St. Johns, the largest city in Clinton County, is best known for one thing: mint.
Thousands of Michiganders travel to the small town the second weekend of August for the city’s annual Mint Festival, a celebration of the region’s agricultural history and the vibrant community built around it.
The city earned its title as the Mint Capital of the World in the early 1900s, with nearly 90% of the world’s mint exports originating from the region.
In 1985, the Mint Festival was born and has been held at the Clinton County Fairgrounds ever since.
This year, the festival is moving downtown, and no one is more excited than local business owners.
When I visited St. Johns a little more than a week before the festival, Lori Wurm was already setting up her window display.
Wurm took over Woodbury’s Flower Shop just a couple years ago, but the business itself has been a St. Johns staple since 1911.
“They were almost five generations in when I took over,” she said. “There's people that come in here that have had their grandparents as customers, parents as customers, and now the newer generation. Having those return customers, their loyalty means a lot to us."
Return customers are pivotal for the local business, but the draw of new faces from the Mint Festival gives Wurm a lot to look forward to.
While the flower shop itself doesn’t do much with mint, Wurm and her sister are starting up a custom cookie business called Frosted Designs that will be tabling outside the shop this coming weekend.
“It really brings the town alive. People come down, they check out our vendors, they check out the stores. It just gets people out.”Lori Wurm, owner of Woodbury's Flower Shop
“Trying to find ways to gain diversity and variety and stay connected with community is really our goal,” Wurm said.
Speaking of sweets, as I walked out the door, Wurm put a card for one free chocolate from Oh Mi Organics in my hand and told me to tell the chocolatiers that she said “hello.”
Oh Mi Organics, owned and operated by Brent and Megen Hurst, has been around for 11 years. The married couple prides themselves on their litany of allergen-free products.
“My wife Megen has a lot of food allergies, and she really missed chocolate,” Brent said. “We were like, ‘Well, why don't we see if we can just make something for you that you can have?’”
The chocolate that serves as the base for every flavor has just four ingredients: coconut oil, cocoa, raw honey and maple syrup.
The couple’s most popular creation is their Neapolitan. When you eat it, each flavor has its moment, you'll be tasting strawberry for five seconds before the candy switches to chocolate for ten seconds and then ending with vanilla. The timing is really that exact.
“It reinitiates the same sequential pattern, same order of presentation, duration, schedule and effectivity,” Brent said. “It's infallible. It never moves.”
To my surprise, neither Brent nor Megen have a background in food science.
“If we had followed a culinary arts program, we wouldn't know how to do any of these things because no one else has done it before, so you’re just trying to learn things that have already been taught,” Brent said. “Here, we don't follow roads; we have machetes and make our own.”
The shop, of course, also carries a plethora of mint-flavored items, from their classic mint chocolates to minty fresh cold brews.
While the Mint Festival itself is a draw to the St. Johns area, Megen said people should make the trip again in the coming weeks.
“If you drive around on the back roads in like mid-to-late August, roll your windows down,” she said. “It smells heavenly when they're harvesting everything.”
The folks at The Minty Mitten, a local gift shop, also have a special connection to all things mint.
“My great-grandpa and great-great-grandpa were mint farmers here in town,” co-owner Kiyana Irish said. “I am, I believe, fifth generation here in St. Johns.”
The Minty Mitten is owned and run by Irish and her mother Emily Kendall. The store features more than 80 vendors from across Michigan, including the works of some family members.
The array of spoon jewelry, for instance, is made by Irish’s grandmother.
“She retired back in 2018 and went, ‘I'm bored,’” Irish said. “And then she found people making this online and went, ‘I want to try it.’”
That’s how a lot of the vendors who sell through The Minty Mitten came to be.
“We want people to put their stuff out there and just share with the world what they can do,” Irish said. “I love to do it myself. I've always wanted to sell my own art and share my art with everyone, and Lottie likes to share her happiness and her cuteness with everyone who comes in.”
Lottie is, of course, the English bulldog who roams the store at all hours.
Outside of the large number of downtown businesses getting ready for the annual Mint Festival, the event will draw more than 100 vendors, as well as food trucks, a car show and a parade led by the city’s Mint Queen.
The St. Johns Mint Festival starts Friday, Aug. 7 and continues through Sunday, Aug. 9.
