ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – If you’re from New Mexico, there’s a popular sweet treat that will be on the dessert table this holiday season, biscochitos.

While you can buy them year-round, the holidays are especially busy for bakeries who specialize in making them.

For Celina’s Biscochitos that means making double if not three times more biscochitos to make sure locals and people nationwide have a sweet taste of New Mexico tradition.

“We probably do on average about anywhere from about, this year, probably about maybe 400 to 600 dozen a day,” said Celina Grife, co-owner of Celina’s Biscochitos. 

It’s no easy job making biscochitos.

For the past 14 years, Celina’s Biscochitos has been making her grandma’s recipe. This year, just like the rest, there is a high demand for our state’s official cookie, especially during the holidays.

“We’re just trying to keep up with the demand. So everyday by the end of the day, we’re just trying to scramble to make sure that we have enough cookies on the shelf for our customers, so that way they can pick them up at the end of the day,” said Grife. 

They’re making anywhere from 4,000 to over 7,000 cookies a day. That’s two to three times more than what they usually make outside of the holiday season.

Over the years, Grife has added more than just their traditional cookie.

“Our very first flavor was the red chile biscochito. And then one thing lead to another, we just started playing with it,” Grife said. 

Now they offer red and green chile, lemon, blue corn pinion and chocolate chip. This isn’t just the unique, different flavors they offer, it’s the tradition they carry on.

“We are one of the few commercial companies that are still making them the traditional way. So we still use lard, and by lard, I mean the old-fashioned blue and white container that everybody uses at home,” said Grife. “We still use brandy in our product as well. We still use the old fashion anise.”

One thing Grife has learned over the years is that for some people, a biscochito is much more than just a cookie.

“This is very personal to people, and I had no idea how personal it was to people. I could be working at an event, and I’ll have people say, ‘No, I can’t have yours because my mom or my aunt or my uncle.’ Whatever! Somebody makes them in the family,” said Grife. “Or we get somebody who doesn’t have that family member with them anymore, and they try ours, and they’re kind of like, ‘This brings back so many memories.’”

Grife says their goal is to keep that traditional biscochito flavor and texture, in every cookie they make.