Featured Cider Makers
Q&A with Ronald Sansone of Spoke + Spy Ciderworks
Ronald Sansone of Spoke + Spy Ciderworks has been a tireless advocate and energizer around craft cider. He’s a supporter of the annual Franklin County Cider Days (now in its 25th year!), a member of the board of directors for Cider Institute of North America, the founder of the Connecticut Cider Association and a contributor…
Read MoreWomen Making Waves in the Cider World 15: Graft Cider
There’s a lot to love about Graft Cider, the modern sour cider company that’s based out of Newburgh, New York. Its ciders, ranging from slightly sour and adventurous to totally wild, are such fun, modern expressions of what cider can be. The can design is always eye-catching, and its merch game is beyond on-point. Since…
Read MoreMeet the Terroir-Driven Ciders of Willow Oaks Craft Cider
For 30 years, Lori Leitzel Rice and her husband, Eric Rice, have been growing fruit at Country Pleasures Farm, the oldest organic farm in the state of Maryland. Inspired by the complex, dry ciders he’d tasted during travels in Europe during his grad school days, Eric had always hoped to make cider from some of…
Read MoreSanta Cruz Cider Company Opens Apple City Tasting Room (Aug. 24)
In Watsonville, California, about 18 miles southeast of Santa Cruz, exciting things are happening! On Saturday, August 24, Santa Cruz Cider Company opened its first tasting room, which it is dubbing Apple City Cider Tasting Room. The name of this comfy, semi-industrial space pays homage to the fact that, a century ago, Watsonville was the…
Read MoreJack’s Hard Cider Launches Rosé Cider
The rosé cider train has left the station and it’s still going at full steam! This summer, more than ever before, we’ve seen new and exciting kinds of this fun, crushable category of cider on shelves. One of the newest rosé ciders to join the fam is Jack’s Hard Cider‘s Rosé. Semi-dry cider and bursting…
Read MoreNew Salem Preserves & Orchards Launches Hard Cider and Opens Cider Garden in Massachusetts
New Salem Preserves & Orchards, tucked amid the rolling hills of historic Western Massachusetts, has earned a reputation for its rich, sweet cider made from heirloom apples from century-old trees. (Its cider donuts are also not to be missed!) New Salem has just announced that it will debut its own small-batch heritage hard cider. This…
Read MoreLearn About Pét-Nat Ciders with Botanist & Barrel
Pét-nat: What is it and why is it popping up on bottles of wine and cider everywhere? Besides from being a fun phrase to say, it’s really a description of a method that can create carbonation in alcoholic beverages without the addition of extra yeast and sugar. For wine or cider to be bubbly, most…
Read MoreAwestruck Cider Celebrates 6 Years
It’s been six years since Casey Vitti and Patti Wilcox founded Awestruck Ciders, based in Sidney, New York (about 85 miles east of Ithaca). In the time since, this company has made a name for itself with its handcrafted, complex and unique ciders. Its ciders have regularly shown up in our cider roundups, like our…
Read MoreBellingham, WA’s Lost Giants Cider Co. Celebrates 1 Year (June 15)
A year in the business is a big milestone for any cider company, large or small. Lost Giants Cider Co., in Bellingham, Washington, will celebrate this monumental day for their upstart with an anniversary party on Saturday, June 15, 2019. From noon to 9 p.m., Lost Giants will welcome its fans to enjoy some new…
Read MoreMeet the Crew Running the Woodchuck Cider House
Running a bar isn’t easy: There are so many components to think about that are mostly invisible to the customer. How often do you clean the draft lines? Who’s the best company to wash your linens? How much citrus do you need on hand for garnishing cocktails? Every detail, big and small, adds up to…
Read MoreIt Runs in the Family: Ploughman Cider
With over 100 years under their belts operating Three Springs Fruit Farm in Aspers, Pennsylvania, the Wenk family decided a few years ago to branch out and turn their fruit bounties into a range of hard ciders. Their approach to cider making stems from their long-standing “frontier” philosophy, which their website defines as “an eagerness…
Read MoreQ&A with Olga and Brian Dressler of Dressler Estate
A lot can happen in two years of running a cider startup. There’s hard work, and plenty of it, learning curves, successes, mistakes … like any adventure in small business, the only real constant is change. With that in mind, we wanted to check in with Olga and Brian Dressler, the co-founders of Dressler Estate,…
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