Best tasting apples

General Fruit Growing
#41

I’ve tasted the Tompkins County apple at Poverty Lane Orchards in New Hampshire. It was okay-- a “mild sweet” with an acceptably crunchy texture. To me, it seemed similar to a Baldwin I tasted in Maryland-- perfectly adequate but not the best apple I’ve ever experienced.

I also grafted Kentucky Limbertwig into my orchard this spring based on @derekamills’ previous glowing comments that it has an abundance of the special flavor that is unique to limbertwigs (which I still have yet to try). I received scions from the generous @beachwreck .

I have purchased Blue Pearmain grown at Distillery Lane in Jefferson, Md and was not too impressed. I suspect they suffer from high heat. They ripen in summer here (too quickly?) and develop a thick skin and soft dry mealy texture. Nevertheless, the proprietor claims that sometimes he gets some really fine-tasting specimens.

The online photos of fall-harvested Blue Pearmain from New England look amazing and completely different from those I’ve seen grown (cooked?) in Maryland.

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#42

I definitely plan to try Black Limbertwig someday. Sounds like a winner.

#43

What is your favorite apple that you grow here in the mid west? Sorry if I missed it in the thread.

#44

I didn’t know Blue Pearmain was Thoreau’s favorite apple, but I did know he wrote a lot about the fruit. “The Atlantic Monthly” published one of his essays about wild apples in 1862, the year of his death. It’s available online and is a good, quick read. However, Thoreau didn’t, it would seem, appreciate pears:

“The flowers of the apple are perhaps the most beautiful of any tree’s, so copious and so delicious to both sight and scent. The walker is frequently tempted to turn and linger near some more than usually handsome one, whose blossoms are two-thirds expanded. How superior it is in these respects to the pear, whose blossoms are neither colored nor fragrant!”

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#45

Hello Matt,

Blue Pearmain is a finicky one, you have to pick it precisely when ripen or it will start to get soft but back in Thoreau’s day because an apple was soft was not a bad thing! So many descriptions of apples by Hogg and other writers from the UK during the 1800’s did not have a problem with soft fruit as far as eating goes.

Scott, I do about as minimal spraying as you can do without completely not spraying at all. I do a saturation dormant oil spray before bloom then nothing until all the blossoms have fallen. After petal fall I spray with wettable sulfur as a fungicide twice a month. I do not consider Blue Pearmain an early variety here, it ripens for us around mid September.

About Kentucky Limbertwig, I was fortunate enough to have joined NAFEX when Henry Morton was still alive and used to get his little catalog and would call and talk to him to pick his brain about all the different varieties he had rescued. He said Kentucky Limbertwig was different in its coloring than the other Limbertwigs but had a familiar flavor. When mine first started bearing fruit I loved how different the fruit looked, true pink all over. Before Pink Lady came along that was not a typical all over color for an apple.

My favorite Limbertwig after Kentucky is probably Brushy Mountain Limbertwig because it blooms and bears like crazy every year.

Hambone, I used to have all of the catalogs from Henry and probably still do as I am such a pack rat of agricultural material about apples but so far have not been able to find them. One day I will come across them and post images.

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#46

Probably because of 19th century dental hygiene. Or even 20th century hygiene as far as the British are concerned. Lol

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#47

Didn’t they have wood teeth?

#48

I just grafted a few Esopus Spitzenburg thought to be Thomas Jeffersons apple. Kind of cool growing something that old and well thought of. Hoping the taste merits that.

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#49

Derek, I don’t do those bimonthly sulphur sprays. I should, but its really hot and I have limited motivation. That should make an impact on fruit diseases. Since there are so many good non-rotting apple varieties (even early ones) at some point I decided to skip those summer sprays and remove the rotting varieties. I’m not sure this is relevant to Blue Pearmain, it sounds like its out of the worst rot period (but still ripening in enough heat to alter the flavor).

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#50

i agree, cripps pink is pretty good.

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#51

I’ve had Blue Pearmain from Whole Foods in mid October. I think they got it from Poverty Lane- I remember that they got a lot of their heirloom apples from there, but I’m not sure about that one in particular. I thought it was OK to Good, but nothing special. It was very dense and meaty, not soft nor crunchy with a thick skin and a mild flavor. The brix was 13-14, and I think ARS lists the brix at 18, so it is very possible that it can be better. I’ve got a 4 year old graft of it, so I may get some this year (I need to look).

I’m pretty excited to try the limbertwigs. I’ve got an older graft of Swiss LT, which I think had 2 apples last year. I think something (either animal or rot) got them though. I also grafted Brushy Mt, Kentucky, Black, and Meyers Royal last year from Hambone. I’m adding Victoria LT this year, so I’ve really added a lot of them with the anticipation that they will be very good.

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#52

John
When grown well Esopus Spitzenburgs are among the best apples. I had some from Eastern Washington that were amazing. Mine here on the wet side of the state seem a bit fragile. I haven’t let it crop yet. I agree that it is really cool to be able to grow the same apples as our founding fathers. Newton Pippin was loved by Washington.

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#53

It was indeed, except they( both Washington and Jefferson) referred to it as Newtown Pippin., not Newton Pippin and I’ve seen it listed with the Newton spelling more often. Do you know if there is a difference? I’m sort of thinking there may be.

Thomas Jefferson, for example, wrote from Paris that “they have no apples here to compare with our Newtown Pippin.” (1780’s)

from wiki:
The Newtown Pippin, also known as Albemarle Pippin, is an American apple originated in the late 17th or early 18th century and still cultivated on a small scale.[1] At one time there were two very similar apple cultivars known as the ‘Yellow Newtown’ (‘Albermarle Pippin’) and ‘Green Newtown’ (‘Brooke Pippin’), one of which perhaps originated as a sport of the other.
I’ve seen enough listings using the different names to make me believe there might be a difference. I dunno.
ARS for example decidedly lists them separately. They have accessions named Newton and Newtown.

An interesting side note, the Queen of England (I think Victoria) loved them so much she removed all import levies from them. This exemption wasn’t removed until WW2.

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#54

Here in Coast ranges of Northern California, not too far from where Etter operated, I’d say
Wickson (has cracking issues with first rains, it’s major drawback here. Good out of hand eating, not too hard at all.)
Golden Russset (better than ashmeads here)
Pink Parfait (mild honey and strawberries flavor with outstanding texture)
Chestnut Crab
Williams’ Pride
Centennial Crab (at least what i have labeled as Centennial)
Trailman Crab
Katherine (at least what I have as katherine. Mild, but tasty and great texture)
Cripp’s Pink (pink lady)
King David
Sweet 16 (when it’s perfect)
Cherry Cox (fun distinct cherry flavor)

I’m probably forgetting something, but that’s off the top of my head. Some are not strongly flavored, but as an overall eating experience I favor them.

Rubinette is good here, maybe very good sometimes, but it hasn’t really stood out to me. I have a small tree and may actually graft it over. King of Tompkins is nearly worthless here as are many other apples. It is pretty hot and dry. Egremont is good to very good, but not consistent in quality and is prone to both cracking and dropping.

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#55

The correct spelling is “Newtown”, it is named after the town on Long Island that it came from. It has had many name manglings over the years, but I am surprised people are still using Newton in spite of it being wrong. Here is the list of synonyms in Apples of New York (circa 1904):

NOMENCLATURE. ALBEMARLE (21, 38). Albemarle (36, 38). ALBEMARLE
PIPPIN (13, 1 8, 33)- Albemarle Pippin (30, 32, 35, 37, 38). American New-
town Pippin (9, 10, 18, 23, 24, 26, 38). Back Creek (38). BROOKE PIPPIN
(38). Brooke Pippin (20). BROOKES PIPPIN (16, 21). Brooke’s Pippin
(?23, 38). GREEN NEWTON PIPPIN (2, 3, 4). GREEN NEWTOWN (27, 35,
36, 37). GREEN NEWTOWN PIPPIN (8, 14, 17, 21, 23, 28, 29, probably incor-
rectly 9). Green Newtown Pippin (10, 13, 18, 24, 25, 26, 37, 38). Green
Winter Pippin (10, 18, 23, 24, 26, 38). Hunt’s Fine Green Pippin (23, 38).
Hunt’s Green Newtown Pippin ( ? 23, 38). Large Newtown Pippin (24, 38).
LARGE YELLOW NEWTON PIPPIN (2). Large Yellow Newton Pippin (26).
Large Yellow Newtown Pippin (8, 26, 38). Mountain Pippin (38). NEU-
STADT’S GELBER PEPPING (19). NEWTON’S PIPPIN (22). NEWTON YELLOW
PIPPIN (34). NEWTOWN PIPPIN (i, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, n, 12, 13, 15, 18, 23, 24,
25, 26, 30, 31). Newtown Pippin (36, 37, 38). New York Greening (38).
New York Pippin (38). Petersburgh Pippin (10, 18, 23, 24, 26, 38). Pippin
(13). Reinette de New-York (24). Virginia Pippin (38). YELLOW NEW-
TON’S PIPPIN (22). YELLOW NEWTOWN (21, 27, 32, 35, 36, 37). YELLOW
NEWTOWN PIPPIN (4, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 17, 18, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29). Yellow
Newtown Pippin (24, 36, 38). YOPP’S FAVORITE (24), but incorrectly.

The “Newton” mis-spelling has been used for a long time it looks like.

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#56

This is a good point, and I think one problem with lists is you tend to think of the strongly-flavored ones. Hubbardston Nonesuch is a mild-flavored apple with a very delicate berry flavor in the background. I noticed it did not even make my list above (but, its nearly identical in flavor to Abbondanza so maybe thats why I left it off). The more years I grow apples the more I appreciate the more mild flavors and not just the eye-poppers. Rubinette probably gets an unfair advantage as it is often my sweetest (and one of the most sour) apples so it always stands out. It has been moving down my list, but this last year I dried some and they were really out of this world. So, its not going to drop much more.

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#57

I now judge apples by how compelled I am to eat them rather than trying to take a breakdown or analytical approach. I learned that listening to hi-fi gear. At some point I realized it didn’t really matter that much how it all broke down if I tried to analyze what I was listening to, just how compelled I was to keep listening. With apples too, there is the matter of mood or whatever you want to call it. Sometimes the Wicksons, Golden Russets and Sweet 16s are just too challenging. Other apples are more accessible and just refreshing, like my first seedling BITE ME! that just fruited last year. Despite it’s Wickson heritage it lacks intensity. Not what I was after or why I started growing apples from seed, but it is overall juicy and pleasant eating. “Fiesta” or Red Pippin is a very good apple here that is in between- a very pleasant and harmonious eating experience with pretty complex but not in your face flavors. It is easy eating and not too challenging. You can eat it and pay attention to the flavor or you can ignore it and think about something else. I’ve just come to appreciate anything in that spectrum that I’m compelled to eat. Sometimes you’re going to put something on that challenges you and draws you in and sometimes you want background music. Maybe I’ll try drying Rubinette. I’ve been wanting to do some dried apple comparisons. Some of the best I’ve had were dried watercore apples, especially Suntan, which has watercored here every year it has fruited except last. Another example of what I’m sure is a great apple somewhere, but not here. Also add Tydeman’s Late Orange, which gets great reviews elsewhere but is not worth a single bite here. If you have any other favored drying apples I’d like to hear about them. I am not a huge fan of dried apples generally, which is why I want to try drying more to see if any of them are more to my liking.

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#58

I had a bear in my orchard last fall that did not have the good manners to clean it’s many plates of my apples, so I was left with a nice supply of bear-bitten fruit from Newtown Pippin and Orleans Reinette. The former makes a great dried apple, while the latter is unappealing - that firm, dry flesh it is famous for makes for a poor dried texture and the fantastic flavor of the fresh version does not translate to the dried. I beleive I also dried some Sweet Sixteen, which fell somewhere in between Newtown and OR, though much closer to Newtown. It was acceptable.

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#59

My tablet “corrected” my Newtown spelling. I grafted both the Yellow and the Green varieties. It was my favorite apple as a kid, really the only decent commercial one available.

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#60

@derekamills- Do you find your Brushy Mtn LT extremely susceptible to cedar apple rust?

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