Michael & Cristina Friedman

The Shmakee Story

Many years ago, my wife Cristina had discovered not only a recipe, but an uncommon methodology to creating a taste unlike one we’ve ever tried before.  While we were trying to come up with some sort of usage for this new spicy “liquefied” taste innovation, it was actually a year or two later that I somehow got the idea of trying to employ this into a pickling process.  Growing up in a Jewish home outside Cleveland, OH, and having a mother who had been born and raised in Mexico, both pickles and spicy were ingrained in my being.  After a lot of trial and errors in creating a brine and process using Cristina’s discovery, we finally created the Shmakee Brand.  

One thing we decided to avoid, was the common method of canning.  Pickles you buy on the shelves, are hit with boiling hot brine after-which the bottles are submerged into a boiling bath. The alternative, was to create a product fresher, tastier, and with a much better texture than "boiled" pickles.  The only downside... if you want to call it that... is that our products are refrigerated right after they are bottled and remain as such.   One person after another has told us that we have the BEST pickle they have ever tried. So it's certainly been worth the effort!