Monks Make A Mint Selling Fruitcakes -- Holiday Sales Help Support Oregon Abbey

LAFAYETTE, Ore. - Holy fruitcakes!

This is a busy time of year at Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey. The toll-free telephone line just keeps ringing with orders for Trappist Abbey Monastery Fruitcake.

As he wraps up another sale, Brother Patrick concludes appropriately:

"God bless, and thanks for your business."

It's 10:30 a.m., and he's already filled 25 orders. In the coming weeks, Brother Patrick will answer some 80 calls daily and mail 1,000 fruitcakes each week.

"If they know I'm a monk, they'll ask for prayers and blessings, which always makes a sale personal," he says. "But this is definitely not a spiritual-direction hotline."

Fruitcakes and Trappist monks may seem an odd combination. But monks have to make a living, too.

Near Amity, monks at the Brigittines Monastery of Our Lady of Consolation sell fudge. Monks at the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky turn out fruitcakes, fudge and cheese.

In Italy, monks make and sell cordials, liqueurs and cookies. Even Dom Perignon, the celebrated champagne, is named after a Benedictine monk who developed a method for preserving the bubbly beverage.

The Lafayette Trappists chose fruitcake 15 years ago after their pew-making business failed. In recent years, they've added date nutcakes, biscotti and gourmet coffee to the product line.

The business brings in $36,000 per year, about 10 percent of the monks' expenses.

The majority of their income comes from a bookbinding business and from a warehouse where they store wine for local vintners.

Father Richard, 50, is the abbey's business manager. He says the monks' daily regimen begins at 3:30 a.m. with Mass, prayer and meditation. They work from 8:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., then have an afternoon and evening of more work, meditation and prayer.

For eight months, five monks spend their work period baking 80 cakes per day, producing nearly 20,000 fruitcakes annually. The last two months are devoted almost entirely to packaging and shipping.

They use a recipe, developed by a former monastery prior, that calls for just enough batter to hold together the candied pineapples, cherries, nuts and raisins.

After nearly three hours of baking, the blocks are soaked in 120-proof brandy, then aged three months. One-pound blocks sell for $9; three-pound blocks for $21.50, plus shipping and handling.

Last year, an article in Sunset magazine boosted sales to a record $233,000. This year, sales are projected at $200,000.

The pace gets so hectic, by monastery standards, that the monks feel the effects.

"It's easy to forget who you are," Brother Patrick said, admitting he gets a little testy this time of year.

Fellow monks tell of the time Brother Patrick paused in the middle of taking a telephone order and said, "Madam, it's your address I'm interested in, not your family history."

Still, he made the sale.