I bought a mixed case of cider from Eve’s for Christmas and we’re about half way through it. I haven’t really come across anything I “gotta have” so far, especially at these prices. Tonight we’re trying the Pommeau which is the best thing we’ve tasted so far, but at $32 a bottle I don’t anticipate I’ll be ordering more of it.
Has anyone tried any of the Black Diamond Farms ciders? They’re actually near Cummins Indian Creek Farm on the same side of the lake. They’re at the Ithaca Farmers Market regularly, but I haven’t been out that way in quite some time.
Ian and Jackie Merwin of Black Diamond are good folks in a quirky effervescent way, and their ciders match their personality. Our favorite of theirs is Jaywalker, a semi-sweet with a clean appley taste. I’ve heard good reviews of the Geneva Tremlett, but I’m not a fan of dry, strongly astringent ciders.
Did you try Eve’s Darling Creek? Curious what you think. The 2016 Darling Creek was magnificent- an accidental success. A late frost killed the blossoms on their normal cider trees but they had this on unknown rootstock tree that blooms late so they fermented its apples. Apparently that was a one time deal, now they’re back to the normal varieties.
Yes and No. Included in the mix case were 2 bottles of the 2017 Darling Creek. I understand the residual sugars in the 2016 were much higher. The 2017 was difficult to differentiate from other varieties included in the case. Their dry’s all seemed the same to me, but I’m sure that’s simply my inexperience with ciders of this type.
Yes the 2016 was “off-dry” and they somehow kept a decent sugar level to balance the huge acidity of the rootstock apples “Krys.” I’m running a tasting event this coming weekend with Eve’s, South Hill, Shacksbury; Kite & String and Albemarle Cidermakers.
It takes a while to wrap your taste buds around this thing called cider.
The best IMO is un-monkeyed with: natural sugars of the apples only; natural yeasts of the apples only and let the fermentation begin. Some call this style “Farmhouse.”
I hope to keep learning, I have a lot of cider apples in the nursery bed! We tried Albee Hill tonight, a still dry. It was pretty good although I think I would have enjoyed a bit of fizz. I’m also trying to figure out if I enjoy these better warm or chilled. Flavors certainly come out better warm.
Same here. Last year I really got into tasting a bunch of ciders from all over and found many of them “cloying” and unpleasant chilled. I left one half empty bottle out one night and sampled it the next morning and it was 100% better. So now I drink them all room temp. Some of the sparklers will do a geyser if opened warm but others not.