A worker helps corral the floating crimson cranberry haul in an area of Double Trouble State Park in Ocean County . Photo by Marc Steiner/Agency New Jersey
By Brent Johnson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
You might want to pair your next pork roll — or Taylor ham — sandwich with a glass of cranberry juice. It’s now formally the state juice of New Jersey.
And make sure to thank the fourth-graders from Burlington County who helped make it happen.
The sweet red liquid, used as a cocktail mix in some cases and drank straight in others, has been designated the Garden State’s official juice of choice under a law state Senate President Nick Scutari signed Monday.
Scutari is serving as acting governor because Gov. Phil Murphy is on vacation in Italy and Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver died last week.
The law acknowledges that New Jersey didn’t have a state juice, but this designation is “fitting and proper” because of the “significance of cranberries to the history and culture” of the state and its people.
This all started as a civics project from fourth-grade classes at Eleanor Rush Intermediate School in Cinnaminson in 2020. They proceeded to lobby for the law with letters to state legislators in Trenton.
It’s common for school children to learn about government and how bills become law by having them push for measures they think deserve to join the state’s law books.Get politics news like this right to your inbox with the N.J. Politics newsletter. Add your email below and hit “subscribe”
And cranberries are a very Jersey target. As the legislation (A2271) notes, they were harvested by the Lenni Lenape people in South Jersey, commercial cranberry farming began here in Burlington County in 1835, and Elizabeth Lee of New Jersey was one of the first to create jellied cranberry sauce, in 1917. She later joined other farmers in starting the company that became Ocean Spray.
New Jersey is now the third-largest producer of cranberries in America, behind Wisconsin and Massachusetts.
“Our history is rife with the love of cranberries,” one student told the state Senate earlier this year. “For this reason, we think that cranberry juice is the right juice to be the state juice.”
The state Legislature overwhelmingly approved the bill. It passed the Assembly 75-1 in February and the Senate 35-1 in May.
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