SARATOGA SPRINGS — Those looking to start their own in-home fermentation can look no further than Saratoga Zymurgist.

Saratoga Zymurgist offers a full service home-brewing and winemaking shop. Priding themselves on being experts in fermentation, customers can not only find the materials for fermenting, but will learn the science as well.

“We’re here to teach and educate for a hobby,” owner and zymurgist Reed Antis said.

A zymurgist is an individual who studies the science of fermentation. Antis said he started as a home brewer who became involved with the hobby over time. After serving for a few years as a certified beer judge in competitions, Antis took ownership of the store with his wife, Mary Antis.

Reed Antis said the store started in the early 90’s on Broadway, which later moved to Phila Street. The company was then sold to Eddy’s Beverage Inc. who in 2009 reached out to Antis to see if he wanted to take the business over. In 2010 Antis said he purchased the business and hasn’t worked a day since.

“I don’t consider this work,” Antis said. “Most of my time is educating. I’ve been nicknamed the professor because I’m constantly training someone to learn [fermentation].”

Antis encourages anyone looking to make beer at home, wine at home, or anything with fermentation at home to stop by the store. Offering wine kits and beer kits, the store also holds items to brew hard cider, mead, kombucha, cheese and vinegar. The store offers a wide variety of yeast to ferment with, which Antis said varies depending on what is being fermented.

“My job is to really find out what you need… what are you trying to ferment,” Antis said.

When a customer walks into the store, Antis said he asks what they are looking for. If they are looking to make grape wine, they have kits with all the ingredients to create a six-gallon batch of wine. He said hard cider is the most popular, followed by country wine, which is a wine made with any kind of fruit, besides grapes. Antis said fermenting honey, also known as mead, is also popular.

“The procedures are pretty much the same going through and the steps are pretty much the same but I target it with what type of wine they want to make,” Antis said. “Once they get the hang of it they can easily move over to ferment something else because they already have the skillset to make this, so they just transfer those skills over.”

Self-taught, through books and seminars, the art of homebrewing, Antis ensures each customer feels confident with the art of fermenting each time they leave the store.

“When someone comes back and says ‘hey that worked’ then I’ve done my job communicating. I learned that I have to hone my skills as a communicator to each individual and how they can absorb information,” Antis said.

In addition, Antis said his favorite thing to say is “assume nothing.” Because zymurgy is the science of fermentation, testing should be a priority rather than assuming or guessing. Antis said the hardest part is getting people to know where they are. Located in the corner adjacent to EBI Beverages, Antis said most people miss the arrow and flag they hang out to let people know they are there.

“In the City of Saratoga we have easy parking, easy reach off major roads, and no complaints,” Antis said.

For more experienced home brewers, the store offers different grains and a mill to grind the grains with. Once stepping into the fermenting world, Antis said each recipe is what makes the process interesting and different.

“You can play with it, put your own twist to it,” Antis said.

BALLSTON SPA — Starting with a stroke of pencil to draw a mandala ends with providing hungry children with up to 26 meals for Betsy Phelps Seplowitz, owner of Nourish Design. 

Seplowitz said she starting drawing mandalas for her own peace of mind and enjoyment. A mandala is defined as a geometric configuration of symbols. This past fall, she published her mandalas on her personal social media account and people responded so positively she wanted to use them to help support meals for kids. Along with drawing mandalas, Seplowitz volunteers to work for the local elementary school backpack program so she tied those two together to create Nourish Design.

“It hit a nerve with me that there are so many children who don’t have consistent access to food at home, so its something that’s been really important to me,” Seplowitz said.

The Feeding America backpack program is run through local food banks to provide bags of food elementary children can take home at the end of each week. Even though children can access free and reduced breakfast and lunch programs during the school day, Seplowitz said children still go home hungry. She said the food bank serves 7000 kids per year, and even though each week they supply a backpack, there are many that are in need.

To get her idea started, Seplowitz met with the food bank to ensure her idea was in-line with what they could do and started researching products to place her mandala designs on. 

“I wanted to source products that people would love… I want people to feel good and remember to take care of themselves and to look at the small things that they can find positivity in,” Seplowitz said. 

In addition to the backpack program, Seplowitz said the food bank is currently expanding a pantry program, which supports middle school and high school students who also have needs.

“Once they leave elementary school there’s not a magic source at food in home so they’re currently expanding this pantry program as well,” Seplowitz said. 

Nourish Design offers t-shirts, tote bags, letterpress notecards, water bottles, kitchen tea towels and most recently baby onesies. Rather than giving a percentage of profits Nourish Design makes, Seplowitz wanted to tie a certain number of meals per product. She said a t-shirt would support 12 meals for kids while a tote bag they sell with leather handles donates 26 meals. The food bank then takes the funding Seplowitz provides and puts it wherever the greatest need is: the backpack program or the pantry program. 

“I hope people help me get my word out and share my mission,” Seplowitz said. “Buy some Nourish gear, wear it and tell the story of it. People tell me that they have others comment on their tote bag and I think it’s great for people not to say ‘oh thanks I love it too,’ but ‘thanks and let me tell you what’s cool about it.’”

Seplowitz said the company officially launched late Nov. 2019 and has raised over 3000 meals to date. 

“The mission really inspires everyone. I’m doing something that I love and I’m having a really big impact on a lot of kids so it kind of comes easy to me. It’s something that I really love doing and the mission is empowering. To think there are little kids that might get a breakfast in the morning that might not otherwise is huge,” Seplowitz said. 

Nourish Design does not currently have a store, but Seplowitz said she has an online website people can purchase her products on. Along with that, she partakes in craft fairs and pop-up shops.

BALLSTON SPA — Mission Electric, a store that specialized in selling electronic bikes, also known as eBikes, announced its opening of a second location.

EBikes are bicycles that are built with an electric motor. Each bike can host a small motor that assists with the rider’s pedal power, and up to a larger motor with moped-style functionality.

“Any municipality that has an infrastructure that suffers from too many vehicles can benefit from eBikes. People being able to run errands, commute to work and enjoy fresh air everyday without getting into a car and traffic makes for a better community overall,” said Jim Bethell, manager of Mission Electric.

Mission Electric started in Providence, RI by Saratoga Springs native Tyler Justin in 2018. After becoming established in those two years, Justin announced a second opening for the store in Ballston Spa.

“We here at Mission Electric have always been fans of alternative, sustainable transportation. We want to rethink the way we move around our cities,” Justin said in a release. “We started Mission Electric to bring eBikes and e-transportation to the masses. It’s good for the planet, good for people, and good for our communities. Our mission is to create a greener and healthier world through eBikes.”

The store, located in The Factory at 20 Prospect St, Building 2 Suite 215, Ballston Spa is currently open with limited winter hours. Bethell said for the time being, the store will stay open Wednesday through Saturday and other times by appointment.

“You can haul many things with an eBike Cargo Bike. Groceries, farmers’ markets, recycling, trips to the hardware store just to name a few,” said Bethell.

Bethell is a certified Bicycle Technician and is also Bosch eBike certified. The store currently has bikes on display that are available for test rides. Mission Electric features three brands including: Riese & Muller from Germany, Gazelle from the Netherlands and Tern from Southern California. Also available will be Benno and Bulls, which are currently sold in their Rhode Island store.

Each bike will feature Bosch mid-drive motors with a variety of transmission options and accessories to choose from. For more information visit www.missionelectricbike.com.

Schuylerville ­— Starting this week, Old Saratoga Mercantile, located at 1120 NY-29, Schuylerville, will offer growler refills and begin baking their own fresh bread, adding to the store’s organic products.

Christina Myers, owner of Old Saratoga Mercantile (OSM) will offer to fill growlers (62 ounces), growlettes (32 ounces) and grenades (16 ounces).  They also currently offer a selection of 183 craft beers breweries drop off in store.

“There is no Budweiser in here; it’s all hard to find, rare, really nice craft beers,” Myers said. 

They will also start baking fresh bread in store once a week to add to the bakery items.

Myers created OSM after she found herself growing tired of constantly reading food labels to find fresh, farm-to-table products to provide for her family. While searching, she found herself reflecting on the days before the commercialization of agriculture when each community had a general store and people didn’t need to read food labels.    

“People weren’t adding food coloring or high fructose corn syrup then,” Myers said.  “Those were the products that I was getting but I was getting them all over the place so thought I should just make a store myself.”

Since opening in August 2017, OSM has become a family-oriented one-stop shop for people in tune with where their food comes from. 

“My customers, I think, have a little bit of a different thing going on. They’re here because they are incredibly in tune with their food sourcing and that’s why they come to us,” Myers said.

The converted dairy barn carries a variety of fresh produce, dairy products, meat, eggs and other goods from over 120 local venders, farmers and artists. Customers can find common names in store such as Saratoga crackers as well as non-brand items like handmade knit hats that Myers buys from a single mom once a week. 

“This is how we put it together,” Myers said. “It’s difficult to coordinate and although time management is the most challenging piece, it’s probably the most rewarding because there are 120 people that are excited to be in here. We’re putting food on their table and they’re getting a good opportunity to offer their things.”

Along with the capital region farmers and vendors, Myers said she sources products from Vermont. If the products are not available locally or the local produce contains ingredients such as food coloring or high fructose corn syrup, Myers won’t bring the products in.

The family currently grows fresh produce in a 3000sq ft. high tunnel. Myers said they are big winter growers although they have farm year round. Currently they grow spinach, kale, arugula, lettuces and Asian greens, all heartier greens that can be grown in a tunnel up north. She said they don’t heat the tunnels so the family doesn’t grow produce such as tomatoes year round.

For the remainder of the year, OSM grows lots of garlic, zucchini, squash and other organic vegetables. 

“We grow weird things like mini spaghetti squash and heirloom tomatoes…things that you won’t find typically anywhere else,” Myers said. 

She added the family tends to take a step back during the summer because they noticed that their customers are so in tune with where the food comes from, they grow produce in their own gardens for themselves. 

The family is also in the process of building a second high tunnel to keep up with the demand in store.

“This spring we will be putting in a second tunnel. That’s going to give us a little bit more growth. At the moment we cut almost every single day because we sell out in our store every single day,” Myers said. 

Along with cutting produce every day for customers, OSM supplies to a few restaurants on a small scale such as Hamlet and Ghost in downtown Saratoga. With the new tunnel, Myers said they hope to support more restaurants and stock shelves in store to provide for more customers.

Myers said OSM sees a mix of regular and new clients and enjoys doing special things for them. She said one particular customer each week prefers the smallest package of chicken because she’s feeding just herself and doesn’t want to end up with the biggest chicken. So Myers saves the smallest package in the back each week for her. 

“Everyday I’m talking with people that are equally passionate for good food and for supporting local,” Myers said.

For more information about Old Saratoga Mercantile visit oldsaratogamercantile.weebly.com.

What should we do with an extra day? That’s a question that first entered my brain in 2000.

I was with the North Central Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce at that time. I had been there for five years. I had seen how much good a strong vibrant well led chamber of commerce could do for its community, its members and the local economy.

But on February 29, 2000, I sat there and wondered how the Chamber might mobilize the community to use this extra day to do something….but what?

Fast forward to 2015, I’m at the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce, and I saw an opportunity to discuss this idea. 

That fall, we convened a meeting with a bunch of local leaders. People from the nonprofit sector, the for-profit sector and some local philanthropists.

We reminded them that 2016 was a Leap Year. We suggested we find a way to use this extra day for something good. I kept calling it the “extra day initiative.” 

There was interest. People liked the concept. That’s why they showed up. But what should we do or what could we ask our members and people in the community to do with their extra day. 

Bo Goliber, from Fingerpaint, at some point in the discussion, shouted out “Leap of Kindness Day.” 

Everyone said brilliant.

As the representative from GLOBALFOUNDRIES suggested, we then had to figure out how an individual by themselves or a company with 3,000 employees could both participate. 

How might we scale this idea of a Leap of Kindness Day? 

That led us to contact larger local nonprofits to see what we could do to help them. They told us. We need food, clothing, personal care items, money, etc. Setting up a collection drive was reasonably simple for our larger members and they organized drives to meet these local needs. 

Others came to us with their own ideas. Espey Manufacturing wanted to thank our US Navy Sailors with Stewart’s gift cards. The Hampton Inn and Suites, in Saratoga Springs, made breakfast for the Lake Avenue Fire Station. Polyset brought breakfast and lunch to first responders in Clifton Park. The Ballston Spa BPA collected non-skid socks for a local nursing home. 

As we started sharing #leapofkindnessday with our members and our community, other chambers of commerce took notice.

In 2016, we had 52 chambers of commerce in 30 states that asked us if they could share our Leap of Kindness Day idea with their members and communities. We said yes.

Its 2020 now. Four years later. This is another Leap Year. And so we’re again leading the effort to promote Leap of Kindness Day in Saratoga County and beyond. 

New acts of kindness have been announced. 

Customers at Curtis Lumber, for instance, have already bought more than 500 2x4s that Curtis Lumber will be donating to Habitat for Humanity on February 29. 

The Clifton Park Halfmoon Library is collecting funds from patrons for CAPTAIN Community Health Services. T-Shirt Graphics is selling hoodies for just $8 online. All purchases will be donated to the Racetrack Chaplaincy who will give these to backstretch workers.Two website development firms offered to help Kelly’s Angels with a special request. There are collection drives for food, clothes and personal care items already underway. 

This year, we already have more than 160 chambers of commerce in 41 states, Canada and Ireland joining us in celebrating Leap of Kindness Day.

Now, you don’t have to organize a collection drive to participate. Every individual can do something kind for someone else. Make a donation on February 29 to your favorite local charity. Send a thank you note to someone that changed your life. 

February 29 this year is a Saturday. Take your family or friends out for breakfast, lunch, or dinner and TIP big. 

Here in Saratoga, we had the chance to invent Leap of Kindness Day. And the impact is humbling to say the least as more people every day share what they plan to do not just in Saratoga County but across the world. So we ask, what will YOU do with your extra day on February 29, 2020? 

For more information on how you can get involved and make a difference, visit: www.saratoga.org/foundation/leap-of-kindness-day-2020.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Psychologist Vanessa Laird has joined the behavioral health team at Saratoga Community Health Center.

 Laird is fellowship trained in psychology. She comes to Saratoga Hospital from Albany Med, where she was a clinical psychologist and assistant professor.

“Dr. Laird shares our fundamental commitment to supporting and empowering our patients to achieve their health and wellness goals,” said Dr. Renee Rodriguez-Goodemote, medical director, Saratoga Community Health Center, in a statement. 

Laird has a master’s degree in educational psychology and a doctorate in counseling psychology, both from Texas A&M University. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship in clinical psychology at Albany Med and an internship at the Albany Psychology Internship Consortium. In addition to Albany Med, the consortium includes Capital District Psychiatric Center and the Stratton VA Medical Center in Albany.

Saratoga Community Health Center is located at 24 Hamilton St., Saratoga Springs.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — In advance of the Feb. 29 opening of Universal Preservation Hall (UPH), Proctors Collaborative announced the appointment of Dorothy “Teddy” Foster and Mary Beth McGarrahan to two of the facility’s primary leadership roles. 

Foster will assume the role of director at UPH. She will oversee the coordination of all aspects of the organization, including rentals, daily operations, fundraising and performances. Foster will work with all departments of Proctors Collaborative to reach the goal of making UPH the centerpiece of downtown Saratoga Springs. 

 Mary Beth McGarrahan, whose long affiliation with UPH includes dedicated support of the organization’s pre-restoration program and capital campaign, has been appointed the building’s operations manager. Mary Beth will be responsible for audience services and volunteer management, technical, systems and maintenance matters as well as event management. 

UPH will reopen on Sat., Feb. 29 with a performance by Rosanne Cash.

QUEENSBURY — The Saratoga County Prosperity Partnership partnered with SUNY Adirondack, the Adirondack Regional Chamber of Commerce and the NYS Small Business Development Center for a talk from Jan King, owner of King Brothers Dairy and Business of the Year winner at the 2020 New York State Agricultural Society Annual Meeting & Forum, and John Bolster of Reduced-Fat Design. They shared their insights into the re-birth of a family-owned business and how their client/designer partnership used customer insight to craft a brand promise to provide farm fresh quality dairy to the community through home delivery, restaurants, grocery stores and farm-based retail in Schuylerville.

MALTA — A former call center for State Farm insurance will be auctioned March 23-25 on the Ten-X Commercial website. The two-story, 124,171 square-foot building at 101 State Farm Place in Malta has been sitting empty for about two years in Saratoga County. The property is located off Exit 12 of the Interstate 87 Northway near the Hyatt Place Hotel. The building is located on 25 acres, has nearly 500 parking spaces and is fully ADA compliant. The starting bid is $600,000.

BALLSTON SPA — Lisa M. Licata with Sterling Homes, Inc. has been awarded the prestigious Certified Real Estate Brokerage Manager (CRB) designation, the premier brokerage management credential in the industry. Licata joins an elite group of real estate professionals from around the world who have earned this designation. There are 48 individuals in New York state with it and Licata is the third in the Capital District area. She is also a part of the Broker/Owner/Manager Council of GCAR, Greater Capital Association of REALTORS.

Licata was hired as the Director of Sales & Marketing for Sterling Homes, Inc. in February of 2019.  She adds the CRB designation to her title, in addition to her Certified Buyer Representative and Seller Representative Specialist designations. Licata continues to further her education in an ongoing effort to train and educate her team.