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By now, if you’ve been following along with my seasonal cocktail recipes here on the Mountain Rose Herbs blog, you know I have a passion and something of a reputation for making herb-infused spirits. This year on the Spring Equinox, I started thinking about what I wanted to create to celebrate the end of winter. Something fun and fresh, with herbal goodness. Also, I happened to have a couple bottles of my favorite artisan gins hanging about, Desert Juniper from Bendistillery and another from Thinking Tree. So: spring, gin, relief after a long winter. Obviously, my version of an herbal gin fizz was in order.

Mountain Rose Herbs is proud to be an EarthShare Oregon Business Member. EarthShare is a national network that connects environmental organizations across the United States using businesses as fundraising platforms. In 2011, we launched our very first EarthShare Oregon campaign by organizing an employee giving program that connects our staff with like-minded environmental organizations working to protect and defend the places we hold dear. Through this program, we have successfully connected our employees with over 100 environmental organizations that they are passionate about supporting. That is nearly $100,000 given the past 8 years! Read on to learn more about EarthShare Oregon.

With the holidays soon upon us, it’s time to start preparing for my seasonal lycii (goji) berry winter cocktail. As I mentioned in the fall, my adventures with herb-infused spirits started with a remarkable hibiscus-infused martini that I had at one of my favorite local brewpubs. I was so inspired; I now have a stock of mason jars full of herb-infused liquors ready for whatever mood my friends and family might be in. For the holiday season, I wanted to create an herb-infused cocktail that would have a brilliantly red, festive color and a delicious sweet-tart flavor profile. Healthful lycii berries turned out to be the perfect answer!

Buy Nothing Day is Friday, November 27. Founded in Canada in 1992, the Buy Nothing Movement arose in protest to mass consumerism and the throw-away culture that accompanies it. The movement has grown and evolved over the past decades to include more than 65 nations. The biggest shopping day of the year—the day after Thanksgiving, or Black Friday—has become the movement’s international day of protest: Buy Nothing Day. Here at Mountain Rose Herbs (MRH), we applaud this effort and wholly support Buy Nothing Day! Overconsumption eats up natural resources and puts our planet in peril. As the CEO and owner of MRH, I encourage you NOT to shop with us on Friday, November 27. The fact that we, as a society, have created a national holiday of shopping suggests that our priorities need realignment. Buy Nothing Day is our act of pushback.

As autumn is now officially here, my mind has turned to the supportive power of elder berries. Elderberry syrup is obviously a tried and true ally for immune system support*, but elder berries also make an excellent base for cocktails and mocktails. My Elder Bellini recipe is one such fall cocktail that provides both remarkable flavor and immune system support*. I must admit that it isn’t exactly an “herbal cocktail” per se—because it is made with herb-infused spirits, it is ostensibly an extract that is added to juice to impart a slight herbal flavor in a full-bodied cocktail. The beauty of this method is that you can make the infusion ahead of time, so you have your elderberry-infused base on hand whenever you get the urge for a remarkably beautiful, delicious cocktail.

Mountain Rose Herbs has gotten together with our long term partner Beyond Toxics on their most recent project called 1000 Friends of Bees Campaign. As most of your know, a large percentage of our honeybee colonies are being threatened by habitat loss, introduced diseases, the spread of parasites, and worst of all, the widespread use of pesticides. Many biologists agree that without the simple honey bee, our entire food system would collapse as would other essential plant systems.

Want to make your donation to land and river conservation go even further? Donate to the McKenzie River Trust by March 31st and Mountain Rose Herbs will automatically match your donation dollar for dollar up to $5,000. This is a perfect opportunity to double your investment in Western Oregon land conservation, and it will help advance the programs put into place by this priceless organization we all love and adore. Please help McKenzie River Trust secure these much needed funds by sending them your contribution by the deadline, and remember for each dollar you donate, Mountain Rose Herbs will match it up to $5,000.
To learn more about the Mountain Rose Herbs matching gift campaign and to donate please visit

Want to publicly announce your love of pristine rivers for a chance to win a $250 gift certificate from Mountain Rose Herbs?
All you have to do is “Like” Pacific Rivers Council on Facebook and post a comment on their wall about why healthy rivers are special to you, pretty simple eh?  This little act by itself will put you into a drawing for a $250 gift certificate from Mountain Rose Herbs and for complete (and easy) instructions, please see below.

We are utterly thrilled to announce that Mountain Rose Herbs is an EarthShare business member and we have setup a generous employee giving program which connects our staff with like-minded environmental organizations that work to protect and defend the places we hold dear. This further outlines the legacy of generosity which is fundamental in the operational foundation of Mountain Rose Herbs, and the simple act of setting up a workplace giving program through EarthShare will guarantee that the natural gifts this planet offers us will always be protected. If you are employed by a company that is not an EarthShare member, we would like for you to encourage your employer to become one, and if you are a business owner who is not an EarthShare member, we would love to see you become one! To learn more please see..... www.earthshare-oregon.org