- [announcer] A Fork in the road was brought to you by.

- [Announcer] From produce to people.

The best things are grown and raised in Georgia.

Even in tough times, we come together, work hard and grow strong.

When you purchase Georgia grown products, you support farmers, families, and this proud state we call home.

Together, we will keep Georgia growing.

- [Announcer] Georgia FSIS provides efficient and accurate third-party inspection services to members of the industry.

We inspect various fresh commodities, including peanuts, fruits, vegetables, and pecans.

The use of the inspection service ensures the shipment of high quality products and enhances Georgia's reputation as a supplier of superior agricultural products.

- The fascinating and ever-changing world of agriculture.

Let's hit the road here in Georgia and meet the farmers, producers, makers, and bakers who keep us all fed and keep us coming back for more.

Straight ahead at the Fork in the Road.

♪ I came from the mud ♪ ♪ There's dirt on my hands ♪ ♪ Strong like a tree ♪ ♪ There's roots where I stand ♪ - [David] Georgia farmers, artisans, merchants and producers, we depend on these men and women every day of our lives through the choices we make and the food we consume.

Their strategy and approach is always shifting, but the end game remains the same, results.

(upbeat music) Let's begin this episode down in Metter and Savannah to discover, or rather rediscover, the original Georgia grown caffeinated beverage.

(upbeat music) You may say that these look like a bunch of bushes.

That's because they are, you'll add that you've seen them before and once again, you probably have.

But did you know that this one is a male and this one is a female, or that these leaves were frequently used by Native Americans to calm nerves, purify water, suppress appetite, and do streams, heal wounds and regulate menstrual cycle, just to name a few.

Yaupon holly farmer Lou Thomann found this research quite fascinating and has since made a career out of learning more.

And in turn sharing more about the wonders of yaupon holly with the likes of you and me.

- This is the Yaupon Research Farm.

And my position is I'm founder and CEO, or Chief Leaf, I don't know.

My family and I about 11 years ago, had a nature walk on Ossabaw Island, which is a barrier island off of Savannah.

And we were accompanied by a naturalist by the name of John "Crawfish" Crawford who's a local legend around the waters of Savannah, and he introduced me to the yaupon tree.

And he told us about the Native American medicinal use of the plant.

Also it's use as a native tea.

I just fell in love with the tree, it spoke to me and I knew at that moment that I was on a different journey.

Yaupon's a native species so it likes this region.

I mean, we're in the region where it grows naturally.

What I did here is I propagated wild yaupon from a maritime forest down in Darien, Georgia on Bird Island.

And I transplanted them here and it loves the soil, loves the climate.

What makes it interesting as a row crop is it's drought resistant, the deer really don't like it, it's the last thing they're going to eat.

It's cold resistant and it keeps on growing, it's an evergreen.

You just cut it back and it grows back.

So it's a interesting endeavor as a row crop.

- [David] Lou grows some in the shade and some in the sun and they do grow well down here in Metter because after all it's the plants native environment.

- So here's a yaupon right here a nice, healthy one.

- [David] What makes it look healthy?

What are you looking for?

- It's green it has new growth, even though it's kind of late in the season, it's going to be dormant soon in the winter, but this is new growth right here.

And that has all the good stuff in it.

It's kind of like all the power, the caffeine and the antioxidants are all right there.

- [David] I mean, is it the leaf and the stem?

- The stem, the pliable stems.

And it's got.. nice and green and it's a really strong leaf.

It's waxy and firm.

So, here we have some samples of yaupon under high shade.

So it's blocking out a lot of sunlight.

And we know in natural forest, you tend to see larger leaves.

And this is just a beautiful plant.

And this whole section we're studying under the USDA grant to see what kind of chemistry we get in different shade conditions, with different fertilizers as well.

And as you can see, this is just a magnificent tree and all these are big luscious trees.

It does love the shade, things like theobromine like the sun, caffeine likes the shade.

So these would be higher in caffeine than the ones on the direct sunlight.

However, we're trying to see if we can change that a little bit by giving the yaupon in full sunlight different fertilization's as well.

So we're still trying to figure some things out about what happens in direct sunlight, and why.

- [David] Theobromine, you had a name for that, a nickname.

- Ah, the elixir of the God, that's the alkaloid that's in dark chocolate that everybody craves.

And so yaupon has a lot of it.

And it's an interesting possibility to extract the theobromine as a product.

People want the feel-good elixir.

Yaupon was also referred to as the Christmas berry tree during colonial times.

And the colonials really loved it as a tea as well, but the berries we think have nutritional or medicinal value as well.

We just haven't really done a lot of work on that.

This is a male plant, so the female has berries.

The male does not.

And it's an incredible pollinator too, it makes beautiful honey, it almost tastes savory.

It's sweet, but not sweet like a lot of honeys, a lot of people say that tastes like a little rosemary in it.

- [David] Lou and his business partner Laurie Judge have gone all in on yaupons since 2010, when they were first introduced to the plant.

Since then they have achieved many first in the industry.

They took the first ready to drink yaupon tea to the market.

Received the first USDA grants to promote yaupon tea.

Started the first dedicated yaupon farm focused on perfecting techniques for growing and processing and established their position as the first national distributor of any yaupon product.

- It's neuroprotective.

Anti-diabetic, anti-obese, cardiovascular productivity, anti-cancer activity, anti-bacterial.

- [David] And in 2019, they took it a step further sharing their amazing product with residents and visitors in Savannah, Georgia with the opening of this adorable teahouse and apothecary in the heart of downtown Savannah's historic streets.

(upbeat music) - Everything in this store has some tie-in to the yaupon holly plant, a plant that we are very passionate about.

Yaupon was used for skincare, for wound care.

It's an antibacterial.

And it's also full of those sapiens that I mentioned, which are great for skin.

It's great for the interior, internal part of the body, but it's also really good for your skin.

So we have a daily facial oil.

We mix it with all organic, beautiful ingredients.

And this is our biggest seller.

Vogue magazine did a piece on this particular product and that's our biggest seller.

Herbal smokes.

Medicine men did smoke yaupon.

We don't know a lot about the traditional smoking, but it was smoked to maybe invoke dream sequences, maybe to help divine what kind of remedy he should give to his patients.

We also have yaupon incense, being a sacred plant we thought that would make a great modern day product and people love it.

We sell a lot of these.

Ready-to-drink teas.

Once again, a modern version of an ancient tradition.

- [David] And it's here I had the opportunity to discover this amazing Georgia grown product that Lou thankfully rediscovered and continues to explore.

So cheers to Lou and the yaupon holly and only time will tell what new therapeutic and tasty qualities this unassuming little plant has to offer.

(upbeat music) From Savannah, Georgia's oldest city down to Darien the state's second oldest city, where I met a man who brings those tasty Georgia blue crabs to the shore.

A city founded by hardworking Scottish Highlanders with big dreams.

After a few ups and downs over the centuries, the Darien of today has rebounded and is as charming as ever.

And here seafood is still king, along with the picturesque shrimp boats that explore these back rivers there are fishermen searching for other tasty, coastal treasures, one in particular, the Georgia blue crab.

Let's meet McIntosh County crabber Brian Vickers.

(upbeat music) You are a crabber here in McIntosh County.

Is that the right term for it?

- Yes, that's it, we're crabbers.

- [David] Tell me about your morning.

- Every morning we start out six to seven o'clock get our baits, get everything loaded up.

Get everything goin' and then we start the day.

Start pullin', workin' about five, six hours a day pullin' crabs.

- [David] And we're going for the sweet blue crabs, right?

- [Brian] We're goin' blue crabs, that's right.

- [David] What are you going to have me doing here today?

- Do you wanna get your hands in the tank?

- I gotta get my hands dirty, yeah.

The crews gonna mess with me here if I don't-- - Okay, I gottcha, wish I'd bought another pair of gloves for you.

- Okay.

- I'll let you try with bare hands.

- Yeah, yeah we'll see what happens there.

Seeing these winding rivers and pristine uncrowded marshes at sunrise is a wondrous sight.

It's like cutting through glass and the color is constantly evolving.

And today was a prosperous day on the Altamaha River Delta for Brian and me.

Hey, I'm happy.

- You've gotta be just constantly cleaning these things this time of year, the grass grows on 'em.

If you don't keep 'em clean it get to the point they won't get in it.

- [David] So they're angry.

So I'm not going to stick my hand in right now.

- [Brian] Before we go and gut they've gotta be at least five inches.

That's about five and a half.

Gotta be five inches and more.

- [David] Oh, got it, okay.

See what mine does here.

Ah.

- [Brian] So you can handle that crab - Ah, okay.

Yeah, his one, I'm not afraid of this guy, see.

I'm going to let you work with those right now.

- All right.

- So we made them all.

He's trying to bite me, look at that.

- [Brian] You go and grab him like that just push down on his back grab him by his back fin.

Wooh, hold it like that.

(music drowns out Brian) - [Presenter] I see him reaching around.

- [Brian] You see I'm wearing big gloves too.

That makes a big difference too.

- Yeah, I don't need gloves.

- You're tough.

- Yeah I'm tough, but you see, I'm not reaching my hand in there.

I got this one and I'm happy how I am.

I'll get right under it.

- The rapids, one of roots, we ran up to it.

Throw the rope up in a boom.

Alright.

- [David] Push down hard, right?

- [ Brian] Yep.

- Oh, but he's hanging onto someone else.

Oh yeah.

Let him go.

He's not worth it.

- [Brian] He won't ever turn them loose because you holdin' him he won't turn that one loose.

- Look at that, what have we got here?

- Garfish.

- It was a garfish.

- Was a garfish, yeah.

- So he got his head in there.

And there he goes.

So the gar got his head stuck in the trap.

These crabs annihilated him.

Man, I love the blue color on these claws.

Yes!

I was so sure I was gonna blow it.

- Two for two.

- Yes, sir.

- I want you get a grab on to and get hold of it.

- I got to commit, right?

Woah, yeah, they're fighting.

Oh no.

Oh, I flipped another one.

All right, I know you got work to do here.

Sure was fun.

That was crazy.

You just hear the (makes crunching sound).

We're catching crabs and I think I'm gonna be eating later.

- [Brian] That's right.

- Thank you so much, Brian, appreciate it.

- Have a good one, thanks.

- Thanks.

(water splashes) After gathering a bushel or two of tasty crabs, I tracked down local resident Davis Poole of the McIntosh Rod and Gun Club where one of their traditions is a crab boil.

And these are the type of folks who do it right.

(upbeat music) Davis, thanks for letting me bring the crab here.

- Glad you came here.

- Yeah, you guys do this all the time here, right?

- We do, we host a couple of events every year, fishin' tournaments and we have an annual oyster roast and a Low-Country Boil.

- I've done it before, but I want to do it right, the first time 'cause people are watching.

- All right.

- All right.

Show me what to do here.

- Basically, you take the crab, break off those claws, take a device, open up the shell itself, peel it back.

Basically, you're backing it.

Brake off all the legs.

Break off the swim bladders, 'cause they don't taste that good.

And there's your back.

You have two big chunks of meat inside there that you have to pick out and you have two beautiful claws that you can break and eat right now.

- I was really good in school for the first two steps.

Step one, two, come back get the tool.

- Peel that open.

- Peel that open - Excellent, and there you have a body.

And then you pick the meat out the individual body and you pick the meat out of the individual claws.

Chow time.

- Oh yeah.

That's where I start talking.

Sweet, savory, buttery, all those things.

- [Davies] Good blue crab.

- Thanks Davis.

- Our pleasure.

(upbeat music) - [David] So after the savory crab and soothing tea along the coast, we journey up to Statesboro for dessert where Jonnny Boy himself whips up a few magical cookie concoctions.

(upbeat music) Remember grandma's cookies, freshly baked, soft in the center and made with the touch of love.

Well, this guy sure does.

So much so he's made a career out of it.

- Who doesn't love cookies?

Johnny Womack and his wife Hannah have now centered their lives around this circular masterpiece.

Jonny Boy making the natural career transition from medical supplies salesmen to cookie scientist.

- I would go to doctor's offices and I would do lunches for 'em.

I was doing a lunch in Savannah and I was , "Hey you guys come on in.

"I got you some Chick-fil-A".

And I made lunch, I made dessert, I made some caramel apple cookies and there's some chocolate chip in there.

So y'all just come on and let's go over everything.

And I'm up there giving my little spiel.

And I remember like one of the doctors was like, whoa, he took one bite of the cookie and he, "You made this?"

And I was like, "Yes sir."

He said, "Well, I don't know what you're selling now, "but you need to really start looking at selling these."

And I was like, "Okay, thanks for the advice."

I did think about it.

Yeah, I wasn't really planning on it being a side hustle kind of thing.

Like it was more just a hobby.

I started getting more phone calls about the cookies than I was about the drugs we were trying to get the doctors to prescribe.

- Everyone loves cookies, yes.

But you think about a kid eating a cookie, they'll eat anything that has sugar in it and they'll like it.

So we wanted to make something that had a layer of flavors.

- [Jonny] I try to base a lot of my stuff on Southern traditions, how I grew up eating.

- I think when Jonny gets in the kitchen and he starts working on these recipes, you know, in the back of his mind, he's always thinking about the experience that someone's having.

So it's about more than just eating a cookie and getting that satisfaction from just a sweet.

it's got to be more than that.

- [David] They've coined it as the World's Finest Cookie.

- We like really retro stuff and everything back in the '50s and '60s is the world's finest.

- Worlds finest.

(they laugh) - [David] And you best not argue until you've tried it.

- This is our brownie cookie.

So it's dense, chewy.

You get hints of hazelnut.

I remember whenever I first made the salted caramel brownie batter, that cookie dough is so good.

And I tried it and I was like, "Oh my God."

This was like two, three o'clock in the morning.

She would be a asleep in the bed - It's always in the middle of the night when normal people sleep.

And I'd be like, "Try this."

And she's like, "Huh, what baby?"

I'm like "Here, try it, are you awake?"

"Hmm, Yeah."

- In my sleep.

- And she goes, "Hmm, that's good."

This one is our caramel apple cookie.

So, it's an oatmeal base cookie with diced fuji apples and caramel bits.

Balancing out the flavors is probably the biggest thing that sets us apart.

Not that everyone can't do that.

It's just the amount of time and effort.

And even like standby recipes I'll still tweak sometimes.

I'll make like a small batch just to try to see if you do this a little bit different, can it make it better?

(upbeat music) - [David] So without giving away any epic grandma's secrets, Jonny Boy took me to the bakery to see the magic in person.

- Here was our original recipes for the cookies.

So white chocolate, macadamia, chocolate chip, peach cobbler.

This was most of my note taking when I was making stuff.

There's almost nothing in here about methods or anything.

Cream pies, double chocolate.

Today we're going to make chocolate chip.

I always do both sugars together.

We do a granulated sugar and a brown sugar base.

And them I'm gonna let those go ahead and start getting to know each other.

We use a Madagascar Bourbon vanilla.

It does not have bourbon in it.

It is from the island Bourbon in Madagascar.

I learned that later.

(rock music) A dozen eggs.

(rock music) Making sure that all of the butter and flour and everything is all combined well is one way to ensure that we have consistency with our cookies.

- [David] So whether you gather your cookies from Jonny Boy's Statesboro store or track down their popular food truck, you can't go wrong in the end because after all, you will be consuming the World's Finest Cookie.

It says it right there on the sign, so it must be true.

(upbeat music) From Statesboro we journey to Carrollton for our final stop on this sweet and savory tour of Georgia to learn more about beer, printing and of course, Matt Damon?

Just a couple of miles from charming downtown Carrollton lies a printing company, where they brew beer and grow hops.

Brewery founder, Greg Smith explains the un-ordinary beginnings of the Printer's Ale Manufacturing Company.

Printer's Ale Manufacturing Company, sounds like a brewery, right?

- It is, it's a brewery, yes it is.

Manufacturing, because I always liked making things.

And so I thought it sounded old school as well.

I liked that.

- Well, you say old school, this company, your family goes way back.

Let's go to the beginning.

- The printing business I knew about forever.

My great grandfather started that company in 1911 in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

We started in Scranton, Pennsylvania, we came down to Carrollton, Georgia.

1981 is when the plant started here in Carrollton.

- This was printing, what were you printing?

- Record labels at the time.

So CBS, Columbia Music opened up their record pressing facility in Carrollton, Georgia of all places, in like 1979, 1980.

It's really neat 'cause you go downtown there's a vinyl shop-- - Yeah.

- of vinyl records and you don't see that anymore.

- It's crazy how vinyl has actually come back.

- [David] Yeah, it's really it.

- I like vinyl, I collect those records all the time.

So, the printing facility was here and we started the brewery.

2017 is when it started up.

But the brewing went way, way back.

I didn't know anything about the brewery until my uncle showed up here one day, literally like a year after we opened my uncle shows up and he says, "You know your great, great, great grandfather was a brewer in Germany."

- Great, great, great grandfather.

- Great, great, great grandfather, yeah.

- That's legit?

- Yeah, Martin Fisher.

So he sent me the information.

He sent me the pictures they're up on the wall in there and went over to Germany.

My wife and I did.

And I saw the place on the wall.

It still exists, it still looks exactly like that.

I met the guy who owns it.

His family bought it from my great, great grandfather.

And yeah, that history is kind of fun.

- And it's all connected to Carrollton, Georgia.

- Yeah to Carrollton, Georgia for sure.

I'd been a home brewer for 27 years.

And Carrollton didn't have a brewery.

So I went well, I could just move my brewing equipment over here and put it back here.

So I literally, "Well that'll be fun."

And I open up a little brewery.

I can have a little, a little nano-brewery for Carrollton.

So then I got Excel out, opened up a beer, started doing some math on it and I realized you can't make any money doing one barrel, two barrels, five barrels.

The 20 barrel be a nice system if you have any success.

So that's what I got.

- [David] And Carrollton and this whole area appreciate it.

- [[Greg] Yeah, yeah.

yeah.

I look at the flavors and they look very similar to when I'm mad at my printer and trying to figure out that I have to pay $50 to replace the ink.

- Yes.

- Cyan, magenta, yellow, black are the four colors that we use in printing all the time, every day.

So that's why it's called everyday magenta yellow.

- But then we get to a beer like this.

- Matt Damon, Matt Damon Cries When He Said-- - Why, why?

- So that's a new England IPA.

- And it's really good.

- Yes, thank you.

- So the New England IPA's are really about New Englanders.

That's what I thought.

- He's a New Englander okay, got it.

So again, why does Matt Damon cry?

- So yes, Matt Damon, he's got this image to me at least of being like the super soldier.

You know, the guy who can destroy everything and then his other movies, he's kind of a psycho a little bit, even in "Goodwill Hunting".

He's incapable of crying until the end when Robin Williams, "It's not your fault, it's not your fault."

And so Matt Damon finally has some emotion in that movie.

He's down to earth, he's a person, he cries.

He feels just like the rest of us.

- [David] Something else I like, you go from room to room and it's not like the rooms are getting small.

You go through a doorway and you've got a big room like this.

You also have great outdoor space.

This has gotta be a wonderful spot for the whole community.

- [Greg] Yeah, for sure.

It's 15 acres of land out here and you wouldn't even know it when you're driving by and you know, it's an industrial park.

- [David] Yeah, When I first drove up I saw these long strands look like a giant wine growing, but it's not wine.

It's something that you don't see much around here.

- Hops.

- Yeah.

- Hops, they require a lot light and we don't get as much light as they need.

So, they grow well but we'll never get enough to do our core beers or to do a lot of beer with them.

We get enough to do specialized beers.

So we, we have a wild beer program.

We put Hop Warp in a cool ship, a the big open container.

You let it get inoculated by the wild yeast of the area.

And then after you bring it out, you can dry hop it with cheesy, old aged hops.

We call them a state hops.

- The state hop, as it's very funny.

- It is right.

- I like, it's neat you do that thing.

You give people a taste of what can be done around here.

- Yeah, I didn't really know what to expect when we started on this, but the whole city has been great.

It's been fun.

- And a good ride, you're making a lot of people happy, you're doing a good thing - For sure.

- All right.

All right, well to Matt Damon.

- To Matt Damon.

(upbeat music) [David] So, from frothy refreshing beverages to tasty crab, calming tea and the world's finest cookie, we now conclude this sweet and savory sample of Georgia grown goodness.

I'm David Zelski, see you at the next Fork in the Road.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] A Fork in the Road was brought to you by.

- [Announcer] From produce to people, the best things are grown and raised in Georgia.

Even in tough times, we come together, work hard and grow strong.

When you purchase Georgia grown products, you support farmers, families, and this proud state we call home.

Together, we will keep Georgia growing.

- [Announcer] Georgia FSIS provides efficient and accurate third-party inspection services to members of the industry.

We inspect various fresh commodities, including peanuts, fruits, vegetables, and pecans.

The use of the inspection service ensures the shipment of high quality products and enhances Georgia's reputation as a supplier of superior agricultural products.