We believe the birch tree holds untapped potential for health, wellness, and sustainability. For generations, cultures across the Northern Hemisphere have turned to birch for its cleansing sap, medicinal bark, nutrient-rich leaves, and the powerful chaga mushrooms that grow on its trunks. At Hammers Family Birch, we honor that full spectrum, using the tree not just for birch syrup, but for a complete approach to forest-based wellness.

From sap to syrup, tea to tincture, everything we make begins with wild Alaskan birch trees. Our organic birch sap is harvested each spring, drop by drop, from forests we carefully steward near Talkeetna, Alaska. We forage chaga mushrooms by hand and partner with nature to ensure every product reflects the purity and resilience of the tree it comes from.

Our story begins in Riga, Latvia, where birch sap has been part of springtime tradition for centuries and where our dad, Arvid, and grandparents once called home. Before World War II, our family owned the only chain and nail factory in Latvia. After the Soviet occupation our family faced deportation to Siberia. That’s when our dad and grandparents fled in the middle of the night. They spent the next seven years in displaced persons camps before immigrating to America through Ellis Island. They eventually rebuilt their lives in Chicago with the same spirit and resilience that got them to America. Our dad eventually settled in Springfield, Illinois, where he met our mom, Julie, and raised us - Ted, Alex, and Margot.

That story of loss, resilience, and starting over is woven into everything we do.
In 2014, we (brothers Ted and Alex) returned to Latvia on a family trip with our dad and sister. There we rediscovered birch sap, not just as a drink, but as a living connection to our roots. For centuries, Latvians have tapped birch trees as a way of welcoming spring—a ritual of healing, vitality, and renewal.

We came home inspired. Soon after we, along with our childhood friend Chris Sorensen, founded Hammers Family Birch with a vision to bring birch-based wellness to America. Our first product, Birch Brew, is a wild-fermented birch sap beverage rooted in tradition and crafted for modern life.

This wasn’t just a passion project. In 2022, Ted left behind a career as an L.A. attorney at the world’s largest law firm to pursue a life more aligned with land, family, and purpose. That journey led us to Alaska.

In 2023, we acquired Alaska Wild Harvest and Kahiltna Birchworks, the world’s preeminent birch syrup producer with over 30 years of craftsmanship. Honored to carry the torch, we now harvest sap from thousands of wild birch trees in the pristine boreal forests outside Talkeetna, Alaska.

This place which is rugged, remote, and stunningly pure is more than just our home base. It's the perfect backdrop for a company rooted in wellness, sustainability, and tradition. There’s something powerful about creating clean, life-giving products in the Last Frontier, where the forest is still wild and the American Dream is still alive.

In many ways we're living the dream our grandparents dreamt of generations prior when they first arrived to America. From a factory lost in Latvia, to a new life in Illinois, to the boreal birch forests of Alaska, this is a story of renewal.

We're proud to carry this legacy forward and to share the healing power of birch with the world.

The Hammers family's complete immigration story, including Arvid's firsthand account of fleeing Latvia in 1944 and spending seven years in German refugee camps before arriving in Chicago, is preserved in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library's oral history collection.