Aaron Burr Cidery - Homestead Locational Ciders : Sullivan County Apple Cider 2021 500ml

The Cidery”, which produces Aaron Burr Cider in Wurtsboro, New York, is a small homestead farm dating back to the early 1800s. Our tenure (and you can read more more about us here) on this land began in 2006 with the planting of a cider-orchard. Cider-apples are different from eating-apples in the same way wine-grapes are different from table-grapes. You wouldn’t want to make wine from big, tasty fresh-eating grapes, and the same applies with cider. We use our apples and other locally grown and foraged apples for one mission: to re-create “true cider”, the rightful table wine of our land.

Similarly, we limit cider production to about 30 barrels of cider a year. This is certainly not because we can’t sell more (it’s not for lack of success that we don’t scale-up), but that volume relates to what we ourselves -our hands, our backs, mom-and-pop homesteaders (not specialists) can harvest and press each Fall. In my mind, that’s still a lot of apples to collect in a short 5-week harvest season! And without industrial pressing equipment the juice flows slowly.

But again, I know from experience that if we tried to make more we’d lose the intimacy I require to feel I’ve done my best without compromises. These 30 barrels (about 1500 gallons) is but a tiny fraction of what most cideries, orchards, and wineries produce each year (even the ones most people think are small) but this is my scale and my land. There is no comparison to a personal standard.

Specs: Bitter-Sharp, off-dry, deep amber color. Cloudy w/ medium to high effervescence.

Notes: Bright, intense cherry-rhubarb with secondary vegetative qualities: string-bean, celery and green tea, with faint presence of the funky “English West Country” note (dill pickle and edamame). Peppery and viscous. Dense and long-lasting tannin reverberates the fruit nose.

Source: Unsprayed wild & uncultivated apples foraged in every region of Sullivan County (an even mix of hundreds and hundreds of apple varieties.)

ABV 7.8%