Loganberry

A Santa Cruz garden discovery

The loganberry was created by Judge James Harvey Logan in 1881 in his Santa Cruz, California garden. He was attempting to breed a better blackberry by crossing two existing varieties when a spontaneous cross with a nearby raspberry produced an unexpected hybrid.

The seedling fruit was a deep wine-red, larger than either parent, with a complex sweet-tart flavor. Logan named it after himself and propagated the new variety, which spread quickly through California horticulture.

The ancestor of modern hybrids

Loganberry is the genetic ancestor of many modern berry hybrids — boysenberry, tayberry, marionberry, olallieberry, and many others all trace their lineage back to Logan’s 1881 seedling.

Berry breeders worked with loganberry through the 20th century to create new varieties with better shipping qualities, larger fruit, fewer seeds, or thornless plants. The modern berry section of any well-stocked nursery owes much to Logan’s original cross.

Western New York’s loganberry obsession

Loganberry has a peculiar regional cult following in Western New York and southern Ontario. Buffalo and Rochester have used loganberry juice as a regional soft drink for over a century — most famously in Crystal Beach Loganberry, a sweet syrupy drink served at the now-defunct Crystal Beach amusement park.

This regional drink remains a staple at Buffalo-area bars and restaurants, where ordering “loganberry” is almost a local shibboleth.

Hard to ship, easy to grow

Loganberries are soft and fragile — they don’t ship well, which is part of why they remained a regional specialty. Modern berry breeding has produced thornless varieties that home gardeners can grow easily, but commercial production is still limited.

Most loganberry production today goes to processed products: jam, syrup, juice, wine. Fresh loganberries are mostly a backyard or farmers-market treat.