Cider Market Evolution
We only started to make hard cider in the US recently, last 15 years or so? Already, like much of the US economy, OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, has set it in. At the start, cideries fermented juice from culinary apples because that was their only option. Eventually growers like myself started to raise traditional hard cider varieties called bittersweets; high in tannin and sugar, but lower in the tart malic acid that we associate with a good eating apple.
In very short order we now have cideries offering ciders made from single varietal bittersweets like Dabinett or Ellis Bitter or Yarlington Mill, or sometimes a limited blend, like Kingston Black and Dabinett. Why? Marketing of course. Ever since the end of real growth in the larger US economy, which probably happened around the late 90’s by my calculations, the US economy drives almost entirely by marketing alone. Complete novelty is now the obsession of the producer and a marketing mainstay.
Blending many varieties of apples is the norm in all traditional cider regions, as blending grape varieties is in many wine producing regions, and they have been doing it for centuries. Now American cideries only want certain apples in certain quantities to make novel ciders. The consumer has no idea of the difference between one variety or another, but they have been trained for novelty since birth; and the cider maker is now an Alchemist! Amazing. The ciders in most cases tend to be thin, colorless and of little personality, so they raise the game a bit, and displease no one. They are however, to be fair, better than ciders from just 5-10 years ago that were largely made with culinary apples; and they are preferable to the ciders made with non-descript apple juice and other fruits, like mangoes, kiwis and peaches (Boone’s Farm, anyone?)
For my money, a blend of many apples is the best. Each adds something to the blend while taking away nothing. They draw out each other’s flavors and colors. They are not thin, but coat the palate and last through the swallow. That’s important. Most cider drinkers are young, and to make them lasting consumers the quality of the cider needs to continue to improve. They will eventually branch out from the sweeter ciders to drier, more traditional cider, following the evolution of wine drinking in the US. The last thing we want is to lose them to distilled spirits.
What Makes Sense?
Should one person or entity plant, maintain and harvest the orchard/vineyard; produce, ferment and manage the juice, market and distribute the cider or wine?
Seems like an awful lot to ask of one person, couple or family. It also explains why there are always wineries for sale in Northern Michigan. People attempt too much and get themselves underwater with work and debt. My little three acre orchard is plenty for me and I happily carted my apples to Tandem Ciders for processing. Tandem does not raise apples in any quantity, smart. They buy fruit and process it. In my case I raise apples, and sell and transport it to my customers. Tandem of course also bottles and markets their own ciders. I think we both have the right idea. Trying to manage an orchard and do all the rest is more than I want, and it makes me thankful that I didn’t start this when I was younger because I may have tried to take on the whole kit’n’caboodle.
A Young Industry
At the start of the video above you see a tube pumping the finished juice into a tote, that’s the end of the process; and directly behind the tote you see the hydraulic lift dropping the apples into the washing pool, that’s the beginning of the process. From the pool they take a trip up a conveyor where a few are sorted out. In the third step the apple takes another trip up a steep conveyor to a hammer mill, you see it in the video with its bright red electric motor. This is how the apples are crushed. The crushed apples, the pomace, drops onto a belt where it winds its way through a number of press cylinders. The pomace comes out a flat sheet, almost completely dry.
In the shorter video below you can see the pomace emerge and the juice pumped through a filtration system and then into the tote.
I mention all this to show that the cider industry, while young, started to really push forward in recent years. Infrastructure like that in the videos is complex and expensive. There are two apple cider processors on the Leelanau Peninsula, Tandem and 2K in Suttons Bay. It’s great that we have resources like these built out now. It provides a growth path for others to get into the industry. When you think about it, you need tree nurseries, farmers and horticulturists, processors, marketing and distribution to make this young industry grow. It’s not a small apple to push up a hill. Perhaps the most important attribute necessary for continued growth is attitude. From growers to retailers, we need to forget about competition between cideries and focus on growing the cider ‘economy’. As more people enter the market, the market will grow, and we all will benefit. Wish us the best!