Pear in a Bottle?

How do we get those pears in that bottle? We had been doing some online research for a unique birthday gift for Dad and came upon Pear Brandy with a pear in the bottle grown and produced in Oregon. As I read about the process and looked at the pictures I thought that was something we could try with our own Bartlett pears.

We decided to experiment and used recycled wine bottles and baling twine figuring someday we would find a local producer who could use the bottles with one of their products. We tie baling twine around the bottle to suspend the bottle in the tree. During the first week of June, when the pear is pinky finger size, we insert the pear on the branch into the bottle and invert in the bottle, suspending it and tying it into the tree. Later in August, we harvest the bottles.

Last year we were talking with the owners of Chateau Buffalo and in passing they said they were looking for someone to grow pears in a bottle. They were working on a pear cider blended with pear brandy that had a high enough alcohol content to preserve the pear. This is our second season growing the pears in the bottle for Chateau Buffalo and we continue to improve our process. They clean the bottle before filling, which is also very labor intensive. Chateau Buffalo came up with beautiful packaging and sell the bottles in their store on Hertel Avenue. What a great gift! http://www.chateaubuffalo.com/

By the way, Dad enjoyed the brandy!