It was the winter of 1927 and Frank Herman had a big problem. Otsego County, New York had elected a new sheriff who vowed to crack down on all the illegal moonshine stills in the county. Seeing as Frank was the biggest bootlegger in the whole Mohawk Valley, everyone knew the sheriff would come after Frank first. So Frank decided to make the first move. He came into the sheriff's office one day and said he was going into the farming business for real.
Gonna start myself an apple orchard.
Just to prove he was serious, Frank showed the sheriff all the seeds he had bought off a fellow from Kentucky. The sheriff looked sidelong at Frank but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
It'll never take,
said old Jasper down at the general store.
Can't grow them kinda apples this far north,
agreed Grandpa Lumpkin.
And at first it looked like Jasper and Grandpa were right. Nothing appeared where the seeds were planted despite much fussing and anxiety from Frank. One night in desperation Frank decided to take some corn liquor from the stills and pour it on the seeds. Of course everyone knows that plants don't like corn liquor, not even corn. But Frank wasn't much of a farmer, or so people thought.
Two weeks later the sheriff came by to check on Frank. The sheriff's jaw dropped as he stepped out of his car. There stood an entire acre covered in little apple tree seedlings. He was so amazed he didn't even bother to check if Frank had destroyed the stills. Frank just smiled and waved as the sheriff drove away.
Seven years passed. The Depression hit and times got tough. Yet Frank's apple orchard flourished. Even so he had a new problem. The crop of 1934 was the biggest so far and he started running out of customers who needed apples. A solution appeared in the form of the Otsego County Fair. Frank decided to promote his new crop by putting on an Apple Gala
and inviting all the bigwigs from around the Mohawk Valley. It featured a four course dinner of apple dumplings, apple salad, applewood smoked apple sausage, and of course, apple pie.
The party was a huge hit and before long farmers from all over the state came to Frank asking to buy his Gala
seeds. The cultivar spread from New York across the United States and even as far as New Zealand. Some people say when you bite into a Gala apple you can still taste a bit of Frank's old corn liquor.