Overall & Home Winner:
Hechizo

Ceramic Lamps
Richmond, Virginia | From $700; shophechizo.com

Light Bulb Moment

Both beautiful and practical, Hali Armstrong’s hand-built ceramic lamps spark joy

By Elizabeth Hutchison Hicklin

Hechizo means ‘spell’ or ‘magical charm’ in Spanish,” says the ceramic artist Hali Armstrong of the name of her design firm, and her pieces indeed bewitch. She launched the company out of her Brooklyn apartment in 2014 with hand-painted ceramic jewelry—small talisman-style pieces symbolizing adventure, fertility, and creativity—that quickly attracted fans and big-name retailers such as Anthropologie and New York’s ABC Carpet & Home. But when a move to Richmond to be closer to family yielded a larger studio space and a bigger kiln, Armstrong felt her artistic instincts pulling her in a new direction: ceramic light fixtures. She first made playful, fashion-inspired sconces and then table lamps, including both a twelve- and a twenty-two-inch option in a textural floral and a bold candy stripe. “I still make some jewelry,” she says. “But now I make jewelry for the home, too.”

Photo: Hali Armstrong

Hali Armstrong in her Richmond studio.

Armstrong credits “a really great art teacher” in high school for introducing her to the wonders of clay and sparking the passion that would lead to a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, which boasts one of the nation’s top sculpture programs. “I loved the conceptual nature of sculpture,” she says. “But I wasn’t really sure how to be an artist. The entrepreneurial aspect of creating a product, though, appealed to me.” Her parents nurtured that inclination early on, building a basement workshop for their children where their budding imaginations could flourish. “I was always tinkering,” she says. “My dad was a cabinetmaker. My mom was really into interiors. And my grandma Rita was a seamstress. There was a real can-do spirit. It’s just how we were raised.” With Armstrong’s shift to ceramic lighting, that creative inheritance reveals itself clearly. “A big part of the appeal of lighting is that it utilizes many of those techniques I fell in love with as a young person—from ceramics to embroidery,” she says.

For each lamp, Armstrong rolls a block of clay into slabs before shaping them into a hollow form, which dries for two to three weeks before its initial firing and subsequent glaze. The fixture then receives a final firing before Armstrong wires and rigs it with a custom-built lampshade. For the overall red-and-white palette of her debut line, Armstrong took inspiration from the tradition of Redwork, an inexpensive type of embroidery that became popular during the Victorian era with the introduction of colorfast “Turkey red” thread that could be stitched onto white fabrics without bleeding. “Redwork is very simple line work,” Armstrong says. “It’s almost like drawing.” Her folksy designs often include animals and simple sayings like the “We are all connected” mantra stitched onto the back of her Two Fish lampshade.

Photo: Hali Armstrong

Armstrong carves a ceramic lamp base.

With a roughly four-week lead time, Armstrong’s heirloom pieces are available in custom colorways upon request. She eventually intends for her tie-on lampshades to be rotated in and out during the year. “I think it’s nice to refresh your home with the seasons,” she says. “To think about how nature influences our bodies and energy. It’s important to feel good in your space.”

Home Runner-Up: James & James

Olivia Dining Table
Springdale, Arkansas | From $3,490; carpenterjames.com

The sixty-thousand-square-foot warehouse and workshop in Springdale, Arkansas, where more than sixty craftspeople hand produce James & James’s made-to-order solid wood tables, desks, and beds is a far cry from where the company started. In 2012, in a garage down the road, the former owner James Smith made a coffee table with a set of Lowe’s plans and a Skil saw. Today the team can customize the length, width, height, stain, and even wood type (American-grown alder, white oak, maple, or black walnut) of the furniture orders, which typically require around a ten-week lead time. That includes the Olivia Dining Table, a perennial top seller featuring artfully turned legs and a transitional aesthetic—the type of contemporary heirloom you’ll pass down. “Life happens around the dining table,” says Jim Pike, the James & James CEO. “I’m proud that our craftspeople get to create something beautiful and meaningful, and that we know it’s going into the home of a family.”

Home Runner-Up: Samuel Spees Studios

Handblown Vases
Nashville, Tennessee | $300; samfspees.com

The first time Samuel Spees entered a glassblowing studio, he fell in love. To the then defensive back at Centre College, the medium’s intensity and collegial spirit looked a lot like football. “Glassmaking is collaborative,” he says of the process, which often requires multiple sets of hands to complete any task. “You have players working independently but together to accomplish a goal.” It’s also physical, requiring the same instincts that set high-level athletes apart. For Spees, it was creative kismet, and the college elective quickly turned into a calling, with prestigious internships at the Pittsburgh Glass Center and the Penland School of Craft. In 2022, he moved to Nashville, where he and his team now create elegant barware, large-scale lighting, and decorative forms like these colorful Veronese vases. Making the centuries-old Italian shape requires heating, pulling, and twisting layers of colored and clear glass. “It’s a good exercise in heat management,” Spees says. “But they’re also really fun to make.”

Shop Samuel Spees Veronese vase at ggfieldshop.com

Home Runner-Up: Raleigh Adams

Garden Planters
Boone, North Carolina | From $750; raleighadams.com

Style Winner:
Parker Boot Company

Bespoke Boots
Houston, Texas | From $2,500; parkerbootcompany.com

Style Runner-Up: Harland Handmade

Leather Wallets
Charleston, South Carolina | From $40; harlandhandmade.com

Food Winner:
MeatCrafters

Duck Breast Prosciutto
Landover, Maryland | $15–$32; meatcrafters.com

Miracle Cure

Melt-in-your-mouth duck prosciutto adds oomph to a charcuterie board

By Wayne Curtis

Duck breast prosciutto, Debra Moser admits with a tinge of guilt, is her “favorite child.” And she and her husband, Mitchell Berliner, have raised a large family of meats that includes sausage, bacon, and an array of charcuterie they sell through their Maryland company, MeatCrafters. For the “unsuccessful retirees,” it’s the latest chapter in long food-centric careers. With a culinary school certification in pastries, Moser once ran a part-time sweet and savory pie company; Berliner worked in farmers’ markets in the seventies before moving into frozen food distribution (they still own Central Farm Markets, a collection of markets in the D.C. area). During one ultimately futile run at retirement, Berliner decided to take on one of his longtime loves: salami. He and Moser partnered with a local sausage maker and turned an avocation into another vocation. They make a traditional salami, of course. “But we decided to broaden the line a bit and do some out-of-the-box things,” Moser says, like salami blended with nontraditional ingredients such as citrus and truffles. Their golden child, the delectable duck prosciutto, begins with Magret de Moulard duck breast from Hudson Valley fowl, which they season and then cure for six to eight weeks. The outcome tastes velvety and sumptuous, all but melting on the tongue, leaving hints of bay leaf, juniper, and garlic. As Moser explains, “We don’t like to have spices jump out at you.”

Food Runner-Up: Ocmulgee Orchards

Sugar-Fried Pecans
Hawkinsville, Georgia | $10–$25; ocmulgeeorchards.com

With seven children between their two families, twin brothers David and Donald Johnson are well familiar with the “teacher’s gifts” bestowed each school year. They would often send bags of homemade sugar-fried pecans, using their mother’s recipe and pecans picked from the orchard their father bought in the 1970s. Teachers asked for more, word spread, and the former farm equipment dealers turned the goodies into a full-fledged business. They started working markets and fairs, winning over those who say they don’t like pecans. “We’re very aggressive sample giver-outers,” David says, attributing their assertiveness to their years as tractor salesmen. “We harass everybody who walks by.” And most give in, discovering pecans with a perfect balance of savory and sweet and a bright crispiness. Today the brothers tend about three thousand pecan trees, still following the same process with their freshly harvested crop: dampen, sugar, fry, lightly salt—and enjoy.

Shop Ocmulgee Orchards’s sugar-fried pecans at ggfieldshop.com

Food Runner-Up: Sweet Grass Dairy

Pimento Cheese
Thomasville, Georgia | $10; sweetgrassdairy.com

Sweet Grass Dairy’s pimento cheese emerged from the creative minds of husband-and-wife team Jeremy and Jessica Little, who run the creamery that Jessica’s cheese maker mother founded in Thomasville, Georgia, in 2000. Sweet Grass developed a reputation for its French-style cheeses—its highly regarded Thomasville Tomme, for one—sold mostly through farmers’ markets, then wholesale. When the Littles took over in 2005, they noted that Southwest Georgia didn’t have a high-end cheese shop, so they opened their own. “We could either keep complaining or we could do something about it,” Jessica says. Their pimento cheese, which first hit shelves in 2012, begins with the easygoingTomme and gets a sweet and smoky twist from piquillo peppers, along with pimen-ton (Spanish paprika) and a touch of Dijon mustard for depth. The spread can elevate a burger and makes sandwiches sing, but it’s equally great on a quality cracker with a few sweet pickles on the side.

Food Runner-Up: Caroline’s Cakes

Half Caramel, Half Coconut Cake
Spartanburg, South Carolina | $80; carolinescakes.com

In 1982, Caroline Reutter served her homemade seven-layer caramel cake at the christening of her son, Richard. Guests liked it. A lot. They asked her to bake more, and she did. She sold her cakes by leaving some each day on the joggling board on her front porch in Spartanburg, next to an empty cake tin for clients to deposit payment. Then one day, she got a corporate order for two thousand cakes. A hobby swiftly became a business, and she soon installed a commercial kitchen in her basement. Richard helped out all along, and when Caroline died in 2017, he took over the company using his mother’s recipes and dedication to tradition. Ordering a cake that’s half caramel and half coconut—two of three mainstay flavors that launched Caroline’s, along with Southern chocolate—makes for a memorable pairing. “Nostalgia is a big part of it,” Richard admits. “The cake is still made the same way Mom made it in our home kitchen. We haven’t cut corners, and the recipe hasn’t changed.”

Meet the Food Judge: Alexander Smalls

Chef and Restauranteur

New York, New York

The opera singer, restaurateur, and Spartanburg, South Carolina, native Alexander Smalls has run a series of renowned eateries, including Café Beulah and the Cecil in New York, and won a James Beard Award for his cookbook Between Harlem and Heaven. When judging this year’s entries, he looked for something new and exciting. “The proscuitto stood out almost in a class of its own,” he says.

Drink Winner:
Eda Rhyne Distilling Company

Appalachian Fernet
Asheville, North Carolina | From $39; edarhyne.com

Spirit of Appalachia

Southern flavors meet Italian tradition in a North Carolina liqueur

By Wayne Curtis

Chris Bower and Rett Murphy founded Eda Rhyne Distilling Company in 2017 with a simple but ambitious goal: to create spirits that capture the essence of Appalachia. Although Hurricane Helene devastated much of Western North Carolina in September—including Eda Rhyne’s Biltmore Village distillery in Asheville and its trove of aging spirits—it couldn’t dampen their determination. “We’re lucky we have a second location in Weaverville that was unscathed,” Murphy says. “So we’re going to clean up and persevere.” Bower grew up in the North Carolina hills learning about medicinal plants from his parents and grandparents, later spending time in Italy studying the bitter liqueurs traditionally enjoyed before and after meals to aid digestion. “I started looking into the history, and soon realized that it was all just folk medicine,” he says. Bower paired up with Murphy, a farmer interested in heirloom grains and distilling, and the duo started crafting a highly bitter style of amaro called fernet, using about forty herbs, roots, barks, and other plants. They forage as much as possible locally, including dandelion root, sassafras, and sumac. Although production has ceased for at least a few months as the team rebuilds, the densely flavorful Appalachian fernet can still be purchased through distributors. “If you see it, you might want to jump on it, since it will be a little rarer for the foreseeable future,” Murphy says. 

Drink Runner-Up: Ceebo Brew Co.

The Classic Nonalcoholic Beer
Charleston, South Carolina | $14 for a six-pack; ceebobrewco.com

“I was adamant about doing a German pilsner style that would appeal to craft beer drinkers,” says Kyle Alligood, who founded Ceebo Brew Co. nearly two years ago. That was especially tricky because he wanted to produce that beer without any alcohol, a category of drinks that historically has not been well represented in the Southeast. (Ceebo is a slangy take on “placebo.”) Lighter nonalcoholic beers are harder to turn out than heavier IPAs or stouts, which have more residual flavor and body. Alligood uses an “arrested fermentation” technique that employs temperature control and pasteurization at key stages to keep alcohol levels below the legally mandated 0.5 percent. The brisk, refreshing beer will satisfy an itch for those eschewing alcohol, for good or just for now. Alligood plans to roll out other beer styles in the coming months. “We’re not anti-alcohol, and we’re not a wellness company,” he says. “We’re just trying to make a delicious nonalcoholic beer.”

Drink Runner-Up: Four Gate Whiskey Co.

Kelvin Collaboration VI
Louisville, Kentucky | $200; fourgatewhiskey.com

Of the four stages of making whiskey—growing grain, fermenting, distilling, and aging—it’s the time spent in oak barrels that adds so much of the finished product’s finesse and depth. And that’s where Four Gate Whiskey excels. Owners and Louisville natives Bill Straub and Bob D’Antoni acquire whiskey from quality American distilleries and then further age it in unique barrels. Each year around Kentucky Derby time, Four Gate releases its Kelvin Collaboration series, a blend of three straight bourbons aged at least nine years in traditional new oak casks, then aged again in barrels selected in tandem with Kelvin Cooperage, a Louisville outfit and cask importer. This year’s release, bottled at a bracing 115.6 proof, employed Portuguese Madeira and Florida Keys rum casks. The ethereal notes of cherries and chocolate taste as if they’re resting on a bed of brown sugar. “We’re very small, with only two employees,” Straub says. “We’re still trying to get the word out, and we probably always will be.”

Drink Runner-Up: Post Meridiem Spirit Co.

Southside Cocktail
Atlanta, Georgia | $16 for a four-pack; postmeridiemspirits.com

“Classic recipes are classic for a reason,” says Andrew Rodbell, who with his business partner, Charles Sain, launched Post Meridiem in 2019. After nearly a decade in the Atlanta beverage industry (yes, Coca-Cola, if you must ask), Rodbell sought to create a canned cocktail that tasted authentic. Many of those barreling into the ready-to-drink market these days use low-cost spirits and shortcuts—mixing grape juice, citric acid, and flavors, for instance, to re-create the tang of lime. Rodbell and Sain wanted to do better, and worked with food scientists, mixologists, and packaging engineers to find ways of keeping fresh lime juice in cocktails without having the taste deteriorate over time. (The shelf life of their cocktails is about a year.) They currently mix eight varieties, including this delightful Southside. The drink’s origins are murky, but Rodbell says it’s “our most Southern cocktail,” consisting of gin, mint, and lime. “Fans sometimes say it’s like a gin mojito.”

Meet the Drink Judge: Marianne Eaves

Master Distiller

Lexington, Kentucky

Eda Rhyne’s Appalachian fernet captured the imagination of Marianne Eaves, an independent spirits consultant and Kentucky’s first female master distiller since Prohibition, who last year launched Forbidden bourbon. “The ingredients hearken back to my childhood in Kentucky and Tennessee,” she says, “and I think that this beverage would be enjoyed by anyone who is bold enough to give it a try.”

Outdoors Winner:
Burls and Steel

Southern Sportsman Collection
Charleston, South Carolina | $975–$1,055; burlsandsteel.com

Field Day Champ

A three-in-one knife set to satisfy the ultimate Southern outdoorsman

By T, Edward Nickens

After he snapped the tip off a Buck knife while tinkering around the farm, Ben Spurrier, a horse trainer at the time, made a replacement from a farrier’s rasp and a deer antler. “All I wanted was a better tool,” he says, “but the whole thing snowballed.” Eight years on, Burls and Steel, the knife-making business he operates out of Charleston, South Carolina, with his wife, Sydney, is now a full-time gig, and Spurrier has graduated from using hammers from Harbor Freight and a cheap, nondescript forge to custom bladesmithing tools and a top-of-the-line Chile forge. His latest release, the three-knife Southern Sportsman Collection, grew out of Spurrier’s passion for fishing. The bird and trout knife sports a three-inch blade and comes with a handmade leather belt sheath in addition to the set’s custom leather knife roll. The “filet knife” carries a six-inch blade and slightly less flexibility than typical versions, enabling it to cut bait as deftly as it fillets fish. He crafts both with corrosion-resistant Nitro-V stainless steel. A sleek oyster knife rounds out the trio. “You can open an oyster with a screwdriver, but to build an oyster knife from scratch is surprisingly difficult,” Spurrier says. This one has a slightly longer and more palm-filling shape than other knives of its kind, which lends itself to a firm grip. The dagger point is “sharp but not knife-sharp,” he says, so it makes quick work of separating flesh from shell.

Shop Burls and Steel’s Southern sportsman knife set at ggfieldshop.com

Outdoors Runner-Up: Iron and Oak Duck Calls

Heirloom Duck Calls
Greenville, South Carolina | $100–$450; ironandoakduckcalls.com

South Carolina duck hunters Chris Williamson and Logan Kanipe are suckers for old-school Southern waterfowling: Think the writings of old masters such as Nash Buckingham and beautiful duck calls crafted with spoke-shaves, whittling knives, and hand chisels. The friends formed Iron and Oak Duck Calls to create handmade wood calls that recall those glory days, and their designs spring from the silhouettes and sounds of revered callers such as Victor Glodo and A. M. Bowles. Williamson, in fact, is a longtime call collector who owns Glodo’s personal Reelfoot-style call and pulls out a few of the classics when he needs inspiration on shape or design. The duo soak all their calls in linseed oil for a week to harden and waterproof the wood, engineering them to withstand the rigors of the hunt. “Just like a decoy,” Williamson says, “the more you use them, the more character they get.” Clients can order calls with either Mylar plastic or Reelfoot metal reeds.

Outdoors Runner-Up: PyreLogs

Reusable Campfire Bases
Asheville, North Carolina | $188; pyrelogs.com

One wet evening in Kentucky earlier this year, social media managers and full-time RVers Frank D. Kecseti and Alyson Kate Long couldn’t get a fire going. After much trial and error, Long dug out a few rocks from a ditch to raise the fire above the sopping ground, and almost instantly the smolder turned into a cheery blaze. Kecseti, whom Long describes as “the ultimate Lego boy,” immediately started drawing up ideas. Soon, a metal fabricator friend worked on prototypes, and PyreLogs emerged. For anyone who’s struggled to build a campfire on wet ground, or on the beach, or in an ashy, soggy campfire ring, these bases are a revelation. Made of ventilated steel plates that easily join with hitch pins, they elevate firewood to supercharge airflow. That not only makes it easier to light a fire and keep it from collapsing, but also helps produce cooking coals that you can effortlessly shovel out from between the logs to use with a Dutch oven or in a separate cooking space.

Shop PyreLogs reusable campfire bases at ggfieldshop.com

Outdoors Runner-Up: Ruthless Handmade

Fishing Pliers Sheaths
Virginia Beach, Virginia | $70–$250; ruthlesshandmade.com

Cory Routh talks about working leather the way a farmer might describe his crop. “It’s such an organic process, like plowing a field,” says the Virginia maker, writer, and former fishing guide. “There’s very little waste, because you’re moving material in one direction or the other, and it’s amazing how it stays there.” His harvests are stunning works of functional art: highly figured tool sheaths with wild custom designs and natural textures, such as tarpon scales and mangrove shoots. A longtime employee of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, Routh has a passion for keeping Virginia’s waterways beautiful, a theme evident in his leatherwork as well. Made in five sizes to hold most popular fishing pliers, the sheaths come in a range of grades, from plain leather to laser engraving to single or multicolor hand tooling. Upgrade to fly-line stitching to further reduce waste—and seriously boost the cool factor—or add a Kydex clip in lieu of the belt loop.

Meet the Outdoors Judge: T. Edward Nickens

Sporting Writer

Raleigh, North Carolina

In his fourteenth year as a judge, G&G contributing editor T. Edward Nickens sought products that provide new ways to experience nature. “From the perspective of craftsmanship, the knives stand on their own,” he says of the Burls and Steel trio, this year’s winner. “But producing them as a set, with a leather knife roll that will wear well with age and use, ensures that the collection will help build memories.”

Crafts Winner:
Anna Heineman

Custom Plates
Gainesville, Florida | From $125; annaheinemanart.com

Crafts Runner-Up: Les Deux Fragrances

No. 2 Perfume
Nashville, Tennessee | $115–$185; lesdeuxfragrances.com

Jason Kloess wanted a better-smelling beard oil, so he made one. The experience led him to create a scented-candle company, and in 2021, after candle customers begged him to make his approachable aromas wearable, he founded Les Deux Fragrances. He spent more than a year sourcing and mixing ingredients (and getting honest feedback from strangers at his gym) before introducing his first two unisex fragrances, No. 1 and No. 2. To create his bestseller, the subtle yet alluring No. 2, Kloess combined sultry sandalwood, musky saffron, floral jasmine, and hints of warm amber and vanilla drop by delicate drop. A final ingredient, the aroma chemical Iso E Super, makes every spritz unique. “It mixes with pheromones to smell different on everyone, so it’s truly for all but never the same,” he says. The process’s variety energizes Kloess, but bottling confidence strikes a sweeter chord. “People tell us they put it on and feel a boost, like ‘Today is my day!’” he says. “I love that.”

Crafts Runner-Up: Huss & Dalton Guitar Co.

TOM-R Acoustic Guitar
Staunton, Virginia | From $5,475; hussanddalton.com

When Huss & Dalton artisans carve acoustic guitars, they choose from a deep reserve of trees: curly maple, known for tiger-stripe striations, or perhaps a centuries-old mahogany log pulled from a river bottom, or reclaimed dying tulip poplars from Monticello. Since 1995, the company’s luthiers have crafted thousands of such guitars, including this timeless, often-customized TOM-R model. Over a two-month build, they might pair a creamy red spruce top with rosewood sides and back before hand inlaying shimmering mother-of-pearl vines on an ebony fingerboard, every detail—including custom cases made by a partner company in nearby Oilville—elevating the instrument. And while owners Brian Dickel (formerly of folk-rock band the Steel Wheels) and Mark and Kimberly Dalton get satisfaction from their craft, it’s ultimately the music that moves them. “It’s great to make something you love,” Mark Dalton says, “and we love playing these guitars.”

Crafts Runner-Up: David Kenton Kring

Diner Mug Series
Lexington, Kentucky | $65; davidkentonkring.com

Tip back one of David Kenton Kring’s diner mugs, and along with a swig of tea or coffee, he hopes you get a nip of nostalgia. “They’re something you might stumble on in a vintage shop, but modern too,” he says. He means for the images on his wheel-thrown mugs—from a Kentucky-blue horse head to a rainbow of trout to pop-culture heroes—to conjure the experience of coffee talk in a diner. While the graphics look stylized and simple, Kring’s image-transfer process is anything but. After hand drawing each figure, he vectorizes and screen-prints it onto paper, which he then wraps around a mug slightly hardened but not fully dry. “The clay actually sucks the image and colored slip off the paper into the pottery,” he says. Kring trims the mugs, then bisque fires them before adding details and glaze, capping it off with a final firing. Kring doesn’t mind if folks never know about the labor-intensive technique: “I want the feelings provoked by the shapes and colors on the mug to be what draw people in.”

Shop David Kenton Kring’s diner mugs at ggfieldshop.com

Meet the Crafts Judge: Holly Williams

Musician and Retailer

Montgomery, Alabama

Singer-songwriter Holly Williams opened the first White’s Mercantile, an upscale general store, in Nashville in 2013. Searching for uniqueness and artistry during the judging, she was especially fond of Anna Heineman’s floral plates. “I love that she will draw your furry friend or silhouettes of your children,” she says. “The designs are absolutely Southern and graceful but will work in any style of home.”

Sustainability Winner:
Hubbard Peanut Company

Single Origin Redskin Peanuts

Sedley, Virginia | $30; hubspeanuts.com

Peanuts are sustainable from the start. As a legume, they require a fraction of the water nuts do, they’re grown on every continent except Antarctica, and they replenish nitrogen in the soil. Now take the way the fourth-generation Virginia farmer Elisha Barnes grows peanuts for Hubs: He farms no more than twelve acres a year, and instead of artificial heat drying the picked peanuts in a matter of hours, Barnes’s yield cures over six slow weeks in the sun, manually piled in a “shock,” a tower of vines mounted on a pole in the fields. Once the peanuts are ready, the Hubs team and their partners shell, cook, salt, and package them into some seven thousand recyclable cans, all within forty miles of the farm. “The quality is the reason I do what I do, even though my method is antiquated,” says Barnes, the country’s only farmer who still shocks peanuts. “They have an earthy sweetness that just hits your taste buds.”

Shop Hubs single origin redskin peanuts at ggfieldshop.com