BRINS JAM: The Small-Batch, Hand-Crafted Line Made By A Fashion Architect

Brooklyn is home to celebrities like Beyoncé, countless emerging fashion designers, niche fragrance brands like D.S. & Durga and is a haven for gourmands who fancy quality ingredients and fresh flavors. So it’s no surprise that this was where BRINS JAM, a small-batch, whole-fruit jam & marmalade brand with an eye for design and a talent for sophisticated flavor profiles was born.

An edited collection of 6 flavors that range from the fresh and zest Lemon Saffron to top-seller, Banana Jam, each product serves as a tool for storytelling, connecting to Candice’s Southern roots and inspired by her travels, weaving a personal tale through delicious, intricate flavors. The first product in the line is Rosemary Grapefruit, made from what Candice recalls as boxes upon boxes of grapefruit sent from her mom and layered with Rosemary herbs that run wild on their farm. A nod to her home base in Brooklyn, Cherry Chai is a recent launch made in collaboration with Dona Chai, a Brooklyn-based artisanal tea brand that makes award-winning chai. And the aforementioned Lemon Saffron? Inspired by the bold colors of Middle Eastern spice markets where ribbons of fresh Saffron danced in the wind and made with fresh Herati Saffron threads equitably sourced.

That’s the other thing, all the jams and marmalades are made from fresh, whole fruits and herbs. Mainstream jams are a mix of “flavors from concentrate,” high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweetener, but BRINS refuses to sacrifice quality and where even many high-end, niche skincare brands may use dried fruits, BRINS, which retails for just $8.99 a jar, use only fresh, off the vine ingredients. The entire line is free of high fructose corn syrup, “flavors from concentrate,” and even the sugar comes from real cane sugar. All this means that the flavor profiles are rich and for lack of a better world, alive because they come from the actual ingredients, which is so rare nowadays. This attention to quality and mastery of flavors makes BRINS distinctive among jams, and has attracted everyone from wellness buyers looking for a guilt-free indulgence to top industry food critics – Lemon Saffron recently took top honors when it won the GOLD SoFi Award for Best Jam, beating thousands of companies. And in the span of a few years, BRINS, a company self-described as “a little company” has drawn the industry’s top buyers, counting cream of the crop retailers such as Dean & DeLuca, Whole Foods, and Williams Sonoma as doors. They’re also one of the select food brands that were picked up at the newly launched flagship Neiman Marcus at Hudson Yards.

What makes BRINS such a stand out is it’s an intersection of ideas that usually don’t exist together but should. It’s delicious and fills a comfort food craving yet loaded with good-for-you herbs like ginger and lemongrass without any of the artificial ingredients found in mainstream jams; the way the products are handmade in small batches using real whole-fruits and fresh herbs speaks to an attention to quality and detail that no longer exists in this fast-paced, quantity over quality era of mass consumption; the flavors, such as Strawberry Lemongrass hit the right note of nostalgia for what classic jams from one’s childhood tasted like yet has that distinctive and complex flavor profile, not unlike a high-quality niche perfume that manages to surprise and delight with the way that the tastes unfurl; and in a category that one might not associate with design and point of view, each weighty jar of jam is tastefully emblazoned with art deco letters and gold gilded logo that feels more like it should be sitting on the shelf next to brands like Byredo.