Here in Kansas our winds strengthen plants with strong branches. All plants stay smaller than average but fruit heavily. There are around 3 acres of these aronia i sell to local businesses.
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im in a pretty windy spot but not as windy as you are I’m sure. i rarely have to support my plants once they are well established. I’ve yet to find a a way to use aronia that tastes good. i keep the plants cause they look nice in the front yard. 
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Mix them 40 to 1 with apple juice and it tastes just like grape juice.
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40 apple to 1 aronia?
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40 cups apple juice and 1cup aronia juice. Aronia are delicious but super concentrated. They taste horrible straight due to high tannins. They are my best selling fruit!
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i have a european steam juicer. I’m going to have to give that a try. tried glam jam . its horrible! i get about 15lbs each from my 2 bushes,
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I add pear juice to mine sometimes as well but pear juice is ultra thick and makes my juicer bog down! There are plenty of pears so i add them to whatever i can. Straight pears wont work.
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If you like cherry coke, try aronia coke, I drank a lot of my juice last fall in diet coke, about 20ml / can seemed about right for me…
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that sounds good! wife drinks diet pepsi. ill have to spike it for her!
Some of my old markets dried up for now so this year im working to establish new markets with some of the new wineries who do not grow their own fruit yet. Apparently with recent changes to liquor laws in Kansas it impacted my aronia sales. 6 point beer can now be purchased from the grocery store and in some way that impacts what my aronias were being used for. Ive not seen wine or liquor sold in the stores yet.
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does that mean more people are buying beer than wine now? 6pt meaning 6% alcohol? Id think aronia could be used in a microbrew maybe? Bushed producing well this year?
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Im not sure what it means yet @TheDerek. Ive been told one things impacting the other accoding to a friend who spoke with employees but i need to speak with owners/brewers.
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I’m in northern Michigan, just picked my first quart of aronia (wild varietal) and am really interested/excited to plant a moderate amount for wines. It seems like even a small amount could add a really great pop to otherwise lifeless wines/ciders.
Do you have a feel for what varietals wineries are looking/asking for?
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Viking and mckenzie are very good for my location. Flavor and production are good.
Thanks!
It looks like I have McKenzie, assuming my conservation district’s supplier is on the up and up. I did some quick googling to see what folks thought the difference was as well as cost. The only descriptions I found for both (from the same source) were word for word identical. The best price for Viking I could find was 3 times the price of McKenzie.
So, two questions
1- Are there significant differences between them? Flavor, size of fruit or bush, harvestability, yield, etc?
2- have you tried any of your clients’ aronia wines? What do you think? (Apologies if you addressed this above… I read through the posts some time ago and can’t recall if you’ve mentioned this)
Thanks again
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i have viking and galinikca ( a polish variety). spelling may be off. i can’t see any differences in berry or bush myself. both bushes are 5-6ft. tall and wide and produce similar amounts of fruit. they are 5 yrs old now.
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I’ve been growing aronia for a number of years. I just finished my harvest last week - around 500 lbs. It is my most challenging berry to sell, partly because they are so bountiful. I’ve found some success with local brewers - both cider and beer. Some of them like the flavor profile and it also adds a great color.
Mike
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At my location viking is more productive.
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think of a very astringent dry red wine…multiply by 10…they are sweet when ripe,…but the overpowering astringency makes them not great to eat off the bush…they also (aside from the astringency…if you can put that aside) have a nice flavour…reminiscent of rose petals…but as I said that is overpowered by the dry astringency. I made jam with them added plenty sugar and cut with another fruit…can’t recall what it was…maybe black raspberry…and it was good but only after sitting a few months. So what is the attraction ?..they are the very highest on the ORAC scale ( Oxygen Radiclal Absorbancy Capacity)…so, very healthy. I was all ready for a good harvest this year and some critter…I suspect a skunk…ate all of them . possibly a racoon but I think a skunk…I see the scat around …with grape skins and seeds from the wild grapes…and I know they eat all of my other berries.
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It’s interesting that you say only after sitting for a few months.
I found the aronia juice in the fridge got much better over a week or two. It wasn’t fermented, and I don’t think it was just me getting used to it.
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