Handbuilt Heritage

By Anna Grace Moore
Photos by Blair Ramsey, Rob Culpepper, Will Dickey & Mary Fehr

Jenny McCain never set out to build a business around artisanal jams, yet given her family’s entrepreneurial legacy in Birmingham, she believes that itch to create always ran through her veins. The Woodhill Cottage founder began tinkering with her family’s age-old recipes, creating handmade strawberry and peach conserves and tomato jam as Christmas gifts for family and friends in 2021.

Popularity spread like wildfire, just as demand did for her business. She expanded from her cottage on Woodhill — hence, how her business earned its homey moniker — into a commercial kitchen not long after, and the orders just kept coming.

“I wanted to make sure that it was something that was done right, that it was done well, it was always good and it was just something that I could take a whole different part of my brain and use,” she says. “I enjoyed that, so that’s kind of how we got started.”

Four years after launching Woodhill Cottage, Jenny’s products — two conserves and one jam — are sold in 14 different retail locations across Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Virginia. She has customers in 40 of the 48 continental states and an email list boasting thousands of subscribers, with some orders reaching as far as England.

Funnily enough, specializing in tasty toppings was never on her radar. A Birmingham native, she attended the University of Virginia, majoring in history.

After graduating, she spent a year studying theology in Charlottesville before deciding to pursue a career in law, later studying at the University of Texas. Today, she serves as the head of the banking group at Maynard Nexsen.

A Birmingham native, Jenny is descended from a long line of female powerhouses. In 1947, her grandparents Tom and Ruby McCain founded McCain Manufacturing Co. right after World War II out of an airport hangar in Birmingham.

Having survived the Great Depression and wartime austerity, Tom and Ruby started making children’s wear with only two sewing machines to their name. After WWII, fabric was scarce, but Tom served as a fabric inspector for the United States Army during the war and was able to source some rarities to get their business off the ground.

“At the height of it, the company made over half the children’s wear made in America,” Jenny says.

Ruby, a Howard College, née Samford University graduate, learned to sew through family members and in school and worked as the company’s principal designer. Numerous of her creations became “the next hottest trends” in children’s fashion throughout the nation.

In the late ‘50s or early ‘60s, Jenny says Ruby noticed people wearing nylon shirts out in California. She came back to Alabama, ordered some fabric and created her own unique twist on traditional, utilizing nylon fabrics.

She stuck samples in each of the company’s salesmens’ briefcases, sending them out to nearly every state “just to show” this new, lightweight, quick-drying line of shirts. Thousands of orders later, this line became one of McCain Manufacturing’s top-selling products.

Aside from her eye for design, Ruby was an adept cook.

“I grew up cooking with her and setting the table and conjuring in the kitchen and also talking business, so this has felt like full-circle for me,” Jenny says.

Jenny, who is named after Ruby, recalls some of her fondest memories were made at her grandparents’ house. Ruby had a habit of collecting boxes of cake mix for rainy days, and every time Jenny would come over, she would get to pick a cake mix and bake a cake just for fun.

While she then looked forward to the eating of the cake more so than the cooking of such, Jenny chuckles, now, thinking how cleverly Ruby taught her to love creating magic in the kitchen. When Ruby cooked, the aromatic wafts from her big soup pot would engulf the kitchen in a fragrant decadence, welcoming all who entered into her home in a sweet embrace.

“I was very fortunate to have her as a grandmother, very fortunate to be named for her and we were just very, very close,” Jenny says. “We would go and cook in the kitchen and set the table for the dinners, and she was very much just a good person, you know, just good values.”

Ruby taught Jenny how to draw clothing designs and how to discern which would be profitable by counting how many turns down the production line the design required. She also taught Jenny how to flower cake pans and bake sweet treats, and how to garden and cut and eat okra straight from the vine.

It’s not a surprise to Jenny that as far as she progressed in her career, she never strayed too far from her love of cooking. Her brainchild business was born out of a copper jam pot — quite similar to the one she grew up begging to taste from with her grandmother’s wooden spoon.

Of Woodhill Cottage’s line, the strawberry conserve is one of the more traditional items. According to Jenny, it pairs beautifully with toast or a side of warm pound cake.

Some, she says, eat it right out of the jar.

The peach, however, is her favorite of the three and can be used to make the most unique delicacies. Jenny has curated a Thanksgiving pie that utilizes her own peach conserve, and to this day, she says it’s the best pie she’s ever had.

Nonetheless, the tomato jam is likely the most versatile of the three and has become a fan-favorite.

In a Woodhill Cottage informational pamphlet depicting her tomato jam recipes, Jenny says, “Few people have ever had it. Everyone wants more as soon as they taste it. Tomato jam is fantastic on a grilled cheese sandwich, on scrambled eggs and over cream cheese with crackers.”

One of her favorite “game day” dishes is the Gourmet Kobe Burger — which features Kobe burger patties layered with arugula and tomato jam on a brioche bun. The Tomato and Basil Mini Tartlets, too, are quite popular finger foods she’s created that are perfect for any occasion.

They combine shredded sharp cheddar cheese, sundried tomatoes, fresh basil, eggs, sour cream, kosher salt, ground black pepper, and of course, tomato jam, into bite-sized tarts that taste both sweet and salty for a flavor-packed punch. Whether on Game Day Sliders or as a vinaigrette over pan-roasted salmon, the tomato jam yields a mouthful of sensation.

“The other thing that’s really surprising is that the tomato [jam] is just so versatile,” she says. “It’s like anything you’d put ketchup on, but that’s just the starting point. It’s great on cornbread. It’s great on a glaze for any meat. It’s delicious.”

Jenny has written her own recipes and tweaked some of her family’s oldest recipes to create a delicious fall menu of which everyone can find something they love. She has the perfect “go-to” dishes for game days, Thanksgiving and every occasion in between.

Customers can visit woodhillcottage.com to read up on the many Woodhill Cottage original recipes.

Now selling her products in-store, Jenny plans to expand her business into retailers along the East Coast and continue to create a quality product that pays homage to Ruby and her legacy.

“We stand on the shoulders of those who went before us,” she says. “We really do. Somebody else said this, but you drink from the wells that others dug. You are warned by the fires that others set. I’m just thankful for all of her wisdom. She wouldn’t be who she was without her parents and family, and I wouldn’t be who I am without [her].”

More than just “jam,” Woodhill Cottage is a testament to the generations of resilience born from strife and the fondness for creativity during bleak times. With every jar she makes, Jenny McCain carries on a legacy rich in family, fellowship and fortitude that builds beautiful things that last.

To learn more about Woodhill Cottage, read about recipes or purchase products, visit woodhillcottage.com.