It’s officially jam season in Montecito. American Riviera Orchard, Meghan Markle’s perfectly named lifestyle brand/jam company, has sent out its first round of jars to some of Markle’s closest friends.
Tracy Robbins, a designer and the wife of Paramount CEO Brian Robbins, was generous enough to show us how the jam arrived. “Thank you for the delicious basket,” she wrote on Instagram. In the photo, you see that the jam came in a bowl of lemons, because rich people love bowls of lemons. Take, for example, the other bowl of lemons in Robbins’s photo.
Based purely on looks, I love this. The cheesecloth covering the lid that will get thrown away immediately, that little piece of string, the needlessly ornate ARO logo. The best part is the handwritten numbering of the jars. Robbins received the 17th of 50 jars, and I’m imagining the meetings wherein Markle had to decide which friends received which number jar. You have to imagine that Oprah was in the single digits, right? If I have one piece of criticism, it’s that the label is peeling up. Markle is probably horrified by this, typing “industrial-strength adhesive near me” into Google at this very moment.
One of Markle’s other friends, Delfina Blaquier, gave us some insight into the kinds of flavors American Riviera Orchard is dabbling in. Place your bets now. In an Instagram Story captured by the New York Post, the Argentinian model wrote “Strawberry jam makes me happy” alongside a photo of her jar (she got No. 10). So, it’s strawberry. I was kind of hoping for something fun, even if that was just the addition of rhubarb or vanilla bean, but it seems that it’s just regular strawberry jam.
Thankfully, Town & Country is maintaining a list of who has received the jam so far, along with which number their jar was. So now we know Mindy Kaling (No. 19), Tracee Ellis Ross (No. 21), and Kris Jenner (No. 13) are all on the jam list. Markle’s best friend and former Suits co-star Abigail Spencer also got a jar (No. 6), and you know that she’s a real-deal friend because she posted her jam to grid.
Also partaking in some non-Story posting was Chrissy Teigen (No. 20), who went the extra mile and actually showed herself eating the jam. In an Instagram Reel, Teigen made a sandwich with “rustic bread, salted butter, triple cream brie, thick cut bacon and some @americanrivieraorchard jam!” She and husband John Legend both took bites, and Teigen went on to call it “one of the best bites we’ve had all year.” That does sound really good.
Would I like to see some flavors other than strawberry? Sure. But that’s King Charles’s domain for now. Maybe a yuzu marmalade isn’t the first thing you want to send to all your friends when showing off your jam prowess. Markle stuck with the classics, and you have to respect that on some level. I bet it’s great, and if the good people at American Riviera Orchard want to send me some, I would happily accept. I’d even be fine with being No. 50.
This post has been updated.
