Earlier this year, Blackberry Farm began offering caramels from the Shotwell Candy Co., based across the state in Memphis. And they aren’t the only ones who have taken notice of the up-and-coming operation, an after-hours project for corporate lawyer Jerrod Smith. His chewy, delicately seasoned caramels—available in salted, espresso, Old-Fashioned, five-spice dark chocolate, and craft beer and pretzel varieties—have appeared on shelves from the Delta to the heart of New York City in the six months since Smith launched his company. Below, the time-challenged confectioner shares his story.

When Jesse Freidin started his newest project, Contemporary Hunters and their Gun Dogs, he admittedly knew very little about hunting. But then, that’s how things tend to go for the fine art photographer from San Francisco who was scared of dogs before a post-college job landed him at a dog day care.

For the past two years or so, New Orleans has been gripped by hot dog fever, thanks largely to one expanding Crescent City wiener empire. 

If you spy a pile of long, green stalks at your local farmer’s market this weekend, pause a moment for a closer look. It might appear to be a bunch of scallions or spring onions but, if you’re lucky, it will turn out to be green garlic, an even more delightful late-spring treat.

Since the days of "Hey, Porter," his first hit song, Johnny Cash has entertained generations of fans. Now, with the opening of Nashville’s Johnny Cash Museum, those fans have a place to pay tribute to the Man in Black. The hundreds of items in the museum, which range from a young Cash’s Future Farmers of America card to the handwritten lyrics for the last song that he ever wrote, come almost entirely from one man: museum founder Bill Miller, who has spent most of his life collecting Johnny Cash memorabilia. We caught up with Miller to ask him a few questions about his career as a collector, his friendship with Cash, and the long-awaited museum opening.

Thirty-nine years ago, in Mobile County, Alabama, Virginia Sutton began fermenting her first big batches of vinegar. She’d made vinegar for her family plenty of times before, but by the mid-seventies, she was giving so much of it away to friends and family that she’d decided to expand production. Three decades later, the Sutton family began selling their stockpiles of aged vinegars to the public under the name Southern Skillet. 

Florida gets a bad rap when it comes to being authentically "Southern." Slander, I say. Sure, there may be a lot of transplants from Long Island and other distant regions concentrated in certain parts, but for proof of the state’s essential Southerness we need look no further than Florida’s long, proud barbecue tradition. 

In the past decade, Austin, Texas, has become the unlikely vodka capital of the South. First came Tito’s Handmade Vodka, the first spirit legally distilled in Texas. It took off in the early 2000s and is a fixture in bars across the country today. Next came small-batch successors like Dripping Springs Vodka, made in the nearby town of Dripping Springs, and SAVVY Vodka, a Texas-only brand distilled with spring water from founder Chad Auler’s family ranch.

In the coastal South, crab dip is a classic summertime treat. Fresh crab, blended with mayonnaise, cheese, and spices, brings the flavor of the sea to picnics and cocktail parties alike. Grocery-store crab dip rarely amounts to much, but a new product from Charleston, South Carolina’s Big T Coastal Provisions, a husband-and-wife operation run by Tony “Big T” and Tracy Blanchard, gives the homemade stuff a run for its money. Rich, creamy, and packed with tender claw meat, the Blanchards’ crab dip, available in regular and jalapeño varieties, has spread to grocery stores all over the South in the five months since the couple launched it. We caught up with Tracy earlier this week to ask her a few questions.

These days, many people consider bourbon the South’s spirit of choice. But long before Southerners were sipping corn whiskey, they enjoyed glasses of locally made fruit brandy. During the colonial and antebellum years, planters routinely set aside acres for orchards—not just to fill pies, but to fill their copper pot stills, too. As late as 1872, there were more than 1,800 active brandy distilleries in the Southern states, the majority in Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina.