Black Lime & Chili Salt

David and Libby, otherwise known as the father-daughter dynamic duo making up Syracuse Salt Co.

David was born and raised in the industrial town of Syracuse, NY, which sits on the edge of Onondaga Lake. The town got the nickname the "Salt City" way back in the 18th century for the salt springs found all along the shores of the lake.

In fact, the massive salt deposit in the Salina shale formation (from 400+ million years ago!) made Syracuse the epicenter for salt production in the United States in the 1800s.

Fast forward to today. David left his job as a grounds manager for Sodexo to start a salt company. He rented a small warehouse and hired a crew to install a long pipe deep into a patch of dirt right outside the warehouse.

How deep? He'd reviewed the geological surveys for the area, but you can never be certain what you'll find until you start digging. So they started digging, crossing their fingers to hit a well of incredibly salty water before they got to the impenetrable bedrock below.

After digging 300 feet straight down, David gave the OK to stop. He tasted the water that they pumped up through a green garden hose, and his eyes lit up. They were pulling up pristine water from the shale that was 13% salt, which is 3 times the salinity of ocean water. Syracuse Salts Co. was in business.

Today, David and his daughter Libby have a small but growing salt production facility. While mineral salt is typically mined in big blocks and ground by heavy industrial machinery, Syracuse Salt Co. gently evaporates the salty water to form crunchy cubic towers. Then, the salt is scooped up, laid out on trays to dry, and carefully sifted to preserve its perfect shape and texture.

We don't have as much of their salt as we'd like, but they're working hard on expanding their facility so that this can be a regular item for us!