New York's cider houses rule
Descripción
George Washington drank it. Hard cider largely went away after Prohibition Artisan brewers offer beverage as wine%2C beer alternative Apple-producing states stand to profit from new market Thomas Jefferson made his own from the apples growing at Monticello. And John Adams is said to have downed a tankard every morning, saying it prevented gas.
Ficha
- Fuente: USA TODAY
- Fecha: 2013-10-24
- Clasificación: 2.1. Sidra
- Tipo documento: Prensa
- Fondo: Sagardoetxea fondoa »
- Código: NA-010265
Texto completo
Co-owner Eric Gabrynowicz pours a Doc's Hard Cider at Restaurant North in Armonk, N.Y., on Sept. 26, 2013.
Gannett/Peter Carr, The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News
George Washington drank it.
Thomas Jefferson made his own from the apples growing at Monticello.
And John Adams is said to have downed a tankard every morning, saying it prevented gas.
Believe it or not, the fermented juice of apples known as "hard" cider was once the most common drink in America. Brought over by colonists from Europe, it eclipsed beer in popularity well into the early 19th century, but gradually faded from tables during the Temperance movement and nearly disappeared after Prohibition.
Now cider is making a hard-core comeback — bringing a versatile drink to more taps and promising big economic gains for orchards in New York, the nation's second-largest apple producer behind Washington state.
With better weather promising a bigger apple bounty this year, and with lawmakers aiming to ease federal taxes on the beverage, the future is looking bright for the region's cider makers.
Cider can offer the sophistication and nuance of wine, or provide a refreshing, gluten-free alternative to beer. Beverage connoisseurs who eschew the bold, fruity red wines popular in decades past often compare dry, crisp bright ciders to the subtler white wines they favor, such as sauvignon blanc. Higher in acidity and lower in alcohol, they won't overwhelm your taste buds during a nice dinner — or leave you too drunk for dessert.
While a few ciders like Kingston Black and Newtown Pippin feature one type of apple, most are a combination of four basic varieties: sweets, sharps, bittersweets, and bitter-sharps. Smaller and tarter than the table apples you pack for lunch, cider apples are more sugary and so better for fermentation. Much like Champagne, which is made from a trio of grapes, often from different vintages, cider is blended from different apples to achieve a desired balance of tartness, sweetness, bitterness and astringency.
"What you get," says Sara Grady of Glynwood, an agricultural nonprofit in Cold Spring, N.Y., "is a wonderful diversity" of flavors, "with characteristics like tannin and acidity that make the ciders more complex."
Albert Wilklow got into the cider business on a whim. He and longtime friend Devin Britton began making the drink for fun several years ago, using various apples picked at his family's Wilklow Orchards in Highland, N.Y. — from Winesaps and Empires to "oddball varieties" like Braeburn and Northern Spy — and taking notes each time they made a batch they liked. Seeing a business opportunity in their hobby, they founded Bad Seed Cider Company two years ago and now have at least eight ciders sold at markets around the state.
"We just kept trying and trying with different combinations until we got it right," Wilklow said.
Glynwood's efforts to promote regional ciders come as the U.S. market for the beverage sees explosive growth. Sales of domestically produced cider more than tripled in 2012 from 2007, climbing to $601.5 million, according to market research firm IBISWorld.
That growth has attracted major brewing companies to an industry that, until recently in the United States was dominated by smaller craft operations. Big brewers missed the boat on craft beer and don't want to make the same mistake with cider, says David Flaherty, beer and spirits director for Hearth Restaurants and Terroir Wine Bars in New York City — and a self-proclaimed "beverage geek."
MillerCoors, for example, bought Minneapolis craft cider maker Crispin in 2012 and next year plans to roll out a new Smith & Forge Hard Cider, targeted at men. Anheuser-Busch InBev, the U.S.'s largest brewing company, has gotten in the game with Michelob Ultra Light Cider in 2012 and a limited release of Stella Artois Cidre (pronounced "cee-druh") earlier this year.
Flaherty says it's more important than ever to celebrate the small craft producers, who are still "doing things the old-fashioned way" — growing their own apples, experimenting with different blends of the fruit, even trying new production techniques for cider, such as barrel aging.
Many farmers also see financial upsides to cider. The drink can be made from apples that are too small, blemished or storm-battered to be sold at a grocery store. Adding cider to their product line means growers don't have to throw away those apples, and it can provide a stable source of extra income when fickle weather damages their crop.
That's what happened in the Northeast last year when a warm spring tricked apple trees into budding early and then untimely frosts damaged their delicate blossoms, causing severe declines in production.
Luckily for orchard owners, 2013 is shaping up to be a banner year for apples. With greatly improved growing conditions, New York state's nearly 700 apple growers expect to pick 32 million bushels by November, up from an average of 29.5 million, and nearly double last year's harvest.
The nice weather also means there will be an "extra sweetness in this year's apples," making them especially well suited for cider, says Jim Allen, president of the New York Apple Association.
Federal lawmakers, meanwhile, are trying to help cider producers by easing the tax burden they face. Earlier this year, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., co-sponsored legislation that would tweak the Internal Revenue Code's definition of hard cider so that it is taxed at the lower rate applied to beer, rather than more heavily taxed wines or Champagnes.
With these changes under way, Flaherty sees a renaissance dawning for U.S. cider producers.
Unlike their counterparts in places like Normandy in France and the Basque Country in Spain — who continued making cider even after Prohibition largely ended its production in the U.S. — American producers are not tied to the last century of tradition.
They can try new things, break new ground.
"We are clawing our way back in time to where we were with cider in this country 100 years ago," Flaherty said. "What we have now is a clean slate."