National "what" day?

It seems there is a national day for everything, the day to say I love you, the day to love your mother or your father, your secretary, your dog, even a day to be thankful. Do you find yourself needing reminders like this? A national day set aside to perform normal human emotions?

"Out of the hearts abundance the mouth speaks"

In a world that is so busy that we even forget to stop and smell the roses, we can forget about those important things. Thankfulness heals and calms the human heart and brings deep joy, inner joy that plays into every single we say and do. Slowing down and relaxing and taking time with friends and family gets our mind out of the I'm too busy" mentality and helps us to regain our happiness.

"National Drink Wine Day" 

A few days ago it was "National Drink Wine Day." That day did not remind me to perform a natural human emotion, but it did remind me about the perks of sharing wine with a good friend or family member. It made me remember the warm comfortable relaxed feeling you can have with the great glass of wine and a conversation that provides a mental break from today's daily grind. That connection that I've experienced with those closest to me usually occur as I palm a goblet of an oaky bold red wine. It was said that "Wine makes the heart of mortal men rejoice". I do agree with that. So I'll have to admit that I and willing to embrace this national day of remembrance, a day for my heart and soul and for joy and thankfulness and friends and family and that wonderful liquid gold that I love so much.

Seed to Sip

Driving home tonight from a workshop on fermentation and chemistry in making hard apple cider, I found the demographics of the classroom to be quite interesting. Being in the wine industry for some time, there is a certain stereotype among my fellow wine makers and enthusiasts, however the demographics of today's workshop was quite different from that. I found myself feeling quite honored to be around these men and farmers that I respect so much for their years of valuable experience working the land, having sleepless nights during the snowy season hoping their crops would survive and how poetically they spoke of the beautiful infrastructure of their orchards.

Can't you just taste them, the fresh produce of summer? 

Having only green eyes and not green thumbs, we source our fresh pressed apple cider from a local farmer in our community and I am quite emamored by these strong knowledgeable men. I'm sure we all respect farmers for what they produce for us on a daily basis, when we remember to. But overall I think we may take them for granted.

Think of the summer farmers markets full of green luxurious produce that makes us feel wholesome and healthy just by looking at it, sweet apple cider and pumpkin pies that magically appear just in time for the fall harvest, do we forget to thank the tireless effort of our local farmers? I'm sure we all do, I for one know that I am guilty of it. But a wealth of knowledge is available from these dear ones who don't ask for glory, yet provide to us the sustenance we need to feed our little children and ourselves. Beautiful "farm to table" meals are grown by our local farmers. 

Farm to table, poached pears

These were the men I was surrounded by tonight. Many of them, like myself, have begun creating a new genre among the craft beverage industry and that is what has united myself with these respected men.

They really know what it means to go from seed to sip. 

A special thank you to Mary from Dish-LLC.com and Denise, Carla and Erin from Penn State Extention, also Eric Shatt from Redbyrd Cider for your instruction at the "Seed to Sip" workshop. 

Then he said "let there be cider..."

In the beginning…

Everything we do has one, that spark, that flash of inspiration, that thought that feels so crazy or exciting that you're almost afraid to say it out loud. 

I have found that sharing those thoughts are what brings it to birth. By throwing them out into the universe it reverberates back to your own ears along with the thoughts of others, both the negative and the positive until we figure out just what we want from it. 
That's how we got started on this new adventure of ours, as hard cider makers born from winemakers. 

After making wine with my husband for just under 20 years and now looking to open our first winery, I was looking for something new and different that allowed more expansive creativity to add to our business. I have been a painter of modern abstract for many years and feel inspired and excited to sit in front of a blank canvas and share with others what I see because it takes them on my journey with me. I felt that the art of fermenting this new fruit was again that blank canvas full of possibilities in a new experimental and growing culture. 

Our new limited winery license allowed us to also make hard ciders, something that I have tried in the past in bottles at restaurants, but they were so sweet that I couldn't even taste the alcohol, bubbly sweet apple juice is how I referred to it. Not my favorite, but what if it could be made differently? To be fair, homemade products are usually far better than anything commercially produced. So what if I was not properly introduced to hard apple cider's true qualities? What if perhaps I met the imposter and not the real thing?

Thus began the experiment, to see just what was possible in the world of hard apple cider. I chatted with my brother-in-law, an avid beer maker and as a gift he helped us make our first batch. At first it had such a crazy funk to it, making me think that it was a failure, so we pushed to the side in our warehouse and forgot about it. But I still wanted to give it a shot, so I purchased my own fresh pressed apple cider, 30+ gallons of it and went to work, reading as much as I can get my hands on about the process, scouring YouTube and researching the ancient art of fermenting apples. To my surprise, there wasn't a lot of solid information out there, just jumbled blogs and differing ideas, so I figured I'm kind of on my own with this.

After years of backpacking the Appalachian Trail, Yosemite, Europe and the wild Alaska frontier, I had always traveled with a journal and a small book about how to identify edible plants so that I could TASTE the earth around me. So the one thing that kept ringing true was that the earth provided such an abundance of plentiful herbs and flowers, why not share some of my favorite tastes with others via my hard apple cider and take them on my journey that way.

  Resting in the muskeg and low cranberry  patches on the Dixie Pass in Wrangle St. Elias, Alaska 

So the compass was set that day, pointing north with those thoughts of inspiration and direction on a new trail that lay in front of me, so with a jump in my step and a bit of nervousness in my gut, I took a running leap down that path, but it was just the begining...