Category: North America

Wassail: A How-To For New Traditions

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Occasionally people ask me a question like this, “I’d like to do a Wassail. How should I do it? How I can make it relevant to our place?” This year, a friend in the cider world in New York posed this question to me again, and I wanted to share my response for anyone else who might find it useful.

As cider becomes a bigger part of the American scene, people are looking for ways to make some of cider’s seasonal traditions part of our repertoire of events and holiday happenings. Part of what I think makes wassail such fun is that it is already a widely variable tradition and has a lot of interchangeable and adaptable component parts. There is a “choose-your-own-adventure” quality to Wassail, but there are also things that make it recognizable and unique.

There are many details of traditional English Wassails that one can reference – twelve fires, wassail queens, particular songs, the mummer’s play etc – but I think it is more pragmatic to think in terms of generalized essential components, such as:

  • Converge on an orchard or important tree. Feed it some libations. Feed yourself libations.
  • Rouse some spirits / commune with powers of the great beyond manifest in plant form
  • Make lots of noise. Be rowdy.
  • Music and dancing and processing and a bit of folk drama or artistic spectacle
  • Fire. Light up the long night.
  • Feed Everyone well.

Wassail is the act of blessing or a toast, of offering good health to whatever place, person, animal, or plant you plan to visit during the festivities. The visit can be within the farm, the neighborhood, or beyond, but it is the visit itself that counts, the effort to make a special acknowledgement of relationship that is vital to your community. To give some examples of the flexibility of Wassail as a custom, below I show some examples of the breadth of the historical Wassail tradition, followed by some suggestions for planning a new event.

Historical Wassails of Apples, Wheat and Oxen

In historical sources, we find wassail means lots of things, not just a celebration apples. The descriptions we are most familiar with regarding apples often resemble this one from a gentleman in Devon in 1791:

The Wassail of Orchards

Your Hereford correspondent, J. W.’s, account in your entertaining Miscellany, p. 116, of a custom observed in his county on Twelfth eve, induces me to transmit you one not very unlike, which prevails in the other most noted part of this kingdom for cyder, the Southhams of Devonshire. On the eve of the Epiphany, the farmer, attended by his workmen, with a large pitcher of cyder, goes to the orchard, and there, encircling one of the best bearing trees, they drink the following toast three several times :

“Here’s to thee, old apple tree, / Whence thou may’st bud, and whence thou may’st blow ! / And whence thou may’st bear apples enow ! / Hats full ! caps full ! / Bushel ! bushel sacks full / And my pockets full too !

HUZZA !” This done, they return to the house, the doors of which they are sure to find bolted by the females, who, be the weather what it may, are inexorable to all intreaties to open them till some one has guessed at what is on the spit, which is generally some nice little thing, difficult to be hit on, and is the reward of him who first names it. The doors are then thrown open, and the lucky clodpole receives the titbit as his recompence. Some are so superstitious as to believe that, if they neglect this custom, the trees will bear no apples that year. Yours, etc., ALPHONSO

Gomme, The Gentleman’s Magazine LibraryLibrary: Being a Classified Collection of the Chief Contents of The Gentleman’s Magazine from 1731 to 1868, Vol 3 16-17.

Some of the early accounts describe a wassail of the wheat fields with bonfires. John Brand, antiquarian and rationalist Protestant cleric, first documented Wassail customs in his book Observations on Popular Antiquities – Including the Whole of Mr. Bourne’s Antiquitates Vulgaris with Adenda to Every Chapter of that Work published in 1777 as an annotation of his predecessor Henry Bourne’s (1694-1733) work. In the annotation of Henry Bourne’s work, this description of Wassail occurs in a note on section devoted to harvest suppers, showing a visit to a wheat field that bears many of the same component parts of the orchard Wassail:

The Wassail of Wheat Fields
Mr. Pennant informs us, that a custom prevails in Gloucestershire on the Twelfth-day, or on the Epiphany in the Evening: All of the Servants of every particular Farmer assemble together in one of the Fields that has been sown with Wheat; on the Border of which, in the most conspicuous or most elevated Place, they make twelve Fires of Stray in a Tow; around one of which, made larger than the Rest, they drink a cheerful Glass of Cyder to their Master’s Heath, Success to the future Harvest and ect, then returning home, they feast on Cakes made of Carrawys, and etc, soaked in Cyder, which they claim as a Reward for their past Labours in sowing the grain. –This, he observes, seems to resemble a custom of the antient Danes, who in their Addresses to their rural Deities, emptied on every infocation a Cup in Honor of them.

Henry Bourne , John Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities: Including the Whole of Mr. Bourne’s … (J. Johnson, 1777), 336, http://archive.org/details/observationsonp00bourgoog.

In addition to the wheat field, you could wassail the best oxen by throwing a cake on its horns. It’s really more about blessing the most important agricultural products, not just apples. And it is often wildly irreverent (How much cider do you have to have been drinking, and what kind of resultant mood prevailing to throw a cake on a ox’s horn?). One of the most commonly sung Wassail songs in the West Country is the Gloucestershire Wassail, and in each verse, something different is wassailed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloucestershire_Wassail

The Wassail of Oxen
A large cake is always provided, with a hole in the middle. After supper, the company all attend the bailiff (or head of the oxen) to the Wain-house, where the following particulars are observed : the master, at the head of his friends, fills the cup (generally of strong ale), and stands opposite the first or finest of the oxen (24 of which I have often seen tied up in their stalls together) ; he then pledges him in a curious toast ; the company then follow his example with all the other oxen, addressing each by their name. This being over, the large cake is produced, and is, with much ceremony, put on the horn of the first ox, through the hole in the cake ; he is then tickled to make him toss his head : if he throws the cake behind, it is the mistress’s perquisite ; if before (in what is termed the boosy), the bailiff claims this prize. This ended, the company all return to the house, the doors of which are: in- the mean time locked, and not opened till some joyous songs are ; sung. On entering, a scene of mirth and jollity commences, and reigns, thro’ the house till a late, or rather an early, hour, the next morning

Gomme, The Gentleman’s Magazine LibraryLibrary: Being a Classified Collection of the Chief Contents of The Gentleman’s Magazine from 1731 to 1868, Vol 3 16-17.

Thoughts For New Wassails

An important aspect of Wassail is to let loose on the last day of the official Christmas holidays, to get out of your stuffy parties and family gatherings and let the wild forces of nature rumble around a bit as you confront the uncertainty of the coming year, its crop, and your labor relations. Labor itself was important. The wassail recognizes that workers and employers depend on each other and offer each other recognition and appreciation. I think what made wassail significant in England was that it was an opportunity to ritually play out a lot of the scenarios that brought uncertainty to the year. Would the crop be good? Would the farm laborers and farm owners get along? Will neighbors be friendly? Will we make it through winter to spring? And from blossom to harvest?

The procession to the orchard or barn or field is particularly important. It’s a way of marking the significance of a place and reinforcing your relationship to it in a personal way, not just a functional way. It is a way of showing your love and gratitude to the place and the produce. When people sing to the trees, it always particularly poignant to me. To sing to something, is to say how much you love and admire it. How wonderful is it that we can express love to a tree?

But there is also a highly social element to wassail. I went to several wassails in Britain at local pubs. I went to some that processed around the village. The wassail should draw people together in a way that reflects their community ties. The interesting wassail adaptations I’ve seen through the years often take on unique aspects of local culture. Kate Garthwaite of Left Field Cider does a “bonspiel” which is curling tournament as part of her wassail in Canada. I love that Elizabeth Ryan of Hudson Valley Farmhouse Cider has turned it around to a blossom event that incorporates her Bulgarian music community. I did a Wassail at Finger Lakes Cider House a few years ago with Melissa Madden where her passion for draught horses played a significant part in the event.

If I were imagining a wassail for an orchard or cidery in North America, I’d make sure the wassail did a procession to the orchard or tree, with fire and singing, and music. But I encourage people to be realistic about the weather. It is just a lot less cold in old England and much easier to do the outdoor orchard procession than it can be in New England. Make sure there are indoor options. If I had some artist or theatre friends, I’d see if they wanted to make a little mini-play or interactive piece that speaks to your community. The mummer’s play in England, often a central part of wassail, is a very rigid stylized piece, but what makes it fun is how the actors riff on local politics or town dramas through the figurative action. I’d get a few musician friends to play. And I’d make libations and toasts galore! Beyond that, the wassail is your oyster (actually…oysters would be a very historical New York adaptation!)

Wassail! May your celebrations be joyful, your orchards productive, and your cider delicious.

Did Prohibition Kill Cider? A Malus Myth Investigated

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This article accompanies a panel at 2021 Cider Con called “Malus Busters” chaired by Greg Peck, with Chris Gerling and Doug Miller, devoted to busting some common myths of cider making, cider consumption, and cider history.

Prohibition is so often cited as the reason for the death of cider, the beverage of our founding fathers, that it has become something of a truism: founding myth of the contemporary cider industry in America. From the ashes of Prohibition and a long sleep in the aftermath of Temperance madness, the modern cider industry has risen again. But truisms deserve interrogation, and I’ve long wanted to investigate this one. This post is not necessarily an answer to the question about whether Prohibition killed cider, but a start to framing the question.

Malus – Myth

My professional scholarly discipline specializes in the study of myth. Myth is defined very narrowly in folklore studies. In The Study of American Folklore by Jan Brunvand, myth is defined as:

“…traditional prose narratives which in the society in which they are told, are considered to be truthful accounts of what happened in the remote past. Typically they deal with the activities of gods and demi-gods, the creation of the world and its inhabitants, and the origins of religious rituals” (Brunvand 170)

In everday usage, the term myth is often simply used to refer to something that is fictional, untrue, or contradictory to facts. Using the spirit of the definition of myth that Brunvand offers, however, help us understand why people tell stories in everyday life that are often at variance with demonstrable facts or science. If we think of myths as stories that define our worldview, it becomes clearer that any story, large or small, which is repeated often enough must have some cultural significance or social power. Such stories answer anxieties, beliefs, or questions that are important to the people who tell them. Often it is not enough to offer facts to dispute a myth, because a myth is not just a collection of facts. A myth is a framework for understanding facts. So to dispute a myth, you really have to break down the framework of the story.

I’m interested in the myth of Prohibition, not necessarily to prove it is completely untrue, but because it is a defining part of our story of cider in America. This story is such a prevalent narrative that it overpowers many other nuances in the history of apple growing and cider making in America. Studying it can also tell us as much about how people want to understand the world of cider today than about what actually happened in the past.

The Tall Tales of Temperance

Just today, the New York Times has published an article on the the comeback of applejack in the article, “America’s First Moonshine, Applejack, Returns in Sleeker Style.” The following clip from the article outlines the usual narratives about the relationship between Prohibition and cider:

None of the things mentioned here are untrue per se, but they gloss over a lot of nuance and in the end, overstate the influence of Prohibition as the event that that ended an era of cider making for America. First of all, the article they link to from 1884 “A Wicked Beverage” is clearly a example of satire. It is making fun of the overzealous attitudes of certain elements of the Temperance Movement, using hyperbolic and melodramatic characterizations in order marginalize their viewpoint for the reader:

One serious question worth asking: Why was cider and applejack considered so much more destructive and madness-inducing than whisky? And perhaps less seriously: What poetry might a New Jersey man crazy on applejack recite as he blows up his town?

In seriousness though, this piece of satire shows both how widespread and also how controversial such zealotry was considered at the time.

Orchards Razed? Or Repurposed?

The second point, that millions of acres of orchards were “razed and never replanted, because cheap and plentiful grain made whiskey easier to produce” is partially true as well. This is a second and very important part of the Prohibition myth: the chopping down or burning of apple trees and the razing of orchards, either directly by the hatchets of Temperance zealots or indirectly due to the decline of market for cider because of cheap grain available for whiskey. The story of the razing of orchards by Temperance zealots has been circulated in many contemporary popular publications, like this 2015 National Geographic article:

This claim has been addressed by historian William Kerrigan in his book Johnny Appleseed and the American Orchard: A Cultural History. Kerrigan shows that even in the 19th century, the influence of the Temperance movement on the decline of orchards was probably less than commentators published or circulated at the time, and certainly less than our own contemporary commentators claim. Kerrigan’s historical research and analysis are worth quoting at length:

“By 1829, at least a few farmers had taken the advice of ‘BURN THEM’ to heart. One report circulated in several journals told of a New Haven, Connecticut, gentleman who ‘ordered a fine apple orchard to be cut down, because the fruit may be converted into an article to promote intemperance.’ The editor of the New York Enquirer mocked this wasteful action, opining that, ‘in this age of Anti-societies, we may soon see the worthless of the land in league to establish an Anti-Apple and Anti-Rye Society.’ […] The story of the monomaniacal temperance man destroying apple orchards became part of the folklore of New England and the Midwest, and not only about missing orchards but also abandoned ones were attributed to the zeal of the reformers […] The number of orchards actually chopped down by temperance ultraists was likely not as great in reality as in local folklore. But endless moral castigations orchard-owning farmers faced from the temperance crusaders seemed to have an effect. Many a pious farmer was surely troubled by the accusation that by selling apples to cider mills he was serving Mammon instead of God. Many writers attributed the abandonment and neglect of old seedling orchards across New England to the temperance crusade, their owners apparently deciding to forgo the attacks on the moral character by simply neglecting orchards and letting nature swallow them up.” (Kerrigan 146-147)

Kerrigan goes on to show that Temperance was only one of several changes being wrought in American society that let to the decline of orchards used for cider:

“The self-provisioning farmer’s orchard that provided an abundance of household uses from cider and vinegar to dried apples and hog feed eventually yielded to the market-centered farmer’s orchard of fruit destined for the cider mill, the brandy distillery, or the big city market as fresh fruit. The temperance movement’s campaign against cider apples accelerated the shift to an age when Americans no longer drank their apples but ate them fresh instead.” (Kerrigan 191).

Kerrigan’s analysis highlights several nuances that can expand our understanding of the decline of cider by seeing the changes in agricultural economics that contributed to the changing place of the orchard in the family farm. Our contemporary popular image historical cider making generally appeals to the first example Kerrigan mentions: the self-provisioning farmer. This is the idea most people today have in their mind when they think about cider as part colonial and early westward settlement, assisted by the ministrations of Johnny Appleseed and his seedling orchards. Cider was part of a self-sustaining farm economy where the farmer produced much of what he needed on his own land.

But the move to a market economy allowed the farmer to sell his excess apples for profit, leading to some of the mass production of spirits that Temperance advocates were so opposed to. This market economy set the stage – not for a wholesale extinction of orchards – but for a switch to growing apples that were oriented for a different market: the wholesale fresh fruit market. This was aided by increasingly efficient transportation systems via canal, railroad, and expanded highway networks. As fresh fruit could be moved more quickly through these means, new markets for fresh fruit and juice, were created. Hard cider and spirits – stable products that could be easily transported across distances and without danger of spoilage – were simply no longer the only way urban and distant customers could enjoy the fruits of the land.

The parallel growth of the Temperance movement probably contributed to the growth growth of the fresh fruit market, but the availability of alternative forms of apples for consumption probably likewise fueled Temperance arguments against drinking apples as cider in a mutually self-reinforcing cycle of social movement and market economy influencing each other.

The gradual change from self-provisioning farms to more mobile market economy driven farms marked a gradual but significant shift in American society from a mostly agrarian to a mostly urban industrial society. It was in this context that the rise of cider’s replacement beverage, beer, became ascendant. Beer, brewed from grain which could be stored year-round an used when needed, became an industrially-produced product, available to sate the tastes of urban factory workers, and perfected by the knowledge and traditions of German immigrants who came to American shores in the late nineteenth century. When agriculture markets had shifted apple production to fresh fruit, aided by Temperance attitudes and transportation infrastructure, Prohibition put a nail in the coffin of an already dying cider and applejack trade. While the industrial production of beer could resume after Prohibition regardless of lingering Temperance attitudes against drink, the agricultural infrastructure for cider had already pivoted away and was not as easy to get back.

Prohibition, instituted from 1920-1933, certainly was the closing page of a chapter for cider, coming after almost a century of of activity in the Temperance movement and ongoing industrialization of agriculture and industry, but it can’t be blamed entirely for killing off cider-making.

The Endurance of the Myth

So why does it still loom so large in our popular imagination, conjured up as it is in these reputable media articles and on the lips of countless contemporary cider makers? The answer to this question lies in an analysis of modern ideas and interests rather than a sifting of the evidence of the past. Myths are made by people to explain their current understanding of the world. Myths are totalizing, world-defining, and less concerned with facts than with human drama.

So what is it about the “Prohibition Killed Cider” story that is so compelling. In the first place, it is a convenient, short, simplistic sound bite that appeals to a basic understanding of a significant milestone American history. It is not false, but it also glazes over a complex truth.

Clearly defined in time by the dates legislating its beginning and end, and in substance by its effect on the legal status of alcohol production and consumption, Prohibition is a clear mark on the long calendar of the nation’s history. Prohibition is much easier to conceptualize as a distinct moment than the much longer and more complicated strands of the Temperance movement, extending over two centuries and riddled with both positive and negative impacts on American life, intertwined with changing agricultural and industrial economies as well as the rise of urban life and the decline of rural communities.

However, I also think the myth of Prohibition killing cider persists because this narrative does substantial cultural work in creating a public perception of the industry and cider makers today. It positions contemporary cider makers as culinary heroes, showing how they have brought cider back from its dreadful grave of Prohibition and celebrates the the standards of taste that have allowed craft beverages like cider and applejack to flourish today.

In many of the media articles in popular circulation, cider is primarily discussed in term of its place within the context of food and drink appreciation, not agricultural economics. The bulk of this New York Times article on the resurgence of Applejack is about cultures of drinking centered around craft beverage, urban cocktail culture, and culinary appreciation. To blame Prohibition for the death of cider is to contrast our current cultures of culinary taste with the bores and the fuddy-duddies who enforced Prohibition on the country rather than preserve the food and beverage traditions we are now so keen to celebrate. To target Prohibition is to elevate the current state of our more cosmopolitan appreciation of craft cider and applejack.

What the myth of Prohibition ignores are all of the things that aren’t really of interest to the majority of urban consumers of craft beverages: the impact of market economies on commodity crops, the development industrial food systems, and all the messy cultural implications of the temperance movement. Prohibition is easy to blame and in reciprocal evaluation, makes contemporary cider makers easier to love.

Why Nit-Pick? Just Pick Cider!

Why take a long blog post to nitpick on the fine points of a popular myth? Positioning and promoting cider in terms of its culinary relevance is certainly a savvy thing to do if you are a business. But the ubiquitous use of the Prohibition narrative to explain cider narrows the kinds of stories that can be told about it and the significance it can have in the communities it wants to cultivate.

There are a plethora of other stories to tell: of family farms who have weathered the changing economic winds, of communities who have continued to use windfalls of old orchards of local food resilience, of indigenous communities reclaiming their land. Cider is a small part of the story of apples in America, and Prohibition an even smaller story still. If cider can tell a wider variety of stories about its relationship to apples, landscapes, people, and places, it can forge a more varied, resilient, and real relationship with its consumers and communities. Let’s pick more stories of cider to tell than Prohibition.

Post Script: Great Minds Think Alike

After presenting this talk and post, Dan Pucci pointed me in the way of this recent post from Mark Turdo of https://pommelcyder.wordpress.com and Andrew Tobia discussing this same topic! Great to find minds that thinking alike! Check out this post to find out what Mark and Andrew have to say https://www.alcoholprofessor.com/blog-posts/rise-and-fall-of-american-cider-culture

Beer Sessions Radio – Still Cider

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Check out this great conversation on Beer Sessions Radio with Jimmy Carbone on the Heritage Radio Network.  Our topic of conversation was “Still Cider,” taped in the midst of Cider Week NYC.  I was happy to get in a few words about our recent collaboration between the Corning Museum of Glass and Finger Lakes cider makers, and the insights it brought to our understanding of still and sparkling cider.

http://heritageradionetwork.org/podcast/still-cider-cider-week-nyc/

Beer Sessions Radio Still Cider pic

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.

West County Cider Tasting with Peter Hoover

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Host Peter Hoover

The Finger Lakes Cider House is usually full of customers tasting during the weekend. But on a dark Tuesday night in November, a group of local cider makers gathered there around a long table to taste a collection of ciders from  West County Ciders in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts.  Hosted by home cider maker Peter Hoover,  the tasting consisted of 15 ciders from West County, many purchased by Peter at a recent sell-off of their older vintages. The tasting was a unique opportunity to taste some older vintages and ponder how the different varieties held up over time. It was also a wonderful experience to taste so many ciders by a single producer and to notice similar taste notes throughout.

Peter Hoover, host, and Melissa Madden of the Finger Lakes Cider House start off the round-robin pours of a couple of bottles of West County ciders.
The fifteen bottles of West County ciders sorted for sampling.
Steve Selin, of South Hill Cider, Dave Breeden, of Sheldrake Point Winery, Melissa Madden of the Finger Lakes Cider House, and host Peter Hoover immersed in the consideration of one of the cider samples.
The assembled tasters discuss one of the samples.

But in addition to thinking about the ciders themselves, I’ve also been thinking on how and why sensory learning happens, and how differently the sense of taste is experienced by different individuals.

There are a variety of wonderful blogs devoted to assessing the taste of ciders . These do a great service to the industry, but it has never been my intention in this blog to review ciders (see the links page for some suggestions on blogs that do this well and consistently). I’m interested, however, in the ways that a “review” of a cider is a distillation of a social experience: trying to communicate a most ephemeral personal sensation that may be widely differentiated in quality and character between individuals. We don’t all taste in the same way. How can we talk about it? It’s one reason that social tastings like these are crucial to the education of a cider maker. Discussion of taste is key.  It’s not just that one’s taste experience can be influenced by suggestion, or that one can become proficient, honing the sense with practice (though this is true).  More than that, other people may be more sensitive to something you are less able to experience. They may highlight tastes or smells you might disregard or pass over. Sometimes, to taste is to listen.

I’ll be the first to admit that I find tasting difficult not only to explain, but even to experience consciously. Learning to taste is a process that often seems to slip through whatever neurons fire between tongue and brain, difficult to pinpoint in the transfer, because it is less on the tongue than in the mind, and usually trapped inside another memory.  It is a very delicate and fragile construction of sensory associations, one that must be rebuilt to consider each new drink, isolating the sensations, repeating them often enough to recognize distinct notes.

However, I tend think more in constellations of associations, rather than isolations of sensation. Often, a taste takes me back to moment where I experienced that sense before. Recently a friend handed me a liqueur, and I said: it tastes like the library. I can pick out the individual notes (leather, lemon, liquorice) that define that smell, but the library is a more interesting descriptor for me, personally. I think of my favourite library, the Birks Religious Studies Library at McGill University, where the bearded librarian sewed bookbindings behind his desk, everyone left their shoes at the door to preserve the delicate parquet wood floor, and the desk lamps became little islands of soft light in the early dark of Montreal winter.

Sometimes, a taste does not register for me at all.  Saffron, exquisite and expensive as it is, does not induce any sensation for me. I am dependent on the descriptions of my friend to appreciate its wonders. It makes me appreciate how much I need to cultivate other people, and other experiences, to experience taste.

I’ve sat around many barns and cellars and conferences while people taste ciders and wines and beers and let taste descriptions roll of their tongues in equal measure to the beverages rolling in. The degree to which people can disagree on taste is perhaps one of the social blessings built into the enjoyment of craft beverages, for it allows people to talk longer, enjoy each other’s company more (one hopes).  It generally extends the occasion of drinking by at least a factor of three and allows all kinds of other nuggets of information to emerge: such as the fact that Tremletts Bitter in America is not the same as the variety in England.  Ian Merwin explained this to us as we sipped the West County Tremletts, that the resident tree at the Geneva station must have been misidentified at some early stage, the error only recognized years later by a visiting scientist from Bulmers.

Tasting is never just about tasting, really. And while a descriptive analysis of cider is always useful, especially for the gastronome, the ways in which it the experience of taste are tied to memory, physiology, sociability, and other kinds of knowledge, make it far more complex than a list of tasting notes could ever describe.

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Winner by consensus: A Roxbury Russet Cider

At the tasting of West County ciders, there were certainly many points of departure in describing the tastes, though almost everyone settled in some agreement on the favourite of the night: A Roxbury Russet cider with a blend of 25% Golden Russet, 25% Esopus Spitzenburg, and 50% Roxbury Russet.   In addition, several people noted an overall caramel flavour that pervaded several of the ciders, with speculation that it could be either the result of pasteurization or oxidation. Though few of the sparkling ciders had maintained much fizz, there were several of the older bottles with a surprising freshness and brightness of taste.

 

The following is the List of Ciders we tasted, with cursory notes that reflect a mixture of my own and other people’s comments (though I didn’t record all comments). Dates and blends were not known for all ciders.

But most importantly, the company was excellent, there was much cheese, I learned quite a bit about these apples, and I listened with abandon to the tastes everyone else was experiencing.

The West County Ciders

  • 2003 Baldwin: Beeswax aroma, fruity, light, fresh, in very good shape for its age
  • 2008 Tremletts: Caramel, with some acid (perhaps acetic), very smooth textured.  The nose was more interesting than the taste.
  • 2010 Reine de Pomme: blended with Redfield and other varieties; tannin on the nose and in the texture; taste a bit flat
  • Reine de Pomme 50%, Redfield 10% Roxburry Russet 10%, Calville Blanc 30%: More tannins that the first Reine de Pomme.  Nice finish Carmel nose
  • Heritage: Blend of Dabinett, Baldwin, Geneva Yarlington Mill; cloudy, bottle conditions, Granny smith aroma, clean, tart, champagne
  • Ashmeads Kernal (pre 2010): Slight malolactic mouthfeel; bright flowery perfume, bit of brett, flavor slightly off no some
  • 2010 Pippin: Pippin Varieties (?) Carmel aroma
  • 2011 Bramleys Seedling: 70% Bramley, 30% Redfield; Carmel aroma, not as acidic as one would have imagined for a Bramley, soft, perhaps a malo-lactic fermentation
  • 2014 Redfield: Redfield 70%, Golden Delicious 25%; A group favorite, nice a dic, cherry aroma and flavor
  • Cidre Doux: Blend of Cox, Yarlington Mill, Ellis Bitter, Baldwin.  Soft, not high acid, bubblegum, thin but bitter (not a group favorite)
  • Belle de Bosko0p: with some Esopus Spitzenburg; Tart, green apple, slight carmel, balanced and bright
  • Cidre de Garde: in a french/spanish farmhouse style: very acidic, very funky, perhaps brett
  • Roxbury Russet 50%, Golden Russet 25%, Spitzenburh 25%: A group favorite, very floral nose, almost woody or oaky, very rich, round complex flavor
  • Dorothy’s Rosebushes: Reine de Pomme, Ashmeads Kernal, Geneva Tremletts: Fresh clear, aroma, rich, round taste, balanced acid notes
  • MacIntosh: blended with Golden Delicious: A pleasant surprise! Slightly buttery nose

 – Maria Kennedy, with thanks to Peter Hoover for the invitation and some editorial additions.

Cider Salon, NYC

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When you need to advance beyond the next creative horizon; when you have an idea buzzing around in your mind that needs to be refracted through the lens of a different constellation of thoughts;  or when you are tired, tired, worn, and barely able to think in the middle of a long slog of seasonal work – what do you do?  Seek out your colleagues. Cider makers are a sociable lot, though often isolated by the demands of their individual businesses.  So it is not surprising when they get together, but it is delightful.  I’ve been fortunate to peek in on a couple of events recently that have opportuned some cider-maker mind-melding.  In this post, I’ll talk about a recent Cider Salon, and in a following post, I’ll write about a tasting with Finger Lakes Cider godfather Peter Hoover.

The Cider Salon at Jimmy’s Number 43 during Cider Week New York was an intimate afternoon and evening of talks and tastings with a variety of cider makers, authors, and orchardists from New York, New England, and even a few invited visitors from the Northwest. Rubbing elbows with fellow cider people was unavoidable, as the space was small, and the audience enthusiastic.  Many a small or aspiring cider maker was there, and the atmosphere was sparking with the individual excitements of cider enthusiasts, tempered by the wonderful opportunity to see and participate in discussions with and between the more established commercial cider makers. This is what makes a salon such a great format – the informal opportunities to chat with colleagues and hear from people whose work your admire.  But also the opportunity to get beyond the sales pitch and talk creatively, intellectually, about the craft with those who know it and love it with equal fervor.

Shepherded by cider writer Eric West and organized and hosted by proprietor Jimmy Carbone and Gay Howard of United States of Cider, the day brought commercial cider makers new and old together. Jacob Lagoner introduced his Embark Craft Ciders from the shores of Lake Ontario, and Jahil Maplestone of Descendant Cider in the heart of the City paired up with Murrays for some cheese tasting. Highlights for me were the sparring contest between Steve Wood of Farnum Hill and Kevin Zielinski of EZ Orchards on the challenges and triumphs of orcharding and cider making in the Northeast versus the Northwest. Reverend Nat himself from Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider also made it out from the West Coast to wow the East Coast apple purists with the hopped, fruited, magicked and suited ciders he has been so successful with on his side of the country.

Andy Brennan of Aaron Burr Cider and Steve Selin of South Hill Cider talked wild apples, a conversation that was continued with Rowan Jacobsen, author of Apples of Uncommon Character and recently an article “The Feral Cider Society”, during an event at Wassail the following day.  Every so often I get author envy when I see someone write a book or an article I wish I had written.  Rowan Jacobsen wins the envy prize this month, but he kindly signed my copy of his book, so thank you sir, for upping the cider writing game!

All cider makers bring something different to the craft, and Steve, Andy, and Rowan bring a particularly artistic viewpoint. Rowan is a writer; Andy is a painter and draftsman; Steve is a musician and luthier.  I suspect that they think about cider, apples, and trees in ways that mirror their other endeavors, reorienting materials, experimenting within the structures of a form, and thus, reorganizing how we experience and understand the the genre of cider itself. They imagine cider in ways that take us outside the orchard, beyond the restaurant pairing menu, and into the unique genetic, environmental landscape that has created the feral apples of the Northeastern United States.

Their approach reshapes not only how we experience the taste of cider made by wild fruit, but how we think about the landscape these feral trees inhabit.  The landscape history of our Northeastern region, one of deforestation, cultivation, and reforestation, is one that most of us are unaware of.  Trees are everywhere, right? They make us see the trees in our wooded regions differently. Through their ciders, though, the palette of the forest, and its depth of history becomes more nuanced. Steve, Andy, and Rowan may be the most recognized voices on the art of wild, or feral fruit, but there are certainly many others out in the woods, who know their trees, and who are exploring the evolving character of the fruitful American woodland.

And it’s not just the forests upstate that are being explored and turned inside out. Even Wassail’s cider director Dan Pucci chimed in to talk about foraging in the wilds of New York City, endeavors chronicled in this Vice article.

This is what excites me most about cider, the approaches that trace not just a taste, or an aroma, but that reorient our whole relationship to landscape through the appreciation of the fruit, the tree, the land, and the people who interact with it over time.

My echo of this Cider Salon on the bare pages of a blog can in no way reproduce the buzz of the crowd or the flow of conversation.  Which is why  I hope there are more cider salons in the future.  The small scale, non-commercial cider makers who peppered the audience certainly can’t make it to NYC often, and Jimmy’s place was barely big enough to hold this inaugural group.  Cider Salons, go forth a multiply.  It would be lovely to see more opportunities to talk about the art, history, and culture of the craft!

 

 

 

 

Blossom Time in New York

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IMG_0835The blossoms have come and are now almost gone here in upstate New York.  Since I last posted, nigh eons ago, I’ve relocated from Indiana to the Finger Lakes region of New York to start a new job.  It’s been a big change, but an exciting one, with so much more cider now close at hand!

I said a dewy-eyed farewell to Oliver Winery and the Creekbend Vineyard in Indiana, where I had the privilege to work alongside some fantastic people, learn a IMG_0103little bit about viticulture, and become familiar with the dips and crests of the rolling landscape of the vineyard, and the personalities of each field.  There were wet spots filled with mosquitos, the acres of Chambourcin and Chardonel vines devastated by the polar vortex, the finicky short rows of pampered vinifera, the acres and acres of hardy Catawba, and the bowl of land left over to wildflowers that drained into a stream leading into the woods.

Here in New York, I have much to learn about the local climate and its effect on apple and grape cultivation.  The cider industry is young and exciting, with the Finger Lakes Cider House opening just last week.  It seems like I learn about a new cidery every time I turn my head.

I look forward to turning this blog in the direction of more sustained writing about fruit, fermentation, and landscape in my new home.  And I’m not alone!  I’ve been delighted to be warmly welcomed by Meredith, author of the blog Along Came A Cider.  And I have recently discovered the the Finger Lakes Apple Tree Project by Steve Selin, maker of South Hill Cider.  Cider people are so friendly and welcoming! I’m also really excited about Cider Week Finger Lakes, and I hope to nurture some partnerships in the cider, arts, and heritage communities through my work.  There are so many people to meet, ciders to drink, and projects to plan.  I am totally the wide eyed new girl on the block, gazing in awe at all the bounty of cider projects around me.

Though New York City is still a good 5 hour drive from these westerly regions of the Great State of New York, I recently managed a trip down thataway and made the pilgrimage to Wassail, the new swanky cider bar in the Lower East Side. That deserves a post all its own, so I’ll return to it later.

But along the way, I ran ( maybe ambled is better) the Hard Cider Run at Warwick Valley Winery, home of Docs Draft Cider, and went for a drive up and down the Hudson Valley, where the orchards were blossoming their hearts out.  It’s that ephemeral moment of spring, that you only get to see briefly before the petals fall and the fruit starts to swell in the long balmy stretch of summer ahead.  Cideries take note – HUNDREDS of people signed up to run this 5k through the blossom, many of whom may have never thought about cider much before and were clearly just out for a nice day in the country.  It was a little chaotic, but everyone seemed to have a great time.

 

The Blossom Time is the also the time for tree hunters, and I’ve been keeping my eye out as I travel around the highways and byways of my new home territory.  I spotted these two ancient orchards during the winter by roadsides in Schuyler County, near the village of Burdette, and Chemung County, near the town of Horseheads.  I happened to be driving by them again this weekend, and stopped to see if they had any blossom.  They did!  But barely.  It is easy to see fruit trees young and old blooming near houses, cared for by homeowners.  But sprawling old orchards like these are a rare find, as far as I can see, in this part of New York.  I still don’t know who owns them, or why they have survived, or what fruit lies in wait there.

There are plenty of old barns slowly rotting away in the countryside here too, as these photos below attest.  And plenty of old farmhouses, that look back towards a different farm economy, one that supported relative wealth and vibrant communities in places that are now the back of beyond.  Who lived in these enormous old vacant houses?  And why do they lie abandoned now?  Who planted these old orchards, and what kind of farms are they remnants of?

The new cider industry here is clearly booming.  I can’t wait to learn more about the landscapes that supported apples of old, and the new orchards, like these ones at the Good Life Farm, home of the Finger Lakes Cider House, that are rising slowly from the earth to meet a new market, and reshape the land with it.