This one is quite different than any I’ve had before. Very earthy undertones on the back end with the orange and tangerine obvious up front. I can’t say I’d buy it again, but if earthy is the taste you are interested in, then you should look for this one. I may have been partial to “Graft Cider” in my selection as well…
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I’ve never seen that one. There are so many new ciders today…
I was in Quebec this summer and there were thirty or more cideries there which I had never heard of. Some of it was very good, better than about all the US makers I have tried. I’ll try to put up some reviews of them.
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Wow… that sounds like the microbrewery scene in Pittsburgh right now.
Yea this one is almost a combination of a funky Kombucha + the wormwood earthiness of absinthe combined. Definitely built for a select audience.
I would be interested in your reviews to see if I can track down some good ones!
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Still hard to beat the classic Woodchuck.
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I prefer Downeast to Woodchuck personally. Have you had it before?
Wyndridge does some good stuff out here but the options have exploded in recent years with very few being a disappointment.
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Never heard of Downeast. I’m not much of a drinker, but I do love hard cider. Kind of expensive though.
Redbyrd Orchard Cider, here in Finger Lakes, makes several varieties I like a lot, but they have just introduced a non-alcoholic kombucha cider that one taste of was enough to convince me not to buy a bottle. My wife thought it was alright, though.
I haven’t tried it yet, but something about the design on the can of Austin Eastciders Spiced made me really want to give it a taste. I ran across a can that was crushed flat, hidden in the weeds when I was clearing the frontage of my property. Their website shows stores nearby that carry the product.
(Image shamelessly borrowed from an online image search)
Saw this the other day…im going to go back and get some i think.
Had these too but i want the pears.
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I think I prefer eating Chestnut to drinking it. This isn’t terrible, but leaves a medicinal gasoline aftertaste that I don’t much care for.
Did that aftertaste have any similarity to the taste of Oil of Oregano?
Unfortunately, I can’t really say - I’ve not tried oil of oregano.
The first time I tried Oil of Oregano I knew that there was something familiar about the flavor and scent, but it was difficult to pinpoint. It took me awhile to connect it to the old gasoline experience that cars sitting at the junkyard sometimes give, but also with touches of a beer from a friend’s homebrew kit. Someone had given him an inexpensive beer making kit, and it left an awful lingering chemical taste.
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I can’t help but be amazed at how my favorite apple tree puts out inedible fruit. And I mean true spitters that not even at optimal ripeness I could muster the will to swallow. And yet on a cider blend the result is just magical; a slightly tart and well rounded dry cider in a classical English style, silky uncarbonated.
Next year i’m planting another inedible apple tree.
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Thanks Ryan! Yeah, I’d be happy to swap a few sticks or seeds of any cider apples. I have Medaille D’Or, Hereford Redstreak, Tremletts Bitter, Solarina, Sangre de Toro, Raxao and Forest King.
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I have an unknown variety, fifty-five year old tree that sounds similar. When we moved into the house and tasted the apples the first year, we thought the apples must have only been used to feed the pigs. Terrible. When waiting for the apples to ripen and perhaps improve the flavor, a freezing wind froze and ruined the apples on one side of the tree, and so I picked the rest of the bitter apples and made cider with the juice. Well, as it was our very first attempt at homebrewing, we had no idea what to expect, & etc., but it tasted pretty good, and the taste improved with age, and a few months later, I tried a seasonal “Backyard Blend,” made without sulfites in Bozeman, MT, by Lockhorn Ciders, which tasted almost identical to mine. I was very surprised–to say the least. ANYWAY, it is a biennial producer, and one year the season was a long season, and so the apples ripened more than usual…and they were still not anything you’d want to grow, except for the cider. The SG is only about 1.047 roughly, but the cider has enough alcohol for my liking…and until my other trees are established and producing, I will keep using the nasty tasting apples from this tree to make my cider blends. And once the hobby orchard is finally producing, the tree will remain in the yard as a lure to keep the bears away from the fenced trees. The bears can climb the six trees in my backyard to take fruit and break branches, but the orchard in the pasture will have electric fencing to guard against bears, beavers, deer, & etc., that visits my property on a small creek near the forest.
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A friend of a friend has been reviewing cider in a blog for several years now, but I learned of it only recently. Although Meredith Collins lives in Ithaca, near the center of a prime area for cideries, she reviews ciders from all over North America and, occasionally, the rest of the world. Her blog is called Along Came a Cider.
Meredith is very consistent in what she includes in her tasting notes: Appearance, Aromas, Sweetness/Dryness, Flavors, and Drinking experience. That is convenient when trying to compare ciders.
A recent blog entry was her picks for the top ten ciders of the year.
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