A note on Sage Mountain fb pg yesterday from Herbalist Rosemary Gladstar on the Fire Cider issue... Fire Cider ~ A Tradition, not a Trade Mark “Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world, Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has’” ~ Margaret Mead. What’s all the fuss about Fire Cider? A spicy hot deliciously sweet vinegar tonic, Fire Cider was first concocted in the kitchen at the California School of Herbal Studies in the early 1980’s. Intent on teaching my students how to make herbal preparations that were as much food as they were medicines, I was constantly experimenting and concocting all manner of medicinal herbs into a variety of recipes. Those that turned out well were shared freely with my students and our community. The idea was to bring medicinal herbalism back into people’s kitchens, as part of their food and as a way of being, not just for medicinal purposes. Fire Cider was among those early ‘cross over’ recipes ~ part medicine, part food ~ that was made and shared freely. I taught hundreds of people how to make it at the California School of Herbal Studies, which I directed and taught at from 1978 thru 1987, and also as I traveled about the country teaching about medicinal plants in conferences, schools and various events. With its well balanced blend of hot, spicy, and pungent flavors steeped in apple cider vinegar and finished with the rich sweetness of honey, Fire Cider is pleasantly delicious, and also, a wonderful blend of medicinal herbs. The original formula contained garlic, onions, horseradish root, ginger root, hot peppers, sometimes turmeric, and often echinacea; all powerful immune enhancers that help ward off infections, colds, flus, and bronchial congestion. We found we could use Fire Cider during the winter, a tablespoon or two a day, to help keep the immune system healthy and to ward off infections. All this, and it tasted good too! At the time (early 1980’s), there weren’t any other Fire Cider recipes available and no products specifically named Fire Cider. There were some great old apple cider vinegar recipes that circulated, such as the popular Apple Cider Vinegar, maple syrup (or honey) and cayenne tonic that Dr. Jarvis, an old Vermont Doctor advocated for and made famous in the 1950’s. Another excellent product out at the time, similar to Fire Cider, was Cyclone Cider, which contained a blend of hot spicy herbs, apple cider vinegar and honey. A popular product, Cyclone Cider was sold in natural food stores during the 1980’s and for all I know, may still be available. There were also early herb vinegar formulas such the oxymel made famous by the father of modern medicine, Hippocrates, and the equally well known 4 Thieves Vinegar that supposedly kept 4 grave robbers from catching the plague during the middle ages. While these herbal formulas consisted of vinegar, honey and herbs they contain primarily mild culinary herbs and not the hot, fiery pungent blend of Fire Cider. It was great to see Fire Cider, as well as many of my other favorite recipes, get ‘out there in the world’ and gain in popularity. That was the whole idea; to transform America ~ and our health care system ~ one kitchen at a time, through herbalism! Lots of people started making these recipes, adapting them, changing an ingredient and making it ‘theirs’. Several small herbal companies started up during this time and began packaging and selling Fire Cider in their local stores and farmers markets. I was also making it and selling it at my herb shoppe in the small town I grew up in northern California. It was wonderful to see the way people were so eagerly responding to herbal medicine. It was almost as if they were hungry for it, and were ready to embrace herbal medicine. Fire Cider was part of that herbal revolution; it was a medicine we could make in our kitchens, share with others, and bottle, label, sell if we chose to and empower others to use. So, what is all this fuss about Fire Cider? In April of this year (2014) I received an email from a gentleman stating that he had a small herbal business and had been selling Fire Cider on Etsy, an online retail outlet for home crafted products. He was writing to tell me that he had just received a letter demanding that he stop selling Fire Cider as it had been recently trademarked. I assured him that there was some mistake and asked him to forward me the name of the company that had sent the letter to him. Thinking that this was nothing more than a mistake, I wrote a note to the owners of Shire City Herbals, the company that the letter had come from, explaining to them how and when Fire Cider had been created, that it was, in fact, made by thousands of other people, and also made and sold by at least several other companies. And that was that…I clearly thought that once being made aware of the situation; they would withdraw their trademark, or at least change the trademark to reflect their name (Shire City) so that others could continue to market the product as well. When I heard back from Brian Huebner, the senior owner of Shire City Herbals (SCH), he explained that it wouldn’t be possible to drop the trademark. He explained that they had already invested so much money and time in their business and if they dropped the trademark other large businesses would just swoop up the name. SCH felt they had to defend the name Fire Cider by sending out letters that demanded that other companys stop using the name and selling the product. Brian also shared that Fire Cider was a ‘family recipe’ and that Dana’s (a younger partner of SCH), grandmother had taught him how to make it when he was a small child. I must admit, I was a bit flabbergasted when I read this but quickly realized that it was possible that his grandmother (who was probably around my age) could have easily learned how to make the recipe by reading any one of my books that it was copyrighted in, or in my home study course where its been featured since 1981 in the chapter on Herbs for Winter Health, or in several educational videos that have been circulating since the 1980’s. SCH has stated that this ‘family formula’ was based on an ancient traditional recipe. However, in all my years of research I’ve not come across any ‘ancient traditional’ formula that combined this particular combination of spicy, pungent herbs with honey and vinegar or an ‘ancient traditional’ herbal recipe called Fire Cider. Dana, the partner who claims this is his ‘family recipe’, was also a student at a wholistic school of healing that had an herbal component where Fire Cider could easily have been included in the curriculum. While there are three people who claim this is ‘Dana’s family recipe’, there are several thousand people who know otherwise.. In any case, the Shire City Herbal owners made it quite clear that they were unwilling to drop the trademark on Fire Cider. Unbeknownst to me, word had gotten out through several of the business that had received orders to stop selling Fire Cider and there was a virtual outcry on the Internet. Even though I run an herbal business and use social networking through my business account, I’ve never been on Facebook and seldom even use the Internet. My son and a few close friends help me out in this department by posting updates on my website and Facebook page. They began reporting there was a virtual firestorm going on the Internet over Fire Cider, and, unfortunately, some pretty nasty remarks were flying back and forth from both fronts. Though Shire City claim that there was a nasty outpouring and a huge amount of negativity being generated towards them, they fail to mention that there were far more thoughtful and insightful dialogues directed towards them in an attempt to help them understand the enormity of what they had done by claiming a product that clearly had been around long before their company existed ~ and then demanding that other companies stop producing it. What was interesting was how Shire City rewrote the story to claim the ‘recipe as a personal family recipe’ and then to make themselves out as the victims of a ‘harassing herbal community’. Though I’m insanely busy and the last thing in the world I wanted to do was get pulled into an argument over who has the rights to Fire Cider, I felt it was important to step in and try to reclaim Fire Cider as a legacy herbal product and a people’s medicine. Though I fully believe in trademarks and recognize the need for business’s to lay claim to products and titles they’ve created and invested small fortunes in, I find it unjust that someone can lay claim to a name/product that without question has been circulating in the world, in the marketplace, in books (copyrighted since 1991), and articles long before the company SCH was even started (the company is four years old) and quite possibly before, at least, some of the owners were born. Quite clearly, the trademark lawyers didn’t do a good job in their investigations and made an error in granting a trademark to a name/product that was in such free circulation. I sent the owners of Shire City Herbals a second letter explaining that ‘we’ weren’t asking them to stop selling Fire Cider as we could all appreciate their investment of money and time in their product. We were suggesting instead that they change the name to something that would be more reflective of their formula, such as Shire City Fire Cider, enabling other companies who had also made similar investments to continue to sell Fire Cider. The Shire City owners always wrote back respectfully, stating that they were unable to drop the trademark because if they did a large company would swoop in and buy up the name. It seemed a ludicrous response since they were the large company swooping in and putting other herb companies out of business, or at least, demanding that they stop selling Fire Cider. Another claim that Shire City made was that they were doing “good work” spreading Fire Cider to thousands of people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to it. This statement, too, sounded very naïve and self serving to me, as it failed to take into account that hundreds of small businesses were already doing this and had been doing it far longer than SCH had been in existence. Furthermore, we don’t need one ‘big business’ to make Fire Cider for everyone in the country; a much more sustainable model is for many small businesses to supply their local stores, farmers markets and communities. Fire Cider is an emblem, a trademark, for that model of doing business. Within a few hours of notice of the Fire Cider Trademark, comments began pouring in on the Shire City Facebook page, but because most of the comments were being erased a Free Fire Cider Facebook page was set-up so that people could voice their opinions. Shire City Herbals reported the page and had it removed from Facebook. A petition for Shire City Herbals to drop the trademark ~ not to stop selling the product ~ was started and within 24 hours there were over 1,000 signatures, a few days later there were over 6,000 signatures. I believe the petition at last count had over 9,000 names on it. Though the Shire City Herb owners have accused me of igniting this firestorm, I, in fact, had little to do with it. It was the people’s reaction and protest to something that felt wrong to them. This was the first time in the herbal community that a popular herbal product that has been made for decades was usurped and trademarked. And, rightly so, people were upset about it. After the Free Fire Cider Facebook page was removed, making it virtually impossible for people to voice their opinions, I decided to step in and began working with a small nucleus of people so that we could effectively organize ourselves, keep people informed, and decide on the most effective plan of action. Our intention was to be a voice of reason, to attempt to get Fire Cider back, but not to vilify Shire City Herbals. I think most of us are sympathetic to the fact that SCH is a small business (though much larger than many of the businesses that they sent ‘cease sales’ order to) and we don’t want to see them fail. The letters I sent to the owners of SHC, and others posted on the Free Fire Cider website are reflective of this attitude, and are neither demanding nor unfair, but are thoughtful and genuinely written. (All of my letters and postings are available for review at our website freefirecider.) When there was no response to our requests, we began a national boycott in hopes that this might get their attention. Again, no one wants to see SCH go out of business nor to even stop selling their product, but to remove the trademark so that other company’s can continue to make Fire Cider as well. I should mention also that we’ve had apple farmers write who were astounded that the name was trademarked because, apparently, there is an old fashion apple cider product, similar to iced cider, called Fire Cider. If this were about just one herbal product and/or a name, would it be worth the time and effort? Those of us who are advocating to free Fire Cider are busy with our own vibrant lives; we have students, classes, events, and our own small businesses to run. Who has the time to fight this thankless battle? However, if Shire City Herbals is allowed to ‘own’ a product that they neither created nor named, it sets a precedent in the herbal community. What happens to all our other popular legacy herbal recipes? Zoom Balls, Kava Chai, Chaga Chai, Pesto, Nesto (nettle pesto), Kloss’s Liniment, Miracle Grains, or even Elderberry Syrup. What will prevent other “Shire City Herbal’s” from trademarking these popular herbal products, which prevents others from making and selling them? We’ve been told legally there’s nothing that can be done to protect the legacy of herbal products; one has to be Coca Cola or Camel Cigarettes to have that liberty. However, as an herbal community we can create a special category, a Safe Haven, for ‘Herbally Owned’ legacy products; popular herbal products that have been made, used, and sold for decades. We can protect our traditions and we can start by freeing Fire Cider from its trademark. Fire Cider is a tradition, not a trademark. Though we’re told legally there’s nothing that can be done about this situation, we feel there is something and we’re willing to do it. I’m a firm believer in those famed words of Margaret Meade that clearly proclaim, that, as committed citizens we can make a difference and change the world and, indeed, we often are the only thing that ever has. We are asking people who believe in our collective herbal heritage and knowledge and who wish to help preserve our herbal traditions, to make a difference by helping to lift the trademark from Fire Cider by: 1. Make your own Fire Cider. It is simple, fun and easy to make. Recipes are numerous and can be found on blogs, in books, online, on videos’. Or visit freefirecider for recipes. 2. Sign the Free Fire Cider Petition. The petition will be used to present to the Trademark lawyers. 3. Join the Fire Cider boycott by asking your local natural food and herb stores to discontinue selling SCH Fire Cider until the trademark is removed 3. Become involved by visiting the Free Fire Cider website at freefirecider. Thank you sincerely, Rosemary Gladstar Make Your Own Fire Cider The good news is that you can still make your own Fire Cider. It’s fun, simple, and easy to make. There are hundreds of variations on this recipe. Here’s the original: ½ cup grated fresh horseradish root ½ cup or more fresh chopped onions ¼ cup or more chopped garlic ¼ cup or more grated ginger Chopped fresh or dried cayenne pepper ‘to taste’. Can be whole or powdered. ‘ To Taste’ means should be hot, but not so hot you can’t tolerate it. Better to make it a little milder than to hot; you can always add more pepper later if necessary. Optional ingredients; Turmeric, Echinacea, cinnamon, etc. To Make: Place herbs in a half-gallon canning jar and cover with enough raw unpasteurized apple cider vinegar to cover the herbs by at least three to four inches. Cover tightly with a tight fitting lid. Place jar in a warm place and let for three to four weeks. Best to shake every day to help in the maceration process. After three to four weeks, strain out the herbs, and reserve the liquid. Add honey ‘to taste’. Warm the honey first so it mixes in well. “To Taste’ means your Fire Cider should taste hot, spicy, and sweet. “A little bit of honey helps the medicine go down……” Rebottle and enjoy! Fire Cider will keep for several months unrefrigerated if stored in a cool pantry. But it’s better to store in the refrigerator if you’ve room. To take: A small shot glass daily serves as an excellent tonic Or take teaspoons if you feel a cold coming on. Take it more frequently if necessary to help your immune system do battle
Posted on: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 12:10:00 +0000