The Fruit of Intuition
By: Maria Manuela
Monique Stefania Carr is a Black Mexican Indigenous woman business owner, and the one-woman force behind her company Spellbound Syrups. She produces shrubs—syrups made with fruits, vinegar, and sugars which are enjoyed with sparkling water or spirits—using farmed and foraged ingredients that highlight the abundance of New Mexico.
She creates one-of-a-kind shrubs for events, curating the ingredients while keeping the event’s organizers and message in mind. With the perfect garnish, and a syrup made with ingredients that remind her of the people who will drink them, Monique makes love potions for her community. “Spellbound is a storytelling experience. It’s capturing a moment, a season, a memory, in a sip.”
The word shrub comes from the Arabic work ‘sharab’ which means ‘to drink.’ They’ve existed in histories from ancient Greece, to prohibition era America, reinterpreted by each culture with regional ingredients. Monique fell in love with them when a friend found a book about shrubs in the Downtown Albuquerque library, and using it as her guidebook, she taught herself the ancient culinary art.
Spellbound Syrups was born in 2016, when Monique spent a lot of her time inventing her process. “At the very beginning it was me just experimenting with flavors, seeing how much certain fruits yield. A lot of the work I do and the way that I learn is hands on just doing it, and this intuitiveness that says ‘oh, maybe I should try peeling the fruit this way.’ The way that I learn is hands on and in the moment.”
Spellbound is a storytelling experience. It’s capturing a moment, a season, a memory, in a sip.
Today, her process is a visual feast of bounty; mounds of grapes and bunches of berries, soft halved peaches and opened pomegranates, bright magenta prickly pear syrup billowing through clear sparkling water, reminiscent of a lava lamp. Slow, tender intention occupies every part of Monique’s technique.
She is studying the stewardship of the land. She forages many of her ingredients in New Mexico, a skill she’s learning from mestizo farmers in Isleta and the South Valley near Albuquerque. “Their storytelling and their experiences help me learn and help me know what to look for and how to harvest and what’s appropriate to harvest and what’s not.”
Image by Ashley Turner
She harvests rose hips in the Bosque, wild currants in Vallecito, apricots and apples in Tesuque, pomegranates, cherries and figs in Old Town, and nectarines in the North Valley. She buys tuna (prickly pear fruit) from her mestizo farmer friend Jamie from Isleta Pueblo. During quarantine, she made elderflower wine filled with hundreds of the tiny white flowers. She says they taste tropical, like a pineapple and also a little peppery.
Rest is essential for Monique’s process. She says she is most creative during times when she doesn’t feel beholden to the cycle of production and consumption. “During those times of rest, when I am learning about what I can harvest or just observing and seeing what is available in abundance in nature, that’s where I open up and see what’s possible. A lot of things I forage I find by chance.”
Day trips to Abquiu or the mountains with a girlfriend become foraging adventures. The friends stumble upon something Monique recognizes growing wild in the high desert, and then the pair spends time figuring out how to collect it and keep it. She has pantries full of little dried and powdered treasures she’s gathered on such trips that she will keep until inspiration strikes.
She says turning her passion into her business has been a source of healing, and her life’s guide. Too often, we push aside our truest desires in favor of the thing we “should” be doing. Monique says not to waste time doing that.
The way that I learn is hands on and in the moment.
“For a Black Indigenous Mexican woman … I know that I hold a lot of privilege in that I am accepted in a lot of spaces because I am a mixed person. Spellbound is an anchor and a reflection; and it makes me see how much access I have. Me recognizing that access and that privilege has also shed light on the fact that my purpose is to be a bridge. That’s where my work is; I want to provide opportunity for people who haven’t had the same access.”
Monique is taking donations through Venmo @MC0001. She has plans to redistribute these funds and help BLACK members of her Albuquerque community. “Every day I am finding new ways to be able to support Black artists, Black healers, Black people on the front lines, Black lawyers.”
Every day I am finding new ways to be able to support black artists, black healers, black people on the front lines, black lawyers.
She is a core organizer for Black Lives Matter Albuquerque @blackvoicesabq; she’s been present at candlelight vigils and protests. “I am grateful to be a source of guidance to some of my people in Albuquerque. I can help support this ecosystem. It’s okay for me to be that starting point, that anchor, that bridge.”
**This is a series highlighting black business owners in New Mexico. While were are not able to feature every black woman , we will have a permanent ongoing list of black women-owned businesses on the site.**
Please support the following:
Ayanna Freeman—Leela’s Body Cocktails, Albuquerque
Monique Stefania Carr—Spellbound Syrups, Albuquerque
Janelle Langford—Obsidiopolis, Santa Fe
Ayla Bystrom Williams—Honeymoon Brewery, Santa Fe
Queneesha Meyers—Q’s Cakes, Albuquerque
Shunnae tktk—Flower Loop, Albuquerque
Ebony Isis Booth—Burque Noir, Albuquerque
Chloe Nixon, singer Albuquerque
Asia and Kia—Elle Naturalle, Albuquerque
Dionne Christian—Revolution Bakery, Santa Fe
Iyawo Tintawi Kaigziabiher, 13 Months Imports, Ile Ife, Santa Fe
Neema Pickett, Young Women Rising, Santa Fe
Nikesha Breeze, Artist and Sculptor, Santa Fe
Mi’Jan Celie Biaz, Oral Historian, Santa Fe
Lakiesha Cotton, Activist, Santa Fe
La Gina Glass, Prana Blessings, Santa Fe
Lara Rabkin, Bark Paper Interior Design, Santa Fe
Zippy Guerin—Santa Fe Found, Santa Fe
Sunshine Muse, NM Birth Equity, Santa Fe
About the Author: Maria Manuela is a writer based in Santa Fe, New Mexico where she was born and raised. She focuses on highlighting artists, designers and creative locals in her work which has been featured in publications like New Mexico Magazine, Good Mood, and THE Magazine. She curates and authors the arts section of UNUM, highlighting women who work in creative professions. She is also in the process of writing a short story collection of magical realism folk stories based in the Southwest.