[upbeat music] - Next on North Carolina Weekend, join us from Southern Supreme in Bear Creek as we celebrate the season.

We'll go on a Surrey County wine tour, explore Mitchell's Nursery in king, and visit a new brewery in Gibsonville.

Coming up next.

- [Announcer] Funding for North Carolina Weekend is provided in part by VisitNC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of barrier island beaches.

You're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[upbeat music] ♪ - Hi everyone, welcome to North Carolina Weekend.

I'm Deborah Holt Noel.

And this week we are celebrating the season at Southern Supreme in Bear Creek.

The holiday season is a wonderful time to gather with friends and family.

And it seems like we always celebrate with food, right?

Well, at Southern Supreme, fruitcake is king.

And people flock here from all over the state to tour the bakery, buy holiday presents and of course, sample their delicious seasonal creations.

And that's just what Rick Sullivan did on his visit to Southern Supreme.

[background chatter] - Well, you got the margarine, and the eggs and the sugar are in here now and we fixing to add the flour.

And then once that gets mixed up a little bit, then we'll start adding all the fruit and the nuts.

- [Rick] Lots of nuts.

The folks at Southern Supreme Fruitcake in Bear Creek are not afraid to share the worst-kept secret of their incredibly successful business.

- All about the nuts.

Pecans, walnuts, there's about 300 pounds of batter in there.

And in that 300 pounds of batter there's 95 pounds that'll be gone tomorrow so.

- [Berta] When you put a lot of fruit together, they don't harmonize.

I took all that fruit out and replaced it with nuts.

And the way our cake is prepared, it never dries out.

You don't have to put no wine on it, no liquid to get it moist, our cake stays moist.

- [Rick] This all started in Berta Lou Scott's kitchen more than 30 years ago, right here in Bear Creek.

Now the cakes get shipped all over the world.

But a personal visit to the factory store is the most fun.

What else did you get?

- Oh gosh, I got a fruitcake and cookies and lime bites.

- It's in the car we've already put it.

- [Rick] Oh, you've already loaded the car?

- Oh, yes.

- [Rick] What else did you get?

- I got 10 of the little fruitcakes and a larger fruit cake.

- A little fruit cakes, big fruit cakes, jelly.

- I got three of the small fruit cakes and a picture that has lights up with a Santa on it.

- Never been here before.

- Never ever?

- So this has been a treat.

Never heard of Bear Creek before actually, but now I know.

- We're actually about as centrally located as you can get.

We're like 45 miles from Raleigh.

We're like 50 miles from Greensboro.

I mean it's only 38 miles, something like that to Southern Pine.

So we're pretty much strategically placed in the center of the state, just about.

- [Rick] Berta Lou's family business has been a boon to her Chatham County community.

More than 100 employees helped Southern Supreme cook up not just fruit cakes, but nearly 100 different products.

Many of the employees are family or close friends.

And in an era where manufacturing jobs are often being replaced by machines, Southern Supreme is the anomaly.

Aside from one really dandy, repurposed bagel mixer, most of the work here is done the old fashioned way.

- [Randy] We've just always felt like that.

You know, people like to come, the tour is a big part of our business.

And people don't drive this far out in the middle of nowhere to see a bunch of machines working, they want to see us hand-making the product.

And that's what worked in the beginning and we didn't see any reason to fix it.

- [Rick] Every year, thousands of folks come out to Bear Creek to visit the factory and store in person at the October open house.

This is what it looked like early on the first day of the four-day open house.

As many as 6,000 people will visit on this weekend.

But if you missed it, you're not out of luck.

- [Randy] And really every day is an open house.

You can go on a tour during the week.

We book tours.

A lot of people call ahead, a lot of church groups, a lot of tour groups.

They like to see the Christmas decorations.

I mean, it's, it gets everybody in the holiday spirits.

And we appreciate all that.

- [Rick] On any given workday, you can get a tour or a product sample.

And don't be shy, even if you think you don't care for fruit cake, give Berta Lou's recipe a try.

- [Berta] It's good.

If you like nuts, you'll like our cake.

- [Deborah] Southern Supreme Fruitcake and More is at 1699, Hoyt Scott Road in Bear Creek.

That's in Chatham County.

And they're open daily for tours through the holidays.

To order your holiday treats or book a tour, give them a call at 336-581-3141.

Or visit them online at Southernsupreme.com.

If you're looking for a fun destination to gather with friends and keep warm, why not try a new brewery?

There's one in Gibsonville now and it's called the Toasty Kettlyst Beer Company.

They pride themselves in creating traditional German style brews.

- [Praveen] There used to be apparently three saloons in Gibsonville.

Two on one side of the train track and one on the other side of the train track.

A hundred years later, someone like me comes here and opens a brewery.

[background chatter] - Toasty Kettlyst is a warm and friendly place.

- Here, when they get you a beer, most of the time, how's your day?

What's going on?

How's life?

- Prav started as a home brewer and he did his work.

You can tell, the beer's awesome.

[accordion Playing] - [Pat] They follow all of the rules of Reinheitsgebot.

To find someone who's doing that in small batches, with care and craftsmanship, I have an appreciation for that.

I don't take his work for granted.

- [Praveen] Beer is so deep seated in history.

I mean, you know, people have been brewing beer for hundreds of years.

- Alexa, continue.

[upbeat music] - [Praveen] At Toasty Kettlyst Beer Company, we try to stay true to style, and follow the German beer purity law, which is called Reinheitsgebot.

Wherein we just use four ingredients, which is your water, your malt, your hops, then your yeast.

Based on that, we try to replicate some of these historic taste profiles of beer.

And we come up with names paying tribute to where these beers actually originated from.

- He's crafted these beers so that anybody can enjoy them.

- Hunter, what's my first beer?

- [Hunter] Gateway of India.

- Gateway of India.

- My go-to drink is the Gateway of India.

- [Praveen] One of the monuments that we have in India which is also a port in India, is the Gateway of India.

It is a double IPA, a highly hopped beer, but it has a small mode backbone.

- They're porter is one of the best porters I've ever had.

- Prize Porter.

- It's good.

- It's just top of the line.

I'd put it against any other breweries that I go to.

- [Praveen] The Industrious Porter is named after the Industrial Revolution.

Wherein several of the beer, I would say instruments were invented.

And also a tribute to the workforce who used to enjoy a pint after their day.

It's got coffee notes in it.

It's got chocolate notes in it.

Doesn't have any of chocolate or coffee in it.

It's all from the malt.

And depending on your palette, you can pull in hints of mint.

We are a community setting.

That is what we would like to promote.

You can come in here, have a pint or two, and you can bring in food if you choose to do so.

- [Chelsea] Gibsonville is full of so many different, unique businesses.

We have a chocolatier and we have an empanada bakery.

And everything is very curated in a way that I haven't found in other small towns in North Carolina.

[background chatter] [flute playing] - [Praveen] All our musicians actually are locals of Gibsonville.

We just want to promote the talent that's there in this town.

- [Butch] His heart's behind it.

He's into his beer.

And I think that's what makes Prav so special.

- He's just not here to brew some beer and let's sell it.

He's here to have someone taste it and enjoy it.

- It's less about the beer and more about the people.

That to me, distinguishes Toasty Kettlyst from other beer pubs.

[background chatter] - [Deborah] Toasty Kettlyst Beer Company is at 106, West Main Street in Gibsonville.

And they're open daily.

For more information, give them a call at [336] 603-8156, or check them out Toastykettlyst.com.

I'm here with Randy Scott of Southern Supreme, family-owned business.

And we've done profiles on this business before but you all just keep growing and growing.

Tell us about that.

- Well, we do.

We just keep adding on.

Just trying to make sure everybody gets everything that they need every year, so.

- [Deborah] When did you guys get started?

- [Randy] 1984 was our first year.

We started out in a single car garage.

I think that first year we made, I believe it was 900,000 pounds of fruitcake, which we thought was pretty good.

And then the next year, it was a little bit more, the next year a little bit more.

And it just kept growing.

This year we're currently on track to make about 220,000 pounds of fruit cake.

- [Deborah] Well, Randy, you've got more than fruitcake here.

What else have you got?

- [Randy] Oh, good gracious, we have a little bit everything.

We do, we have a nut kitchen.

That has like five or six different kinds of nuts, pecans and the peanuts.

We have a cookie kitchen, that makes, probably the second best seller that we have is the Southern Supreme fruitcake cookie.

It's very good.

The cheese Tourette's, shortbread cookies, date nut swirls.

And we have a full-blown chocolate kitchen, with chocolate-coat pecans, Brazil nuts, cashews, peanuts.

We make all different kinds of, probably 75 different items comes out of the chocolate kitchen.

We have a praline kitchen, brittle.

It's just all grown into all the things that we sell here.

It's been good.

You come take a tour, just give us a call if you got a pretty good sized group for just two or three, just let us know you coming.

And a lot of times when you're here, if we've got a group going through, if you want to tag along with them, we've got the tour wall, they can go through and see all this stuff being made during the week.

Kitchens don't operate a whole lot on the weekends.

But during the week, they're more than welcome to come back and see all the kitchens in progress.

- And you know, a long standing joke is, you don't wanna get a fruit cake for a holiday gift.

Does that apply to Supreme?

- No, no, it's not.

I think over the 35, 36 years we've been doing this, I think I've probably heard all the fruitcakes from the doorstops and all the re-gifting and all that type of thing.

I mean, they can do what they want to with them other fruitcakes but when they get ours, they're gonna eat it.

That's just plain and simple.

- Well, Randy, thank you so much for showing us around Southern Supreme.

I know I need to hit that gift shop.

- There you go.

We certainly appreciate you guys coming out.

- Got it.

- Thank you.

- Another popular holiday tradition is decorating the home in poinsettias.

And no one sells more of these beautiful blossoms in the state than Mitchell's Nursery in King.

Where they have been creating gorgeous hybrids of this holiday plant for generations.

- [Rick] Mitchell's Nursery and Greenhouse in King is open year round with an impressive assortment of plants and trees.

But if you visit the greenhouses in the holiday season, you might have the same reaction as Pamela from Fort Lauderdale.

- Wow.

- [Rick] There you go.

Oh, so you haven't seen a lot of poinsettia houses?

- [Pamela] No, not like this.

It's beautiful.

It's like a sea of celebration.

- [Rick] Celebrating the holidays with a stop at Mitchell's, has quickly become a tradition for her extended family living nearby.

- [Rick] When did you discover Mitchell's Nursery and the poinsettias?

- Last year.

- We were having breakfast over at King.

- Having breakfast at King.

And somebody there mentioned it.

And so we came here and we were blown away.

And ever since then, it's become one of our favorite places to come.

- [Rick] Used to be, I'd only known one kind of poinsettia, it was red.

Mitchell's has 93 different kinds.

And you'd have a hard time finding many of these anywhere else.

- [Jim] I was reading one of the magazines, probably about three years ago now.

And at that time we were one of seven commercial greenhouse operations in the United States and Canada.

That the breeders were sending cuttings to, of numbered plants that are not on the market yet, that are not named.

So we're kind of unique.

- [Rick] Life on the cutting edge is colorful, but it's not for everybody.

- [Judy] Poinsettias is probably the most difficult crop we grow.

Because of insects and disease.

You water them too much, they get disease.

Water too little, they drop their leaves.

It's just a fine line you got to go in there.

- [Rick] So you've given me a lot of reasons why not to do it.

[Judy laughs] Why do you?

- 'Cause they're pretty.

- Still a joy.

- [Rick] But Judy, Jim and their son, Jay, all say the hard work has already completed at the nursery.

Once you get them home, there's not much to worry about.

- New varieties of poinsettias are pretty easy to maintain.

Generally, from what I have seen, if you'll put a good cup of water on that plant about once a week.

Feel the weight of the pot, when you [indistinct] it, wonder whether it's dry or not.

- I guess biggest two things to stay away from is heat vents, drafty areas where there's air blowing across them.

And make sure there's no water sitting in that pot.

- It's best if you can, to put it in a area where you get a little bit of sunlight.

Most of the time though, these newer varieties after they color up and begin to actually bloom, will keep pretty color for at least a couple months, on into February.

- [Rick] Thousands of customers know about Mitchell's and their poinsettias.

Many of them come to the open house during the holidays each year to get them.

But you can come and get your poinsettias any day Mitchell's is open.

I did.

I got mine on a Monday after dispelling an old myth, that poinsettias could be toxic.

They are not toxic to people nor animals.

That's according to poison.org, aspca.org, Pet Poison Hotline, WebMD and others.

Look it up.

And so my young Labrador, Oscar, is all set to have a happy and colorful first ever holiday season, thanks to Mitchell's.

- [Deborah] Mitchell's Nursery and Greenhouse is at 1088, West Dalton Road in King.

And they're open Monday through Saturday.

To find out more about their poinsettias and other plants, give them a call at [336] 983-4107, or go online to Mitchellsnursery.com.

The Yadkin Valley has some of North Carolina's most distinguished and scenic vineyards and wineries.

Rick Sullivan has the story from Surrey County.

- [Rick] Shelton Vineyards is the largest wine producer in Yadkin valley.

And along with Elkin Creek, it's one of the oldest.

But the entire valley is still in its infancy when compared to other wine regions of the world.

It continues to explore and share best practices with fellow producers.

And to educate visitors to the region.

- So most people think North Carolina wine is gonna be sweeter wine, it's muscadine.

but this little area, this little, you know, treasure area, the Yadkin Valley, grow really exceptional European grapes.

Our soil is similar to Tuscany.

Our climate is similar to Bordeaux.

And then our latitude is the Southern tip of Sicily.

So all of those components is what helps the grapes, these kinds of European style grapes, to grow really well.

- [Rick] You'll find lots of European flavors here, from Merlots and Chardonnays, to some others that might be under your radar.

- [Crista] The traminette, it's our most awarded wine.

A lot of people do a sweet or an off-dry traminette and we went completely dry with this one.

And it has wowed everybody.

There's people who have come, like states away and they still say they remember our traminette.

- [Rick] And the Klaxon alarm.

[alarm rings] A fun reminder of Chad Guebert's navy years.

Yadkin Valley wineries work hard to attract and invite newcomers to try their wines.

- [Cari] There's a lot of wineries around, but everybody has something they're interested in.

Some wineries might have music.

Some wineries might have a view.

I mean, we do music every Sunday.

That brings folks out.

- [Rick] One of the newcomers among valley vineyards offers a unique wine to taste in its passport offerings.

This is Hidden Vineyard in Dobson.

And this is Claudia Longenette's suggestion.

- [Claudia] I think you definitely need to experience Frank the Tank, which is the cabernet Frank with blueberry juice in it.

It's a very, well, the feedback we got from customers is, it's like a great surprise at the end of the tasting flight.

- [Rick] But like most of the other wineries in Yadkin Valley, Hidden Vineyard's strongest suit is with the drier wines.

- [Interviewee] I think the biggest challenge that we face is, really changing the perception of what we're doing here.

It's similar to California.

You know, way back when they were looked at as not a reputable wine region.

And how they came onto the scene to compete with European wines.

I feel like we're in a very similar place right now.

- [Rick] While you're here, you'll also find that most establishments have homey accommodations like this tobacco cabin at Hidden Vineyard, which was my home base for this story.

- [Deborah] The best way to plan your Yadkin Valley wine tour, is to visit Yadkinvalleync.com.

If you want comfort food this season, look no further than Onslow County.

Where they serve up a family style southern meal on a farm property with a gift shop and seasonal shows.

[soft music] - [Derek] On Mike's Farm on Onslow County, it's harvest time.

- The Christmas season from October to December is our peak season.

- [Derek] That's because here, they're harvesting tourists.

- Agrotourism is just kind of, kinda look at it as making a living on your own.

You create your own market.

You know, you draw your own customers in.

And you can kind of control on, you know, what you got to offer and what you don't.

- [Derek] For more than 25 years, the Lowe's have been growing their niche in the agrotourism business.

- [Mike] Well, initally, we started out with just Christmas trees.

Went from Christmas trees, we had strawberries.

- When we first started, we started with school tours and we still have school tours come out as an educational program for them.

We show them how we planted Christmas trees.

They come and pick pumpkins here.

We raise pumpkins on the farm.

They come and pick strawberries.

We grow strawberries.

And then we do the Christmas trees.

We also have an animal petting area for children.

They can come and visit the farm animals anytime.

We have feed machines, where they can feed the animals.

And that's open seven days a week and they can come anytime whether the farm is open or not.

- [Mike] Everything has kind of evolved into what it is starting from just a simple tree farm.

- [Derek] Today, the operation has expanded to include a gift shop.

- [Theresa] The gift store is a Christmas shop year round.

We do have a bakery there too.

Where we have pastries, pies, cakes, cookies, fudge.

- Here we go.

- You know, hot apple cider especially this time of year.

Apple turnovers, apple jacks, we call them.

Cookies.

We make moo pops, which the children love.

They're marshmallows covered with chocolate.

And then covered with another type of chocolate that looks like a cow, a spotted cow, which they love.

- [Derek] But don't fill up here.

Save that for the family style restaurant.

- [Theresa] We serve plain and ham biscuits, fried chicken, pork tenderloin and gravy, homemade cream potatoes, corn, green beans, a homemade macaroni and cheese casserole, desserts.

Everything is included in one price, all you can eat.

- [Derek] But their big attraction this time of year is.

- [Mike] Our Christmas light show is something we started in '96.

That's the Christmas hay ride we run from Thanksgiving to Christmas every year.

Started out with a simple little hay ride with a few lights down a path.

And over the years we've kept adding new roads or new routes.

And it's gotten to be a big tradition, I'll say.

They'll have dinner and then come out here and do the Christmas light show at night.

[engine roaring] You know, it's just something they look forward to doing as a family.

- [Derek] This is Derek Long, for North Carolina Weekend.

- [Deborah] Mike's Farm is at 1600, Haw Branch Road in Beulaville.

And their gift shop is open Tuesday through Saturday.

And the restaurant is open Thursday through Saturday.

Hours vary, so give them a call at [910] 324-3422, or check them out online at Mikesfarmnc.com.

When you visit Southern Supreme, be sure to stop by the tasting room and sample some of their yummy goodies.

And that is it for tonight's show.

We'd like to thank the folks at Southern Supreme for hosting us.

And if you have missed anything in today's show, just remember you can always watch this again online, at pbsnc.org.

And we hope you have a great North Carolina weekend everyone.

Good night.

- [Announcer] Funding for North Carolina Weekend is provided in part by VisitNC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains across the Piedmont, to 300 miles of barrier island beaches.

You're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[outro music]