The Hands That Grow the Bitters: A Visit to Bluestem Botanicals

Where plants are partners, bitterness is beauty, and every bottle remembers the field it came from.

There is a place in Pennsylvania where the bitters taste like they remember.
Not just where they were born, but who they were born with.

Walk the perimeter of Bluestem Botanicals and you’ll find more than herbs.
You’ll find a rhythm. A quiet hum beneath the wind, like the land itself is humming in tune with its caretakers.

In a world where farms too often feel like factories, this one feels like a breath.
You exhale as soon as you step onto the path.

The grasses sway like they’ve been here for centuries.
The bees know their names.
The soil is dark with memory.

And somewhere near the edge of the garden, a man in suspenders walks the rows, not hurried, not posing, just being there. Just listening.

That’s how Bluestem starts.
With listening.

What Makes a Bitters Beautiful

Bitters are the backbone of every good cocktail.
But they are also medicine, mythology, and mood…all bottled at once.

Most bitters on the market are flashy, over-perfumed, made in labs far from dirt.
But Bluestem’s bitters feel different.

They feel like they were made by hands that know what lavender smells like before it’s dried.
They feel like they were made for more than drinks. Like they were made for nervous systems.

There’s a reason the ancients revered bitterness.
It grounds us. Balances us. Reminds us we are not all sugar and ligh, we are shadows, too. And in those shadows, medicine grows.

Bluestem’s bitters taste like they know this.
They whisper it with every drop.

Meet the Stewards of the Soil

Linda Shanahan, MSN, RN, walks the farm like someone who remembers the language of both pulse and petal.

She’s not just a nurse and herbalist…she’s a bridge.
Between white coats and wild roots.
Between Western medicine and what the land already knows.
Her hands have held both IV bags and elderflowers.
She’s taught apothecary classes with the same calm as hospice care. And now she moves among the lemon balm and chamomile like she’s found the place where both paths meet.

Beside her is Eric Vander Hyde, an herb farmer and former controls engineer whose past life involved machines and systems, wires and precision.
But now? Now he builds ponds instead of platforms.
He shapes compost piles, lays out berms, and watches rain patterns like they’re gospel.
Where some see weeds, he sees wisdom.
Where others ask for control, he listens for cooperation.

Together, they founded Bluestem Botanicals in 2008.
A place where polyculture thrives, where 70+ medicinal plants are grown not in lines, but in relationships.
Their farm is USDA-certified organic, but more importantly, it’s emotionally organic: nothing forced, nothing faked, nothing rushed.

These aren’t just growers.

They’re keepers of a sacred rhythm. Translators of chlorophyll. They don’t just produce ingredients.

They bottle trust.

And in a world obsessed with scaling, speeding, and stripping down, Linda and Eric are proof that growing slow (with purpose, with respect, with relationship) is the most radical act of all.

Doylestown, Where It All Grows Quietly

Some places scream their beauty.
Doylestown whispers it.

It’s not flashy. It doesn’t try to seduce you.
But if you listen…if you slow down…you’ll hear the breath of a town in love with its land.

Bluestem Botanicals has found its perfect home here.
On land that feels like it remembers what it was before roads came.
Where the mornings are fog-soft and the evenings golden-warm.

You can visit the farm store on East State Street.
And when you do, you’ll notice something:
There is no rush. No frantic up-selling. No hurry-up energy.

It feels like a tea ritual.

You’re invited in.
Not as a customer. As a guest.

The Bitters That Broke the Spell

The first time I tried their bitters, I wasn’t expecting much.

I was just tired of the usual overly perfumed blends that tasted more like soap or spice than something that had ever touched a field.
Most bitters I’d tried felt like they were made in a lab, not a garden.

But Bluestem’s Lavender Digestive Bitters?
That one stopped me.

It didn’t hit hard or overwhelm. It eased in: soft, floral, a little earthy, like the way air smells right after the sun sets and the soil starts to exhale.
It wasn’t dramatic. Just…right. Balanced in a way that made me pause.

And in that pause, something clicked.

Whoever made this had met lavender in its living form…not dried, not bottled, but blooming and swaying in the breeze. They knew its softness. Its strength.
Its purpose.

That’s when I understood: this wasn’t just a product.
It was a relationship, distilled.

The Field-to-Flask Alchemy

Bluestem doesn’t rush the process.
They don’t shortcut what can’t be shortcut.

Every plant starts as a seed, chosen with care and grown with attention.
No chemical shortcuts. No assembly line farming.

Once harvested (often by hand) the herbs are macerated slowly, coaxed into revealing their most honest selves.
Nothing forced. Nothing masked.

You won’t find synthetic preservatives or mystery “natural flavors.”
Just herbs. Spirit. Time.

And somewhere between the maceration and the bottling, you can feel it:
The intention stays.

These aren’t just tinctures. They’re relationships in liquid form.

Bitters as Medicine: A Forgotten Art

We used to know what bitters were for.
Before we needed a label to tell us what digestion even meant.

Bitter herbs like gentian, dandelion, and burdock root once sat proudly on the shelves of every healer’s apothecary.
Not because they were trendy. But because they worked.

They told the body, “Prepare.”
They woke up the stomach.
They helped the liver remember its rhythm.

Bluestem is reviving this lost knowledge.

Their bitters are functional, but they don’t forget to be delicious.

You don’t need to be a bartender or herbalist to use them.
You just need to be human.

The Lavender One for Sleep. The Tulsi for Breath.

Each formula has a spirit.

The Lavender Digestive is for grounding…like walking barefoot through wet grass.
The Tulsi Bitters are your breath during anxiety, expanding the chest with holy clarity.
The Digestive Blend is not just a tool…it’s a guide, leading your body gently back to itself.

These aren’t the kind of products you stash in a drawer and forget.
These are the kind you build rituals around.

I keep mine near my tea.
Near my bar cart.
Near my bedside.

Because I never know when I’ll need a little remembering.

I use the sage hydrosol as a spritz for both my martini and on my face after a hot shower.
Their teas do wonders for sleep (chamomile is my favorite).

Wildness Tamed Only by Trust

There is a wildness in the herbs they grow.

Not wild like chaos.
Wild like memory.
Like the parts of us that haven’t forgotten how to listen.

Bluestem doesn’t tame this wildness, they respect it.

They let the herbs grow into who they are meant to be, then ask permission before they harvest.
Yes, I believe this.

You can taste it in every bottle.

Consent. Integrity. Presence.

It’s rare in today’s world.
But not extinct…not yet.

Not as long as farms like this still breathe.

A Ritual for the Herb-Curious

If you’ve never used bitters outside of a cocktail, here’s how I began:

A dropper full in sparkling water after dinner.
A few drops on the tongue before food to awaken digestion.
A splash in herbal tea, just to see what happens.
Sometimes, just inhaling from the bottle when the world feels too sharp.

The point isn’t to “use” them right.
The point is to include them…in your rhythm, in your breath, in your remembering.

For Bartenders, Herbalists, and the Simply Curious

You don’t need a lab coat or a liquor license to fall in love with Bluestem.

Are you a cocktail enthusiast? Their bitters add nuance.
An herbalist? Their process will make you weep with joy.
Just curious? Let them guide you.

They’ve done the hardest part: growing with care.

You just have to sip.

What the World Could Be, If More People Grew Like This

We’re living in an era of artificial everything.

Plastic fruit. Vanilla from beaver glands. Bottled flavors that never met a garden.

But Bluestem gives us something else.

Proof that business can still be ethical.
That farming can still be slow and sacred.
That bitterness…when respected…is a kind of grace.

If more companies operated like this, maybe food wouldn’t make us sick.
Maybe land wouldn’t feel so tired.
Maybe medicine would be recognizable again.

Where Bitterness Becomes Belonging

Bitterness isn’t something our culture celebrates.

We push it away. Mask it with sugar.
Call it unpleasant, unwanted, too much.

But Bluestem reclaims it. They let bitterness be a teacher, a cleanser, a companion. They remind us that life has sharp edges…and that sharpness can be beautiful.

To sip their bitters is to reintroduce yourself to something ancient and wise.

It’s a permission slip to feel more fully. To digest not just food, but emotion.

They don’t make you numb.
They make you whole.

Because sometimes, the most nourishing flavors are the ones that don’t ask to be liked. They ask to be respected.

Seasonal Shifts in the Bottles

Bluestem’s bitters change with the land.

They don’t cling to sameness, they adapt.

If the lemon balm came early, or the tulsi was especially bold this year, you’ll taste it. If the rain was late or the sun too hot, it shifts the alchemy. Their product doesn’t flatten nature into a predictable line, it reflects its curves.

And that’s the beauty of it.

Each bottle is a time capsule of a growing season. A liquid memory of one particular year, one particular field, one particular summer.

It’s terroir in its truest form…not just soil, but story.

You’re not just sipping herbs.

You’re sipping a moment that will never come again.

The Invitation to Live Differently

Bluestem isn’t just selling bitters.

They’re extending an invitation.

To slow down. To savor. To sit with your discomfort instead of avoiding it. To walk barefoot through your own story and ask which parts were rushed, which parts need tending.

They don’t scream “heal.” They whisper, “Notice.”

Their work is subtle. It asks you to meet it halfway.

But when you do…when you choose their drops over distractions…something shifts.

You start to live a little more in rhythm with the Earth.
You start to trust the taste of bitter again.

And somewhere along the way, your life stops feeling so artificial.

How to Support a Farm You Haven’t Met (Yet)

Here’s what you can do:

Visit them. If you’re in Pennsylvania, stop by their farm store in Doylestown.
Buy a bottle or two from their website. Use them. Love them. Share them.
Tell your bartender friends. Your plant witch friends. Your stressed-out coworkers.
Post about them. Review them. Speak their name aloud.

Because farms like Bluestem don’t need to be “discovered.”
They need to be remembered

A Thank You in the Form of a Sip

To the farmers whose hands sow and steep,
to the herbs who give with grace,
to the field that holds both…thank you.

You’ve reminded me what it means to taste something real.

And I’ll never forget it.