She Turned Blueberry Picking into A Fruitful Career
Kether Smith turned a childhood of berry picking and creek wading into a career that combines her love of creativity, food, and family. The cofounder of Asheville’s Botanist and Barrel cidery and winery shares how a small blueberry farm launched a booming business. Image: Kether Smith
You can take the girl off the farm, but she’ll find her way back! Chapel Hill native Kether Smith spent her childhood summers roaming the Pennsylvania countryside before earning degrees in ceramics and the culinary arts. Though she found success in Atlanta working under a Certified Master Chef, Kether longed for her agrarian roots and eventually settled back in North Carolina with her husband and twin sons. She purchased Cedar Grove Blueberry Farm in 2014 with her brother and sister-in-law before launching Asheville’s Botanist and Barrel cidery and winery in 2017. We caught up with Kether to talk family, farming, and finding her way back to what she loves.
How did Botanist and Barrel get its start?
My brother and I spent our summers on our grandparents’ farmland in Pennsylvania, picking berries and wading in the creek. There wasn’t much of a schedule. Around 2014, we bought a small pick-your-own blueberry farm in Cedar Grove, NC. We had fruit that wasn’t suitable to take to farmers’ markets, so we started making blueberry cider and blueberry wine.
I brought my experience in the kitchen to those first experiments, tasting and thinking about balance. The farm brought together a lot of things I’d loved for years: fruit, food, family, and making something with my hands.
What is pét nat cider?
Pét nat is short for pétillant naturel, which means naturally sparkling. We bottle the cider while it’s still fermenting. As the yeast finishes its work, the bubbles get trapped in the bottle. That’s where the sparkle comes from.
It sounds simple, but getting the timing right is one of the hardest things we do. We let the native yeast do the fermenting, and we don’t filter or pasteurize our pét nat ciders or add sulfites. There’s a lot of attention that goes into letting the fruit speak for itself.
Your commitment to sustainability and the Asheville community is evident. How do those values shape the way you run Botanist and Barrel?
When you grow fruit yourself, you know how much work goes into it. You don’t want to see it go to waste. That was part of why we started fermenting in the first place. And sometimes there’s still good flavor left after pressing, so we make other beverages with the apple pomace and grape skins.
The community part matters just as much. We buy fruit from regional growers and feature local makers on our snack menu and cheese boards. We’re a small business that depends on people choosing to support us, and we want to do the same for the people around us.
You are in business with your brother and sister-in-law. What advice do you have for families who want to work together?
Spend time together that has nothing to do with the business. You have to be able to have dinner or enjoy your kids together without every conversation turning into work. We were a family before we started this, and we need to make time for that.
As the mother of twin boys, you’ve navigated raising a family while building a business. What have you learned about juggling the demands of work and family life?
That’s a tough one. I don’t think I’ve figured out balance. Raising kids while getting a small business off the ground is hard, especially when money is tight. There are things you miss, and that’s hard to make peace with.
What helped me was including the boys when I could. They helped paint the winery when they were little, and I remember them giggling and getting paint all over their clothes. We had work to do, but they were having fun, and we were together.
I’d say look for those opportunities, even small ones. It doesn’t make the sacrifices disappear, but I’m glad we have those memories, too.
What’s your favorite way to spend an afternoon?
Taking my dog for a walk in the woods. We have some great trails near our house, and getting outside helps me clear my head. If the weather keeps me home, I like to bake. Nothing fancy, usually banana bread or blueberry muffins. I spend a lot of time thinking about food and fermentation for work, but I still enjoy making something simple at home.
Where do you go to get inspired?
The farmland in Pennsylvania where I spent my summers as a kid is still one of my favorite places. Until a few years ago, I’d never been in the fall. Then I went and realized there were apples growing all over the place. I’d spent so much time there and had missed this whole other season.
Now I’m walking around wanting to taste every apple and wondering what we could make with it. It’s fun to go somewhere you know so well and still find something that gets you excited.
What is something people might be surprised to learn about you?
I’m a first-generation American. My mother is French but grew up in the Middle East, and my father is from South Africa. Both moved to the United States as teenagers. I’ve lived in the South my whole life, and it’s absolutely home. But there’s a part of me that knows my people came from somewhere else. It’s not often, but every once in a while, I feel like a visitor, even in the place I’ve always lived.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
As a kid, I wanted to be a massage therapist. I had my first massage when I was eight, and I remember being amazed that the therapist could tell when I was tensing my muscles. It was a new experience, so I wasn’t very good at relaxing!
I liked the idea that you could help someone feel better by working with your hands. I’ve always liked being helpful, and that stuck with me. I still think everyone should get a massage every now and then. It’s one of the few times you can do something good for yourself and let someone else do all the work.
What’s next for Botanist and Barrel?
We’re starting a vinegar house called Sour Folk. We can use some of the byproducts from winemaking, so it gives us a way to get more out of the fruit we’re already bringing in. That’s part of building a stronger local food system for us. Buy from nearby farmers, waste less, and find more ways to turn what grows here into something people want in their kitchens.
The vinegars will be raw, fermented in our cellar, and bottled with the mother. I’m already thinking about what to put them on.
What’s your best piece of advice?
Keep your eyes and your mind open. When we’re on vacation, we’ll try food we’ve never heard of, wander down a street just to see what’s there, or strike up a conversation. But at home, it’s easy to stick to what we know. Try something even if you’re not sure you’ll like it. Be willing to feel a little out of place. You don’t have to go far to find something that surprises you.
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Beth Clayton
For over 20 years, Beth Clayton has either been working in a newsroom or pitching one. A natural storyteller and word nerd from the moment she could pick up a pencil, she earned her journalism degree from Butler University and spent the next decade as a writer, reporter, and editor. She now lives in Louisville, KY with her husband, three kids, and a very bad dog, and loves immersing herself in old lady hobbies such as houseplants and macrame.
