Category: Events

Finger Lakes Fruit Heritage Events at Cider Week 2016

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This post was written as a guest post for the Cider Week Finger Lakes blog as a prelude to Cider Week 2016.  Please visit their site to find out about all the amazing events happening during Cider Week Finger Lakes.

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Old Orchard west of Watkins Glen, NY

I’ve been looking forward to Cider Week Finger Lakes 2016 all year, and here’s why: I’m hoping Cider Week 2016 will be an opportunity to learn more about the history of cider making and fruit growing from you, the public. The Finger Lakes Fruit Heritage Project  is making its debut to ask what you know about the roles that orchards, cider, and fruit have played in our region’s heritage.  I want to know about the old trees and orchards in your back yard, and the stories, anecdotes, experiences, and skills that are woven into the fabric of your fruit landscapes.

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Barrelling Apples – House, grain building, 1906, from the Verne Morton Collection: The History Center of Tompkins County

Cider Week has grown as our local agricultural entrepreneurs have rediscovered the craft of cider making and nurtured it in new and innovative directions.  But cider was made in our region before, in the homes and on the farms of many people who settled the Finger Lakes region, travelling west from New England in search of better land.   They planted fruit trees to supply their own families with food and beverage.  And local people have made hard and sweet cider from them for generations.  Keep your eyes peeled while you are driving through the countryside, and you might spot an old orchard you never noticed before.

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Eric Shatt of Redbyrd Cider prunes and old orchard near Burdette, NY

Some of these old farm orchards still remain on our landscape today, and local cider makers, commercial and hobbyist, care for and use them, up to 150 years after they were originally planted.

What happened to these frontier farms? And the orchards that were an essential ingredient in their domestic economies? Some are still going, but many small hill farms that were unprofitable were abandoned during hard economic times.  Some areas that were once farmed are now re-wilded as parks and reserves, like the Finger Lakes National Forest or the Connecticut Hill Wildlife Management Area.  And some of them have long been sources for cider.

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Home Cider Maker Steve Daughhetee near the remains of an enormous old orchard near his home west of Ithaca, NY.  He believes these trees are Newtown Pippins.
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Photos from an article on States Cider Mill in the Ithaca Journal, October 26, 1974

Carl States, whose father owned the States Cider Mill in Odessa, remembers how local people went foraging in the abandoned farm orchards on Connecticut Hill when he was growing up in the 1960s.  They brought the apples to be pressed at his father’s cider mill, which was still being operated by another family into the early 1990s, when it finally closed down when new requirements for pasteurization were passed into law.

“Most of the old timers would bring plenty of apples, more that what they needed, and then Dad would buy what was left over with, or they would just take it home with them in gallons or give it away. Apples were pretty plentiful then.  A lot of people when I was a kid – all the old orchards were still in production on Connecticut hill, because all the old farms were abandoned in the depression, but the orchards were still there.  So you could go up and get all the apples you wanted for free – just go up and pick them.” – Carl States

A few local cider makers who are at the heart of Cider Week today, including Ian and Jackie Merwin of Black Diamond Farm, remember taking their apples to be pressed at States Cider Mill.  Places like these are now receding into memory, but it is here where the connection between our modern Cider Revival and the local heritage of cider can be made.

In addition to celebrating our amazing local cider businesses, I hope Cider Week continues to grow in exploring the history of cider deep in our region’s past, and nurtures the growing networks of DIY enthusiasts, home brewers, gardeners, and farmers who are renewing the spirit of cider making and cider drinking as a part of everyday life.

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Debbie and John Ball in the old orchard outside Watkins Geln they have restored over the past 20 years.  The orchard may be over 150 years old.

This Cider Week, I am hoping you can help me document our cider history through events hosted by the Finger Lakes Fruit Heritage Project.  This project, an initiative of the Folk Arts program at The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes, will explore the fruit heritage of our region and highlight the agricultural and culinary practices that have molded our landscape, from apple orchards, to peaches, cherries, berries, and of course, grapes. I’m hoping to find more evidence about the history of local cider culture, in your stories and photographs, and in the apples growing in your back yard or on your farm.

Cider Week is a celebration of an agricultural and culinary craft brought back to life.  Our cider future looks amazingly bright, and new orchards are springing up to supply it.  But there’s still much to learn about the cider past, and how it’s shaped our local landscape, culture, and palate.  I hope you will join the Finger Lakes Fruit Heritage Project events to share your knowledge and connect our local cider history with our cider future.

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The Finger Lakes Fruit Heritage Project is hosting three Documentation Days and one Apple Identification Day during Cider Week, and you are invited to come share your fruit stories and learn about their apples.

Documentation Days at the Elmira Wisner Market (September 29, 10am-2pm) and the Montour Falls Harvest Festival (October 1, 12pm-7pm) are an opportunity to stop by the Finger Lakes Fruit Heritage listening booth and share stories, photographs or documents for our archive of fruit heritage.  Tell us about your memories of making cider, apple butter, pie, wine, preserves. Describe pruning, parties, people who were the local masters of theses crafts. Your stories will help us see the larger picture of fruit and cider in the Finger Lakes.

The Apple Identification and Documentation Day at Reisinger’s Apple Country (October 8, 9am – 12noon) invites the public to bring apples to be identified by our pomologist panel, including Dr. Greg Peck of Cornell University and John Reynolds of Blackduck Cidery.  If you’ve been wondering what that old tree at the back of the property is, now is your chance to find out! Bring 3-5 apples from each tree you would like to identify. You can then log your finds and deposit any stories you have at the listening booth.  For more information on directions and what to expect, visit http://www.earts.org/finger-lakes-fruit-events

These events are a project of The Folk Arts Program at The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes in collaboration with partners at Reisinger’s Apple Country, Schuyler County Cor­nell Cooperative Extension, Cornell University Department of Horticulture, and Montour Falls Public Library. This project is funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Two Apple Festivals, One Weekend

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Cider Week Finger Lakes was a smash!  And our cup runneth over with events.  To start off this Cider Week, I went to two different apple festivals, one connected to Cider Week, and the other not.

On Friday afternoon on the first weekend of October, I left work early and headed for the Ithaca Apple Festival.  In its 33rd year, the Ithaca Apple Festival had been, until recently I am told, bereft of much connection to apples. But with the advent of Cider Week Finger Lakes, the cider makers are now a big presence at the Apple Festival, which acts as a kick-off for the region’s Cider Week.

Walking down State Street, I could see all the trappings of a street fair calling – some small scale carnival rides, the twirling teacups, a carousel, two gourmet mac and cheese food trucks, a Columbian street food vendor.  A  skinny bearded young guy pulled a cart collecting compost.  A tired carney checked his cell phone. College kids took selfies with their steaming cups of cider, and an old man in overalls stood behind an unglamorous but bountiful stall of vegetables. Two ladies sat beside a community quilt, selling tickets to raffle it off.  A corridor of handmade jewellery and brooms and aprons funneled the crowd crossways.

A steady stream of young professionals and grad students rotated in and out of the Cellar d’Or Wine and Cider Shop, queuing up to taste and take with cider makers from Black Diamond Farm, Redbyrd Cider, South Hill Cider, and Eve’s Cidery, who stood with steady arms and long patience beside their barrels and bottles.

Outside, on the commons, the ciders and the wineries, the soup seller, and the orchards and apple vendors, all made the most of the festival theme.  Fresh apples, apple soup, hot cider, hard cider, sweet cider, dry cider, turnovers from Indian Creek Orchard, and doughnuts from Little tree orchard – and a line 20 feet long to get them.  The horticulture students hawked the fruits of Cornell’s research orchards.

The next day, I headed out to the Newark Valley Historical Society Apple Festival, an event in its 36th year, with no connection to Cider Week Finger Lakes. The weather had turned grey and misty and cold, but I got in my car and drove east on 79 out of Ithaca, turning south down 38, into hills and valleys.  Route 38 is an old turnpike, and you can see the age of the road by its early farmhouses. As I approached the Newark Valley Historical Society Apple Festival, a sign warned cars to slow down, and pumpkins lined the road where policemen directed traffic into the adjacent field.

The small living history museum was filled for the day with demonstrators and vendors of historical, traditional, and rural arts.  An enormous iron kettle filled with salt potatoes was boiling in the midst of the tents, and under two tall old trees, a mobile cider mill was hissing, spitting, grinding, and pressing.

Asking about the mill, I fell into conversation with the husband and wife operating it, who then introduced me to its builder, C.O. Smith, aged 92. Mr. Smith shook my hand and told me that the engine on the mill was over 105 years old, and that he had built the machine to replicate one that his grandfather had used on their farm south of Rochester.  It was built for the festival, which he and others had started as a way to raise funds for the Historical Society.

I wandered through the festival and spoke to woodcarvers from the Catatonk Valley Woodcarver’s group, to a luthier who builds dulcimers in traditional and avant garde designs, and to a beekeeper whose honeys were made of nectars as varied as the apple blossoms of spring to the invasive Japanese knotweed that chokes the landscape and blooms profusely in late summer.

These two apple festivals, happening simultaneously and within 40 miles of each other, and yet in some ways worlds apart, show different sides of the region’s apple culture, speaking to different audiences, in different communities.  The Ithaca festival is more obviously commercial, and the Newark Valley festival skews more historical and educational.  While preserving the uniqueness of each festival and the communities they serve, it would be interesting to see what could happen if the commercial and the educational missions of each festival could enliven and enrich each other.

How much more rooted can commerce be if it can draw on a region’s historical identity? How much more present and emergent can history be if it is a living resource for the new commercial enterprises that Cider Week Finger Lakes seeks to promote? There are more apple festivals to visit, and an exciting possible future for the relationship of Cider Week Finger Lakes to long-running community celebrations.

Mistletoe

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During my research in England, I wrote some fieldnote observations (reposted below) about my encounters with mistletoe, and I recently got to revisit them in a conversation with Annie Corrigan on WFIU Radio’s Earth Eats Program.  If you are interested in further information on mistletoe, please visit pages by Jonathan Briggs, whose work has brought the botany, conservation, and social history of mistletoe out of the orchard and into the 21rst century: Mistletoe Matters and Jonathan’s Mistletoe Diary.

IMG_2680December 8, 2011.  Fieldnotes. It is a windy, rainy day outside, and at 3:30pm, I definitely need the lights on inside.  I am perched on my little snug chair next to the woodstove. The darkness of winter here has definitely been one of the hardest things for me to deal with, and if left to natural devices, I would probably take a cue from the other mammals about and go into hibernation for the next few months.  The days are definitely shorter here than back at home, but I think part of it is the fact that my fieldwork takes me outside a lot.  Instead of being compelled to get to work in a lighted building for eight hours, I find the waxing and waning of the sun’s light has a much greater influence on my experience of the working day.

During this dark period, another product of the orchard has preoccupied me for the past several weeks, and that is mistletoe.  I only learned that mistletoe favored growing on apple trees, and particularly in the south-west midlands of Britain, in October, when my wwoof host at the Hatch pointed it out to me as we were harvesting apples and pears from the orchard.  He mentioned that he used to sell the mistletoe, but the comment escaped my notice until someone mentioned the Tenbury Wells Mistletoe Auction to me some time later.

The town of Tenbury Wells is located just on the borders of three counties – Herefordshire, Shropshire, and Worcestershire.  And allegedly, these mistletoe auctions have been going on for the past 150 years, though they were threatened with closure recently when the cattle market, where they were held, closed.  In an effort to help save the auctions and retain one of the town’s claims to fame, some folks cooked up the Mistletoe Festival, complete with a mistletoe queen, a Druid procession, and various other Christmas activities.  You can read more about it on their website here.

While the festival itself is, of course, interesting as a consciously invented tradition, I was actually more interested in the relationship of the mistletoe sales to the issues of orchard management.  It turns out that mistletoe thrives in old and traditionally managed orchards. I sent off some inquiring emails to the estate agents who run the auction, and received a reply from a local farmer who was happy to talk to me.

Armed with my photographic equipment, I set off to the first auction, which happened on Nov 29th.  Turns out I wasn’t the only one with a camera.  There were LOADS of camera-toting people there, from amateur on-lookers to highly professional rigs.  One guy, who turned out to be a floral photographer, even had his assistant/model, all dolled up in ‘authentic’ looking pristine wellies and beautifully matching fuzzy lavender hat and gloves, posing as if she was inspecting and buying the mistletoe.  The place was just dripping in nostalgia, or at least that is what all the photographers seemed to be framing in their cameras.

The actual business of the auction, though, seemed to go on without much notice of the photographers and onlookers.  And it was really business.  The auctioneer, with hs portable loudspeaker and cadre of assistants keeping track of the lot numbers, bidders, and prices, moved up and down the rows of wreaths, holly, and mistletoe, offering a starting price, sometimes with a comment to the quality (“look at the berries on that”) and taking the bids from the small crowd of what seemed to be seasoned veteran buyers. People in the middle of conducting business transactions aren’t terribly interested in being interviewed, so this situation required a lot more courage, so to speak, on my part, going up to people and asking if they would answer a few questions in between hauling their green purchases to their vans, lorries, and cars.

The guys pictured here had driven all the way from Cork, Ireland and slept in their van and were filling it to the brim for the trip home, where they would sell it through their Christmas tree yard.  They were very friendly. Many of the buyers were from florists and garden centers, along with some other small scale Christmas tree vendors.  My best tactic for talking to people seemed to be to stand near the bidding action, and turn to the person next to me to ask if they were selling or buying, and launch into an uninvited conversation.  The next week, when I returned for the next auction, I came armed with a printed survey in self-addressed, stamped, envelopes, which I could simply give to people to complete and mail back to me at their leisure.  Even so, it was hard to get it into a lot of hands.  I didn’t meet any sellers, but on my second visit, I walked up and down the rows of mistletoe and holly writing down the names and addresses of the sellers written on the tags of each lot.  Not all had addresses, but it might be a start for contacting sellers and talking to them later.

One group of people whom I have not had the courage to talk to yet are the gypsies.  Along with the farmers who bring mistletoe from their orchards to sell, there are groups of gypsies who gather it from farmers’ orchards and sell it on at the auction.  I did walk up to two men who seemed to be lingering by the side of the auction yard among groups of people whom I took to be gypsies.  As I tried to start a conversation with them, their first question was if I was a journalist, after which, one of them ranted for a bit about how it wasn’t all christmas cheer and roses harvesting the mistletoe.  It was hard work, at which point, he pulled up his sweater to show me an enormous scar running across his side and up to his ribcage.  I attempted to banter for a bit, and they seemed to warm up to me, but I decided not to push questions.  Maybe later.

I did go visit one farm, Eastham Court Farm near Tenbury Wells. I was greeted, to my surprise, by a 22-year old guy, recently graduated from an engineering degree, who had moved home to his parents’ farm.  And while he was sorting out what to do next, he had taken their mistletoe business in hand and set up an online direct-sales business, bypassing the auction.  You can find his website here.  He emphasized the need for farmers to change and adapt to new ways of doing business.  He took me out into their orchards: organic, 60-year old orchards which he seemed to think were in definite decline.  Even though they were lovely places to be, with their widely spaced, large, old trees, he didn’t think orchards like this would last much longer, as newer orchards with more closely-spaced, smaller trees were replanted. And there was the mistletoe, hanging in lacy green orbs from the branches of the trees, sometimes almost overwhelming them.  The farmers have to cut it back every year, or it will sap the energy of the tree and decrease the apple harvest, if not kill it slowly outright.  Piles of mistletoe lay on the ground, much of it to be discarded, as there was just too much even to sell.

Photos from Eastham Court Farm, near Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire, home of http://www.kissmemistletoe.co.uk

Cider Con 2014 – (Re)Learning to Taste

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IMG_0354There are so many things to discuss about Cider Con 2014, but I want to start off by talking about tasting.  It makes me think of the movie Playing by Heart from the nineties that started off with a character saying “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture”.  It’s so hard to talk about tastes and smells – trying to translate a sensory experience into words.  Of all the senses, smell and taste are so intimately linked with memory that talking about them is like translating a whole language of memories, each one intimately connected to other memories.  And personal memories are just the beginning of talking about whole cultural vocabularies of taste and smell.

I remember tasting cider at the Barrels Pub in IMG_0355Hereford with the Three Counties Cider and Perry Association, and as we were describing the grassy scent of freshly cut hay, I wondered, how can anyone who has never stood in a hayfield, looking at all the wildflowers, and the birds, and smelling the earthy musty smell of dirt, have any idea what to call that aroma trapped inside a glass of cider? So how do we come up with a vocabulary for taste and smell?

The Sensory Analysis Workshop on Wednesday at Cider Con is one method of establishing some common sensory terms, while simultaneously linking them to the underlying chemistry of fermentation.  By starting with a reference cider and doctoring samples with various chemical additives that represent possible outcomes of fermentation chemistry, we were able to compare this with the reference cider to identify certain scents and tastes that might occur as a result of production processes.  These included diacetyl, the compound responsible for buttery flavours, which results from malolactic fermentations, as well as sulphurs, phenolics, and acids.  Charles and Gary, who led the workshop, told me that they developed it as a way to train judges for the Great Lakes Cider Association competition, so that they would have a common understanding of how to evaluate ciders for off-flavours and faults.

When I experienced this workshop last year, I was really confounded by it.  My days of tasting small batch barrels in the barn to determine a good blend had never included discussions of phenolics.  Nor had my experience ever included complex chemical approaches to fermentation.  So this sensory analysis approach kind of floored me last year.  This year, however, I found it a really interesting tool.  This kind of tasting vocabulary helps create a specific kind of palette – one that understands the chemistry of fermentation.  It does not speak about apple varieties, or terroirs, or cultures of cider, or personal memories.  It should be understood in that light.

Palettes and vocabularies of taste are created in many different ways, and it is interesting that the American palette, at least in this specific instance, is being informed around a vocabulary of fermentation chemistry. (See the end of this post for a rundown of the sensory analysis workshop in detail).

Session Tasting: Eden Ice Cider
Session Tasting: Eden Ice Cider

The whole conference, however, was a multitude of tasting opportunities.  In between sessions, tables in the lobby would fill up as individual cider makers brought out bottles of their products to share with professional contacts and passers by.  Sessions on ice cider, mixology, and cheese pairing provided opportunities for guided tasting and creative uses of products.  And of course, as we spilled out into the bars and restaurants of Chicago, the tasting went on.  I ended up in a hotel room with a handful of folks sampling Spanish ciders imported by Ciders of Spain. I tasted some ciders from several west coast cider makers that were made using fruit flavour additives that were a little too strong for my taste, but were interesting experiments in a diversifying marketplace.

Cider Summit Chicago
Cider Summit Chicago

And the giant Cider Summit Chicago on Saturday was an exercise in stamina as the crowds and noise assaulted your other senses.  Since I was pouring at the event rather than tasting, I found many customers weren’t sure what they wanted, or what kind of tastes were available.  They were floundering from vendor to vendor, trying to identify what tastes were available, and what appealed to them. It made me realize that among the many factors in trying to create an identity for cider in the United States, is the need to create a vocabulary of taste that consumers can understand and relate to.  I doubt this will be a vocabulary of fermentation chemistry.  Nor have I heard a vocabulary of apple varieties bubbling to the surface.  It is, in a way, a golden opportunity for marketing directors to work some creative magic in a relative void of terminology.  The time is right to ask, how will Americans talk about the tastes of cider?

Finally, on the way home, I stopped in to see an old friend who had asked if I could give my opinion on his first batch of cider.  A home-brewer, he had decided to try a batch of cider, and purchased the juice from Great Fermentations in Indianapolis.  I, in turn, brought a bottle of Ross on Wye cider for him to taste.  For a first try, his ciders were really nice – clean, fruity, light, bottle fermented. Just a hint of yeasty aroma on the nose was a little overpowering.  Tasting Ross on Wye next to it, with its complex tannins, was a really great comparison between the results of a quick fermentation of eating apples and a long slow fermentation of cider apples.  Both are great in their own way, and sitting at his kitchen table talking about taste at the end of my week at Cider Con brought into focus the variety and nuance of flavours, texture, and aromas we have to work with in cider, and the dynamic ways we can imagine to talk about taste.

Here are my notes from the Sensory Analysis Workshop.  The sample is given, followed by the sensory reactions of the audience.  Bulleted underneath are the chemical additives and explanations of the effects they have on the cider. 

Sensory Analysis with Charles McGonegal and Gary Awdey from the Great Lakes Cider and Perry Association

Reference Cider  – ‘New World Cider’ by Gary Awdey, dessert and culinary blend.

  • 5.5% ABV ph 3.64, 330 mg / L gallic acid equivalents.  Back-sweetened to 2% RS with AJC

Taste – what you have tastebuds for: sweet sour bitter  + Mouthfeel: body, viscosity

Sample 1 – reference cider

Sample 2 – more sweet, more acid, thin, less complex, less mouthfeel, drier

  • increased acidity by 1gram per litre – with malic acid -Tastes thinner because malic acid cuts the body or viscosity of alcohol

Sample 3 –sweeter, smoother, thinner, less body

  • brought down the CO2 levels – lower CO2 levels

Sample 4 – sweeter, hotter, bitter

  • added alcohol: 1% ABV increase

Sample 5 – more acid, more mouthfeel

  • ½% spike in sugar (sucrose) – sugar contributes viscosity and body.

Sample 6 – lower carbonation, citrusy, bitter

  • bitter addition 10% quinine

Sample 7 – thinner, smoother, tannic, astringent, lower alcohol

  • polyphenols (chlonrogenic acid, pholidzen Epicatechinp, procyanidin)– bitterness and astringency (makes it taste less acid)

Aroma and Flavor

Sample A1 – nail polish

  • ethyl acetate – < 50ppm indistinctly fruity, may be a positive attribute; 50-150ppm slightly sour, solventy; >150 ppm harsh sour, reminiscent of nail polish remover.
    • A component of vinegar.  Usual in small amounts.  Especially in young cider or Spanish cider. Often seen in wild fermentations.

Sample A2 – fresh, appley

  • Acetaldehyde – sensed as grassy taste, raw apple skins, bruised apples, green apples.  At higher levels it may be a sign of cider sickness (framboise)  Reminiscent of banana peel or rotten lemon.  Produced from zymomonas infection.  Resistant to sulfite treatment.  Stopped by ph less than 3.7 and lack of fructose.  French ciders particularly susceptible

Sample A3 – bandaid, blue cheese

  • Fruity esters, acetates (isoamly acetate – banana flavouring) Amly acetate
  • Fruity acetates produced by yeasts during fermentation.  May affect your choice of yeasts.  Several yeasts are offered by various suppliers to enhance this character.  Acetates added as ‘natural flavor’ blur the lines between cider as a craft product and a food production

SampleA4 – smells like butter and popcorn

  • Diacetyl
  • Sensed as buttery, artificial butter flavour, butterscotch
  • .2-.4 ppm may round out flavour in some ciders but no consensus on desirability
  • greater than that (especially above 1ppm) it becomes a clear detractor

Sample A5 – smoke, band-aid, burnt tires, peaty, scotch

  • phenolics –the 4 E combo: 4 ethyl phenol (plastic bandaints, mothballs), 4 ethyl catechol (barnyard horsey), 4 ethyl guiaicol (smoky ham, clove, spicy)
  • produced by lactobacillus, legal caveat: it is starting to be more apparent which bacilli produce more desirable results.  However the only bacteria currently approved by the TTb for MLF in wine is oenecoccus oeni
  • present in eating and cooking acid as well as the bitters.  But the bitters – phenols are suppressed – not the same qualities. tannins suppress the brett

(Mouse sample not used this year  but discussed – is PH dependent.  So it can wait in your mouth for a change of ph to express itself.    You may find that it expresses with certain foods)

Sample A6 – Metallic, high sulphur

  • sulphur

SampleA7 – body odour, cat urine, socks

  • cocktail of two sulfides: diethyl di sulfide – rotting garlic and rubber
  • also cat urine, or blackcurrant

Cider Con 2014 – Michigan Cider Bus Tour

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Cider Con 2014 left the gate this year in the form of a bus tour to Virtue Cider and Vander Mill Cider in Michigan.  Two coaches full of Cider Con attendees set off, rounding the snowy southern tip of Lake Michigan, one heading for Virtue, one heading for Vander Mill.  I wish I could say we studied the landscape along the way, but most of my bus seemed buzzing with the conversations of eager cider colleagues new and old.  I was delighted to find myself in the gregarious and entertaining company of Neil Worley of Worley’s Cider, Somerset, who brought me back to the folk roots of English craft cider making.   And I had a lovely chat with Kristen Jordan from Sea Cider, about organic methods and the ways we communicate values of many kinds to our customers.  In the midst of lots of folks embarking on a frenzy of entrepreneurial American spirit facilitated by well-considered business plans, it was also really encouraging to chat with Neil and Kristen about approaches to cider making that are experimental, seasonal, and local to their particular apples, soils, climates, materials, and communities.

I’d never thought about how slow the learning curve on cider making is, until Neil described the limitations of seasonal production, where you only get the chance to practice your craft once a year. It makes you realize that the road to becoming a really good cider maker is a long one, characterized by the slow patience of seasons that spread out across the other changing arcs of one’s personal and social life.

The need to consider cider as a business first rather than as a craft, a hobby, or an art form, sometimes necessitates a cautiousness in production that can leave little room for intimate experimentation with materials and ideas and processes that lead to the distinctiveness and uniqueness of a truly craft cider.  It’s a balance – a trade off between art and business.  How much do you want to try and control processes and materials to achieve an imaginary desired, saleable product?  Or do you let the unique properties of your apples and environment direct how you respond and innovate your production?

But enough of such philosophical musings when there are tanks to envy and admire.  Upon our arrival at Virtue Cider’s headquarters in Michigan, we all strolled into the timber framed barns and stared wide-eyed at the beautiful facilities while sampling Virtue’s ciders.  My personal favorite was the Percheron, a French-style ‘cidre fermier’ which was innoculated with brett in the mysterious quarantined brett barn on the other side of the property.  I also liked the fresh, fruity character of the Cidre Nouveau, a young cider made in homage to the tradition of young Beaujolais nouveau wine.  But the farmyard full bodied character of the Percheron reminded me of what I liked best about some English farmhouse ciders – full of robust flavors, even a little bit of funk.

But let’s not forget about the tank envy folks.  Walking into the tank barn was a bit like passing over into another realm, descending below ground where these stainless steel beauties bathe in the cool even temperatures of the earth in which this bathtub of concrete rests.  Even I, someone who is not heavily into the production side of the business, was impressed by the elegance of this facility.

So we boarded the bus and went on our way to Vander Mill. It was a very warm and homey welcome we found there, complete with delicious donuts to accompany an impressive range of ciders with added flavours such as blueberry, pecan, and hibiscus.  My favorite was the cider called the Loving Cup, the peppercorn and hibiscus flavoured cider on draft. The pecan flavoured cider was actually really interesting – almost like eating a pecan pie.

I wish I could be more descriptive, but at this point in our journey the Virtue ciders had been filtering through our brain cells, and the keg at the front of the bus had been tapped.  It was a long trip through Michigan in a bus full of cider in a snowstorm.  But it was a damn good time.

Our Own Midwest Wassail

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I hosted a very modified wassail for about 15 of my friends here in Indiana.  No orchards, no bonfires, unfortunately, but as it was only about 15 degrees F, I think we were happy to stay inside.  But I got out the stash of cider I have been collecting and hoarding for a celebratory tasting.  I was really excited by all the questions my friends asked about cider!  It made me realize that even amongst my friends, who listen to me rattle on about it endlessly, there was a severe lack of information about cider.  It was not something they knew much about, beyond Woodchuck, Angry Orchard, and Strongbow.  We have lots of market education work to do cider community!

We did a geographical tour of Britain / France, the Northwest, the Northeast, and closed with a couple from the Midwest.  Here’s the line-up of emptied bottles:

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From across the pond, we started out with the commercial giant Strongbow*, moved onto the Virtue/Oliver collaboration Goldrush*, jumped the channel over to Normandy for Etienne Dupont Organic 2011*.  I then broke out a John Teiser special – a single variety Damelot cider as an example of a very tannic French variety.  Then we jumped back to England for a taste of Perry – the Holmer from Ross on Wye.  People generally really loved these ciders, with the exception of the Damelot, which was unsurprisingly palette challenging.  Special appreciation went to the Gold Rush – which surprised people with its  complex tannin, and to the Ross on Wye Holmer Perry, which was of course delightful and a new taste for most.

IMG_2402Next, we headed to the Northwest Coast of North America – two from British Columbia and two from Oregon.  We began with 2 Towns Ciderhouse Nice and Naughty from Oregon, which was a bit perplexing.  I think we weren’t quite sure about the spiced flavor.  Perhaps we just weren’t in the right holiday mood for it.  We then moved on to the Left Field Cider Big Dry from BC.  Some folks found the aroma a bit challenging.  I had tried the Little Dry while back in BC, and I believe I preferred that cider’s cleaner, more fruit forward taste.  We then opened the Sea Cider Pippins from BC, to which almost everyone responded with exclamations of enthusiasm.  One person said if they didn’t know it was cider, they would have assumed it was wine.  A very complex rich flavor.  Finally, the Wandering Aengus Wanderlust* from Oregon, which we found very simple and straightforward, which split the field between those who liked a more straightforward flavor and those who liked something more complex.

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Then onto the Northeast.  We began with Farnum Hill from New Hampshire, moved onto Hudson Valley Farmhouse Cider from New York, and finished with Aaron Burr Homestead Apple from New York.  All were well liked, and my wine-distributor friend noted that they all improved with a bit of breathing.  The flavors in these three seemed to develop gradually, both with a little time in the glass and a little time on the tongue – first seeming quite simple and then unfolding on the palette.

IMG_2400And then we came back to the midwest with two ciders from Michigan for a sweet finish.  First the J.K’s Scrumpy Farmhouse Organic* and then the Zombie Killer*.  Both ciders were quite sweet – and after a tasting full of dry ciders, response was mixed.  Many found these much too sweet, but the Zombie Killer – actually a Honey, Cherry Apple Cyser, was very interesting – something I can imagine sipping over ice on a hot summer day.

Thus finished our wassail!  It was a really great way to pass on the Gospel of Cider to friends and foodies in my neighborhood.  My cupboards might be a bit bare at the moment, but it was much more enjoyable to share these lovely ciders and enjoy them with other enthusiastic tasters.  Hopefully, I’ll collect some more at Cider Con 2014 next month.

*Asterix indicates ciders which were available at a retail outlet in Bloomington, IN.  All other ciders were acquired by me and lugged home in a suitcase from some travel adventure.

Rhode Island: Vanishing Orchards Film

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At the 2013 American Folklore Society annual conference held in Providence, Rhode Island two weeks ago, there was, miraculously, a session on Rhode Island orchard traditions.  Ann Hoog from the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress was on hand to talk about some of the archival material.  Michael E Bell, retired from the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission discussed the field research contributing to the film.  Alex Caserta, the producer, was also present to talk about the making of the film.

Here’s the abstract from the program:

Vanishing Orchards and the Rhode Island Folklife Project.  From July to December 1979, the American Folklife Center, in cooperation with several Rhode Island cultural agencies, conducted a field research project in Rhode Island concentrating on various ethnic, regional, and occupational traditions.  The resulting documentation includes audio interviews and photographs of the Steere family, owners and operators of a fruit orchard in Greenville, Rhode Island since 1930.  That orchard is featured in the new documentary film Vanishing Orchards: Apple Growing in Rhode Island.  This session includes an overview of the 1979 project followed by a showing of the film.  After the film, discussants will address the subject of family farms, agriculture, and changing neighborhoods; documentation of this changing landscape through fieldwork and archives; and the genesis of this documentation coming out of the collaboration of multiple Rhode Island cultural agencies.

The film was shown on Rhode Island PBS.  Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to find a full version of the film online.  However, there is a promo for the film available here: on the  website for the film project.  The film itself was full of interviews with Rhode Island orchardists discussing the challenges and opportunities facing orchards in the Ocean State as pressures on land from development make the economics and pragmatics of farming close to urban and suburban areas challenging.  The loss of orchards is definitely a theme – many people interviewed recall orchards no longer present on the landscape.  But the resilience and innovation of those who are continuing on is also impressive.  Two orchardists featured in the film joined the panel and fielded questions from the audience.  Surprisingly, hard cider did not seem to be an economic project for those present, nor did it feature in the traditions documented in the film.  It would be interesting to dig more into the archival information to find out if there is anything there.

Cider enthusiasts and researchers, be aware of the opportunity to seek out the collections of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress as a resource for information on orcharding and cider traditions.

NY Cider Week: Food Systems Network NYC, New York Apples and the Growing Hard Cider Industry

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This Food Systems Network NYC event was co-Hosted by Glynwood, Slow Food NYC, and 61 Local. The event brought together Sara Grady from Glynwood and three orchardists and cider makers from the Hudson Valley region.

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After a video presentation introducing the recent partnership and exchange between Hudson Valley cider producers and cider producers in Normandy, France through Glynwood’s Apple Project, Sara Grady moderated the panel, asking the panelists questions to illuminate some of the issues around Hudson Valley Orchards and cider production.  This summary is paraphrased from notes.  Corrections always welcome:

Q: How does hard cider production allow us to increase the viability of apple production in NY

E Ryan: Cider is the joy, the soul, and the essence of the apple.  Financially, cider production allows us to use fruit not pretty enough for market, to diversify and add value.  It is also a low/no-spray agricultural option with low input systems and the possibility of integrating animals.

D Wilson: We have the oldest pick your own orchard in the state operating for 108 years, a long history of relationship with the public.  80% of our annual income comes in a six week period with pick-your-own, and if the weather doesn’t cooperate – if it rains on the weekend and people don’t come out, we can be hurt.  Hard cider gives us something to broaden our base – more flexible and sustainable.

Q: What has been the impact of cider week for you?

E Ryan: We started making artisan cider in 1996.  I went to England and spent time with cider makers there.  At the marketing level – people didn’t know what to do with it.  The difference between then and now is amazing.  Restaurants who didn’t know what to do with it 10 years ago are seeking us out.  I just borrowed 1 million dollars to buy the farm I have been renting, so that tells you I have some confidence in the market.  During our visit to France, we saw the future there – an air of prosperity we want to build in the Hudson Valley.

D Wilson: Cider allows us to attract a different market than the family pick-your-own.  Cider week has allowed us to develop a relationship with a distributor.  Cider is becoming a much more substantial part of our overall business.  Production has tripled in the past few years.  It is a value-added thing for fruit you already have.  Now as the industry matures, we are planting specifically for cider purposes.

T Dressel: My family is a 4th generation apple growing family.  My grandfather is still working.  It’s been a change for him to take out his trees to plant trees for cider, apples he can’t put on a road side stand.  I came back from school hoping to open a winery and planted 4 acres of grape vines.  While they were growing I made some terrible ciders.  During that time things really started moving with the cider industry.  In 2009 the Cornell extension called me up and said they had a collection of cider trees that were going to be grubbed up and if I wanted them I had to come up right away to pick them up.  So I got some friends together with a truck, dug them up, and put them in the ground.  We have 60 trees, 10 European cider varieties.  That’s how I started growing cider apples.  It’s hard to get nursery trees for cider, few people carry them and you have to wait 5-8 years for them to be ready.  It is easier to top graft onto existing trees.  I have another half acre of American heirloom apple varieties as well.

Q: Could you talk a little more about cider varieties?

E Ryan: In Europe, cider makers grow hundreds of varieties for cider.  Makers in the town we visited in Normandy had catalogued 600 varieties.  We have a huge tradition ourselves of heirloom varieties grown here.  Some of the older orchards had Norther Spy, Golden Russet, etc, varieties people don’t know in Europe.  I am drawing mostly on these American varieties.

D Wilson: I am liking some of the ciders we are making from old Russet varieties – the Golden Russet and the Ashmeads Kernal, as well as English Bittersweets like Dabinette and Chisel Jersey, along with some crab apples.  Eating varieties have more sweetness and adicity to them.  Cider varieties add to the whole palette – different qualities of acid, bitterness, and astringency.  A really good cider rarely comes from a single apple variety.  To develop a balanced cider requires blending.

Q: Tell us about your experiences in La Perche, Normandy.  What did you bring back?

E Ryan: Cider is completely embedded in Norman culture, with their cider washed cheese and calvados.  They have achieved terroir.  We learned a lot of techniques, which you end up trying to re-interpret here with the kinds of varieties we have access to here.  I was most impressed with the cider culture and what the Hudson Valley could be.

T Dressel: For me it was the cultural experience.  As a commercial apple grower compliant with NY State laws and regulations, so much of what I saw there will never happen here: such as harvesting apples off the ground.  It set a goal for me that I wanted to be able to achieve – I wasn’t making cider yet at that time.  I was impressed with how different their craft cider is than ours, and that the tastes – more earthy and funky – they enjoy over there might not be transferable to an audience in the states.  One French cider maker asked me – “what is this word, funk? People keep telling me my ciders are funky?” I think education is first, so many people don’t understand what cider is.  My biggest emphasis is telling everyone everything I can to expand people’s horizons.

D Wilson: I was impressed by the value the French put on food – how food reflects an area.  Slow food, terroir, sense of place.  I came back with a sense of how the food they produce is a national treasure.  And the apples grown in that area are just for cider, not for eating.  Their techniques are extremely simple and yet sophisticated at the same time.  We could also become a culture that consumes cider as a common drink.

Q: Tell us how cider growing is a more low-input operation for ecological apple growing?  Most people here understand that organic production for apples is very difficult in the Northeast.

T Dressel: The system of grazing animals and harvesting apples off the ground, together with insects and rotten fruit might add to the funk of French cider!   We are not spraying nearly as much as we used to.  We use an integrated pest management system and are not organic.  Copper (used in organic apple production) is an organic substance but is not sustainable.  Up till now we had been using culled fruit from our eating apples.  But now, with blocks set aside for cider apples, we can spray less since it isn’t going to the fresh market and the appearance of the apple doesn’t matter as much.

D Wilson: An Apple orchard is a monoculture, perennial environment, making organic methods that work for other vegetable crops difficult.  Problems from pests range from cosmetic issues to tree death, and these things can effect trees in combination.  The focus of pest control is greatest between the blossom period till fruit is the size of a marble.  Growing fruit without the need to address cosmetic problems allows us to reduce spray.

T Dressel: We are now dealing with questions about how cider trees will be managed differently than eating apple orchards.  What tree density? What shape will we prune the trees?  Our value will shift to volume of apples rather than perfect big apples.  Fresh market apple trees are pruned very heavily.  When we started to grow cider varieties, father and gradfather’s pruning knowledge was not helpful.  I have talked to friends in Western New York who grow apples for the processing market about tree management.  I have had to relearn how to prune trees for cider

Q: Blending?  How much are decisions made based on tasting and how much on measuring tannin and acidity?

A: (conversation moved to fast for me to note who was saying what – this is a summary of answers from all participants)

  • We experimented by making single variety batches of every apple we grew – fermentation makes a difference in taste
  • In Europe, I sometimes saw people making very intuitive traditional decisions – one shovelfull of bittersharps, two shovels full of bittersweets
  • In England, I saw people doing a full crush of what was being harvested that week – mix of bittersweets and bittersharps.  Further blending of the juice happened later.
  • You need enough acid in a fermentation to make it keep

Q: Is there a long term interest in developing uniquely American varietals for cider, rather than depending on European ones?

D Wilson:  There are some great traditional American ciders.  My fantasy is that there might be a wild tree out there that has some great qualities we don’t know yet. (from audience – That’s what Andy Brennan is doing with Aaron Burr Cider).  I mentioned to a friend of mine at the big breeding program in Geneva that we might need some new cider varieties, and she said there were some discards from the eating apple breeding program that could be good cider varieties. We want to find out what our customers will enjoy.  The intense high acid of Spanish ciders or the funk of French ciders might now go down well here.  We need to find out what the American taste is.

NY Cider Week: Northern Spy Cider Dinner 2013

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After our invigorating and intellectually stimulating tipple at Proletariat with Aaron Burr Cider, Challey and I proceeded on our way to the Northern Spy Cider Dinner.  I will spare you descriptions and simply post the link to the menu paired with ciders from Eve’s Cidery, Farnum Hill, and Eden Ice Cider.  I think we had quite animated conversations about New York and food culture, facilitated by the generous and samplings just prior.  And the food was superb.  I wish I could afford to eat and drink like this all the time.