Bayberry Tallow Candle

This slim taper wears the pale green of sage leaves, its surface a little matte and uneven, dipped by hand rather than poured in a mold. Unlit, it carries a faint bay-and-resin scent, sharper and greener than beeswax; lit, the fragrance rounds out into something closer to balsam, with none of the heavy smoke that plain tallow produces. New England households have kept a version of this candle burning on the last night of the year since Colonial times, when true wax was costly and this pale green alternative — rendered from wild shrub berries rather than beehives or butchered fat — was both practical and a little bit magic. The old rhyme still gets repeated at midnight in some houses: a bayberry candle burned down to its socket brings luck to that house and gold to its pocket in the year ahead. Genuine bayberry wax is astonishingly labor-intensive to render — the berries of the wax myrtle shrub yield only a thin coating of gray-green wax when boiled, so many pounds go into a single taper. Ours blends a meaningful portion of true bayberry wax into a natural coconut-wax base, keeping the authentic scent and color without the candle costing more than the luck it promises. By custom the candle should be lit and allowed to burn completely to the base in one sitting — New Year's Eve is the traditional night, though any threshold worth marking will do. Set it somewhere safe and let it go all the way out on its own.