Huckleberry Harry (Article)

For nearly 35 years, Harry Menser has run Gem Berry Products, a little huckleberry business in Sandpoint. A great storyteller, he won’t let you just buy his products.

He makes sure you know what you’re getting, which recipe won which award and what the huckleberry syrup is actually for.

“Don’t waste it on pancakes and waffles,” he told us. “Put it on French vanilla ice cream. It’s to die for.”

Known as Huckleberry Harry, he has a story for just about everything, and sooner or later, he finds his way back to the three people he started the business with.

His own story wound through Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia, picking up a doctorate and a career as a research scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture along the way.

He landed in Sandpoint in 1980 and eventually ran the University of Idaho’s experiment station there, where raspberries did especially well.

“You can’t get rid of them once they’re planted,” Menser said.

At first, Menser tried to help local growers build a raspberry industry. Among them were Jack and Elizabeth O’Brien.

The raspberry industry fell through when there weren’t enough hands to pick the fruit. But wild huckleberries grew all over the Panhandle, and a new commercial kitchen opened in Sandpoint right when one was needed.

In the early ’90s, Menser and his wife, Betty, teamed up with Jack and Elizabeth to start Gem Berry.

Each of them brought something to the table. Jack was the businessman. Betty kept the books and helped market the products. Elizabeth wrote the recipes. And Harry brought the science. He knew the berries inside and out.

“I was trained in agricultural sciences. I am not a businessman,” he said. “Truthfully, this has been more of a hobby than anything else.”

One of Elizabeth’s recipes beat out 40 other companies in a national contest, and People magazine picked Gem Berry’s raspberry huckleberry lemonade as Idaho’s product for a Christmas issue.

“We’re pretty proud of that,” Menser said.

Gem Berry has had to be scrappy. When its first kitchen closed, the crew bounced from a church to a restaurant in Rathdrum to a community building in Blanchard, where they couldn’t start cooking until Sunday services let out.

“Couldn’t go in there when they were praising God,” Menser said.

When winter came, he decided he wasn’t driving to Blanchard on snowy roads, and the operation eventually settled into a kitchen at the Bonner Mall.

Harry said huckleberries are a though crop to grow and can’t be farmed. “They like the wild.”

Huckleberries cost him about $14 a gallon when he started. Now they run $50. Menser just rolls with it.

When he was asked what lessons he’d pass on from 35 years in business and 95 years of living, he said: “Despite the ups and downs, be cheerful and keep trying. There’s always another opportunity out there.”

He added one more: “Give up smoking when you’re young.”

Then he slowed down and looked off into the distance.

“Having been able to team up with the O’Briens has been a wonderful thing,” he said. “If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t have Gem Berry.”

Elizabeth passed away in 2005. Betty followed in 2009, and Jack in 2012. Harry is the only one of the four still here, and as he talked about them, his usual smile turned bittersweet.

“I valued that friendship greatly,” he said. “And I do miss them. They’re part of the legacy.”

Even so, Menser has no plans to be done with the business. He’ll keep it going, he told us, as long as he can.

A big part of what drives him is the people. “People love huckleberries,” he said. “They love Huckleberry Harry. I tell them (the name) wouldn’t work with George.”