exactly nine flavor ideas. Four of them survived contact with the public. All five on this page did.
“Sugar, heat, patience, and a person willing to stand still. That is the whole recipe. The orchard does the rest.”
Maribel Hart · Founder, 1919–1994
Everything we would tell you across the marble if you asked nicely. Specifications hold for the current harvest season; the kettle is stubborn and seasonal.
Unedited, unpaid, and occasionally folded around a few pecan halves. We keep them in the tin drawer behind the counter.
“My mother carried the horehound tin to every church supper for thirty years. When she passed, I found it in the pantry, still half full. I finished it. I regret nothing.”
Marlene G. · Wenatchee, Washington
“Sent a keepsake tin to my father in Boise for his seventy-eighth birthday. He called and said it was the first candy in years that didn't taste like syrup and apology.”
Robert T. · Boise, Idaho
“The spiced pear is the only drop my grandchildren will steal off the counter. I have started hiding half the tin behind the flour.”
Susan K. · Tucson, Arizona
Come watch a Tuesday pull through the front window — the kettle glows around six-forty in the morning — then stay for a complimentary tasting flight and a batch card for the road. Groups of eight or more, please call ahead.
Plan Your Visit418 Orondo Avenue, Wenatchee, WA 98801
(509) 555-0164 · Tue – Sat 9:30 AM – 5:30 PM · Sun 11 AM – 4 PM · Mon closed
hello.orchardandember@gmail.com
Look for the copper kettle weathervane and the green awning.
