When people ask me about Fire Cider, my answer can go in a few directions, it can be layered and complex like an herbal formula, or it can be straightforward as a single plant tincture. Both have their place and their depth. Most of the time, though, I find myself landing somewhere in the middle, and that’s exactly where I’ve landed today.
Before 2014, if someone asked me about Fire Cider, I would think back to my time apprenticing on King Hill Farm.
That was about thirty years ago. I was living on a small farm on the Blue Hill Peninsula in Maine, somewhere around the mid-’90s, and I was probably 21 or 22 at the time. I split my week between teaching outdoor education in Lincolnville and apprenticing on this farm in Blue Hill. I lived on the farm part time, working in exchange for knowledge, experience, food and shelter. An arrangement that suited me well.
It was a mixed veggie farm that grew large beautiful onions, garlic, rows and rows of peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, okra, greens and fields of corn. They raised animals for meat and dairy, making both soft and hard cheeses. They grew grains. We would mill them by hand into flour and bake the most delicious loaves of bread, the kind that you would eat warm right out of the oven, slathered in freshly churned butter and jam made from their berries. They did everything on this farm. The pantry was at least the size of a small bedroom, lined floor to ceiling with shelves of jars in every size imaginable, a full-on rainbow of preserved food.
They had an outdoor kitchen where the bounty from the fields would be processed. This is where I learned to make delicious foods like homemade ketchup, sauces, salsa, pickles, relishes.
The farm was also alive with herbs, both wild and intentionally planted. The farmers wouldn’t have called themselves herbalists, but to me, they were. I had already been studying herbs on my own, but my time there deepened my relationship with plants and with making plant medicine which included making Fire Cider.
I can still smell the greenhouse, the damp earth and the harvesting of peppers. Harvesting the onions and how they would be dried in a greenhouse attached to the cow barn, using the sun and methane heat from the barn to cure. The harvesting of garlic and the smell of the dirt and roots as I cleaned them off. To say my time on that farm was special would be an understatement. It was life changing. Life affirming. Every day I felt each cell in my body wake, alive and awakened by all their experiences. Drinking the first sip of my first homemade beer, climbing the old pine tree that overlooked the whole farm, skinny dipping in the pond down the road. I can still feel it all. I ate and drank from that land every day. That summer and fall, I had life peaking experiences.
Back then, the whole area was alive with organic farms, back-to-the-landers, and horse-powered farms. Groups gathered to talk about biodynamics and the cycles of nature. Local farms, like Horse Power Farm, where I also spent time, and King Hill Farm. They came together to create a shared farm stand on a main road in Blue Hill. Each farm took turns running it. I had never seen anything like it, so collaborative, so forward-thinking.
When I think of Fire Cider, I think of all of this. The farmers, the land, the plants. They were my teachers. They showed me that food is medicine, and medicine is food. Fire Cider embodies that truth. It’s made from simple, powerful ingredients, the kind you can walk into any grocery store and find today.
If you had asked me about Fire Cider anytime after June of 2015, I probably would’ve thought about the first batch I ever made, but now there was a new experience forming, one of frustration, anger, and stress. That was the year myself and two other herbalists, Mary Blue and Nicole Telkes, were sued by a company called Shire City. They had trademarked the term “Fire Cider,” claiming ownership of a name that had long belonged to the herbal community, but now herbalists across the country couldn’t use the term on their products anymore, myself included. This company was going after anyone using Fire Cider.
The herbal community’s response to learning of the trademark, in late 2014, was incredible. People organized boycotts, filed petitions, and stood up in solidarity. When Shire City retaliated by suing the three of us for “loss of sales” and a bunch of other baseless claims, it was infuriating, but also clarifying. I won’t go into all the details here, but if you want to read more, you can check out this great blog: Fire Cider Goes to Court: Fighting for Folk Herbalism.
Being sued while running a small business was a stressful experience. My livelihood and everything I’d built was on the line. But in the middle of all that stress, I found a deep sense of clarity, inspiration, and strength. We knew we had to see this case all the way to trial. There were moments when we could’ve settled, but if we had, Shire City would’ve kept the trademark and continued to go after small herbal businesses. And that didn’t sit right with any of us. Fire Cider was never theirs to own; it's a community-based remedy that herbalists had been making and selling for decades before they ever came along.
This lawsuit brought the herbal community together. Herbalists and supporters from all over the country came together to help us, offering donations, encouragement, food, and friendship. The bond between Mary, Nicole, and Rosemary Gladstar (the actual creator of the term “Fire Cider”) grew into a powerful sisterhood.
When our trial finally came, in the spring of 2019, herbalists filled the courtroom, showing up for us in every way they could. Witnesses traveled from all over the country to take the stand and share their truth. The trial took many days that spanned over a couple of weeks. I was one of the last people to be called to the stand, spending days in a state of anxiety as I waited my turn. When finally it was my time to take the stand, I had no idea how powerful an experience it would be. I remember envisioning a clear blue crystal lake while sitting there. My words and thoughts were clear. After years of enduring lies this company spread, I felt so empowered in my truth.
It would be months of waiting to learn how the judge would rule, but in October of 2019, after five long years, we finally learned that we had won. The trademark was canceled, and Fire Cider was officially declared a generic term that belongs to everyone. It was a victory not just for us, but for the entire herbal community.
If you’d asked me about Fire Cider after October 2019, I would’ve told you that I was determined to make a name for our farm-to-bottle Fire Cider in the natural products industry and in the national market.
My business had taken a serious hit during the lawsuit. The company suing us had defamed us, spreading lies across the natural products industry to buyers, investors and sales people. I recently discovered in 2024 that, a few years after they lost the lawsuit, they had hired a CEO, and told that person that they were the defendants and that we had sued them. These lies followed me for years, as I tried to keep selling Fire Cider in the natural products world on a national level.
Despite all of this, I believed in our product. Always have. When it comes to a national level Fire Cider brand, we have one of the best to offer. So when one of the largest natural grocery chains in the country picked us up, along with a big national distributor, I was elated.
I had the plan. The space. The machines. The team. I thought I had it all figured out. I wanted this to work. But instead, it nearly broke me. It nearly put my business under. The stress felt like an extension of the lawsuit energy—the same heavy, draining force I’d already been through. And I realized I couldn’t keep carrying it. So I let it go.
Last summer I realized I had to let go of Fire Cider. I had to stop trying to swim upstream with a bottle in each of my hands, instead I needed to lay back and let the waters current take me, and trust where it would lead.
Fire Cider continues to teach me about authenticity, resilience, and what truly matters which is knowing that Fire Cider along with SO many other herbal remedies will continue to live year after year, decade upon decade, through the work of herbalists and farmers.
The work I do as a farmer, herbalist and herbal business owner, ultimately always comes back to the relationship I have with the plants, animals and natural world. This connection will forever keep bringing me back to that feeling I had on the farm when I first fell in love with this work, the curiosity, the wonder, the learning. As a farmer and an herbalist I’ll keep tending to the land, the animals, and the plants. I’ll keep making medicine, sharing it with others, and learning every step of the way.
And Herbal Revolution will keep doing what we do best, crafting the highest quality, farm-to-bottle, seed-to-shelf, herbal products, like Fire Cider, to communities at large keeping people supported through the power of plants.
To everyone affected by the wildfires, we would like to share the following herbs, as recommended by our founder and clinical herbalist, Kathi Langelier. These herbs are recommended for respiratory system, nervous system, and heart support.
To celebrate Women’s History Month (and International Women’s Day) we’d like to introduce you to our fabulous team… with a QUIZ!!!
