(upbeat music) - [Commentator] You can come and sit in the middle of a hop field and drink a beer that's made with the hops that you're literally sitting around.

You can really find beers that you can't find elsewhere.

(upbeat music) They can be a part of the culture in the Yakima Valley, which includes hops and wildly creative craft beer and all the personality that goes with it.

(upbeat music) - My name's Pamela Montgomery.

I'm the founder and CEO of Chukar Cherry Company, which is commonly known as Chukar Cherries.

(soft jazz music) We are in the beautiful Prosser area, which is in Washington's Yakima Valley.

Prosser is quiet, but enough of a bustle and hustle.

(soft jazz music) When I moved here, I was 30 years old and had a young family and a two-week-old daughter.

I was dating a man who became my husband and we started a laundromat.

We figured out how to do it, put it in, and it was a big success.

And we made enough money to sell that.

It's hard to believe, but we could afford 100 acres, 8000 trees, a cherry orchard.

And we said, "Well, why not?"

We knew nothing.

So, we bought it and it was an older owner.

They were mature trees, but it was beautiful.

It is still beautiful.

(soft percussion music) So, we moved here, and it was a shock going from Seattle with all the night lights, and then I came here and at night there were hardly any lights out there.

And within two and a half years, I had twins.

So, it was really an adventure.

Chukar Cherries started because I had my hands full.

With 8,000 trees, just statistically, branches were left unpicked.

I rediscovered something our ancestors knew and that is you let the fruit sit on the branch, the natural sugars build just inside naturally, and it acts like a, functions as a preservative.

They were delicious.

And I had added nothing to them.

That's how the idea started.

And then with an idea, you have to have a vision, right?

And the vision was I didn't want to add any preservatives.

I didn't want to have to add sugar.

And then I wondered what other cherry goodies could I make, right?

(upbeat jazz music) Well, I get all this equipment, then I figure out how to use it.

We have all our old copper Craftsman kettles with motors.

When you coat a center, it's the centrifugal force and adding the chocolate, and working it with warm air or cold air that's piped into the opening that either sets or spreads the chocolate.

(upbeat jazz music) Chukar cherries dehydrates three different Washington cherry varietals that are renowned in our state and in our region.

The dark, sweet Bings, which have a lot of texture and a little bit of acidity with the sweetness.

The golden Rainiers, which are an offspring of the Bing, and they're kind of a large, white cherry and they're honey sweet, very sweet.

And then the sour Montmorency cherry, which most people think of as a tart cherry.

What makes them different is really the level of innate sugar in a tree-ripened fruit and the acidity that helps balance to create a full flavor.

These three Washington cherries are the foundation of everything that Chukar makes.

The centers of all our chocolate-covered goodies are either a dried Bing, a dried Rainier, or a tart Montmorency cherry.

When we use our dried sweet cherries, particularly the Bings, because they have more acid, they taste really good with a semi-sweet or ultra-dark chocolate.

The Rainiers, we don't cover in white chocolate because it'd be sweet with sweet, but they will taste very good with a dark chocolate if you have a flavoring, a natural flavoring that enhances them, like our Amaretto Rainiers.

And then the tart cherries are so good with either a dark or a milk cherry.

Chukar cherries, whether they're chocolate coated or naturally dried with no sugar added, are a wonderful way to celebrate the Pacific Northwest, its bounty, its style, and its taste.

(soft jazz music) Chukar Cherries was like a gift from the heavens, right?

(soft jazz music) Gradually, over time, Chukar Cherries developed and now we're celebrating 35 years.

And that happened with a lot of incredible teammates.

I love what I do.

I wouldn't stop unless I had to.

But I do have two daughters in the business.

So, I think we'll just keep going.

You never know what the future holds, right?

(soft piano music) - [Narrator] "Made There" is made in part with generous support from Yakima Valley Tourism.