Eccentric names, flavors add spice to canning business
A few of the jams made by Holly’s Heavenly Creations, featuring flavors like ‘Dirty Monkey Nuts,’ a peanut butter, chocolate and banana jam. Photos by Anna Milton. 
Holly Condon holds up a few jars of jam. 
The garlic Condon grows in her backyard. 
A jar of Condon’s garlic jelly, aptly called ‘Vampire Killer.’
A few of the jams made by Holly’s Heavenly Creations, featuring flavors like ‘Dirty Monkey Nuts,’ a peanut butter, chocolate and banana jam. Photos by Anna Milton.
Holly Condon holds up a few jars of jam.
The garlic Condon grows in her backyard.
A jar of Condon’s garlic jelly, aptly called ‘Vampire Killer.’
MIDDLEBORO — When she woke up from a colonoscopy appointment, Holly Condon had a great idea.
That’s when she came up with the new flavor “Curry on,” for her jam business. “I wake up [from the colonoscopy] and I’m tasting onions, garlic, brown sugar, curry,” she said.
Condon owns ‘Holly’s Heavenly Creations’, a jam and jelly business that specializes in eccentric flavors – 171 to be precise – that include combinations like violet and forsythia, strawberry and rose petals, and onion, garlic and brown sugar with curry.
“The creativity is insane,” said Condon. “Things just pop in my head.”
Condon credits her mother for her uncanny ability to think of flavorful combinations. Canning was something she did with her mom since the time she “could reach the stove,” Condon said. Her mother died nine years ago and starting the business was a way to honor her memory, she said..
Sometimes it is the flavor combination that comes to her first and other times it is the name, she noted.
“Gargoyle goop” is a creation that came to her first as a name.
“I knew [the jam] had to be dark, so I [thought] blackberry and cherry,” for ingredients, she recalled.
The name “Curry on” is a spinoff of the song “ “Carry on my wayward son,” she said.
Other flavor names that usually crack a smile and only occasionally offend include “Flamin’ Anus,” a hot pepper mustard that is Condon’s best-seller, or “Back-end Blowout,” a hot pepper jelly.
Several of the jams she sells are her mother’s recipes, such as “The Spirit of Christmas,” a maraschino cherry and pineapple jam, and “Mom’s Apple Pie,” she said.
According to Condon, she finds “heart shapes” in fruit chunks or in the bubbles of her jams that serve as a reminder that her mom is with her every step of the way.
“I just feel like it’s her working through me,” she said.
For Condon, canning became an important way to bond with her mother – and it continues to be a family affair.
Her husband, Jim Condon, and two sons are equally as invested as she is in coming up with flavors and names for her products, she said.
Jim Condon shared that he was the mastermind behind names like “Back-end blowout” and “Bloody Hell,” a concoction of strawberries, cranberries and hot peppers.
While her sons came up with “Queen Bees Nest,” a lemon and honey jam and “Wasp’s nest” a spicier version of that base with hot lemon honey, she said.
When asked what her favorite flavor is, Condon quipped: “The next one I make – that’s what I tell people, because I love them all. That’s why I keep making them.”
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