And so it became their water

Hard cider, some say it's a fad, a girly drink, while some say "it's too sweet for me", others say it's like wine while others compare it to beer. Just what is this fermented beverage and where did it start?

For a detailed answer visit: http://www.northeastcidertrail.com/hardciderhistory/

We however will sum it up for you....

Hard Cider is made from apples. Many varieties of apples are blended together and pressed into fresh apple cider. The fresh pressed cider is then fermented using the natural wild yeast from the apples or a cultivated yeast is added to begin fermentation, much the same as how wine is made. Over the next few weeks the sweet apple cider will begin to lose it sweetness because the yeast will eat up all the natural sugars resulting in a dryer fermented beverage that is surprisingly not very reminiscent of apples. They range from about 6.5% ABV up to 8.5 %ABV.

But where did it come from? Early in US history the first settlers had experienced the devastating effects of drinking unclean water. So after settling in America, they started fermenting fresh apple cider into hard apple cider as a daily beverage and so it became their water for both young and old alike. For centuries it was the drink of choice and old recipes were brought from their homeland in Europe.

During the time of the prohibition In the U.S., countless cider apple trees orchards were cut down and burned, making the common hard apple cider a rarity in many parts of the United States. 

 ...THERE HAS BEEN A REVIVAL …

In recent years with the return of curated goods and handcrafted items as well as craft beverages, hard cider has seen a revival. 

A young hard cider from Rowan Asher Winery & Hard Cidery  

For many who have tried commercial hard apple cider, you could agree that it resembles sweet bubbly apple juice because of the punch of flavorings, juice and sugary sweetness that has been added after fermentation. That's how commercialism has catered to the super sweet tooth of the US consumer.

But if this was your only introduction to Hard Ciders, then you have been mislead. Allow me, a Hard Cideress, to properly introduce you to the amazing world of handcrafted hard ciders! Because handcrafted "homemade" hard ciders are quite different....

It has a wonderfully old-fashioned appeal and as a craft it just feels wholesome. You can taste the fermentation and alcohol in real hard cider and it is amazing! 

There are a vast array of the ciders being made in the states today, from sour or spiced ciders to fruity, while others have been introduced to hops or aged whiskey bourbon barrels, like our "Oaky O'Shea". The amount of carbonation varies as well as levels of dryness from dry, off dry, semi dry, semi sweet and sweet. Different types of yeasts are used from white wine yeast to ale yeast and champagne yeast and these all affect the final product and taste preferred. It can be purchased in cans, bottles and some cider tasting bars like the one at www.rowanasherwinery.com have a growler program, where you can return the growler for a discounted refill of ciders on tap.

All of these variations allow for endless creativity as well as bountiful flavors in this newly "tapped" Market. So why not look online and find your local Hard Cidery and sample a few sips of Americas oldest beverage. 

You can find cideries on the newly formed North East Cider Trail that is working to unite Virginia to Maine. Check out www.NorthEastCiderTrail.com

The "Roseto Effect"

Living forever, everyone wants to, but no one has. But what if you could live about 8 to 10 years longer than the average American? What if it was in your blood, what if it was part of your family's history? Well for some it is...

Just recently the oldest living Roseto native, Carmen Ruggiero passed away, just a month shy of 104 years of age. We had a chance to meet him at the "Centi Anni" or 100 yr celebration of Roseto's history and he was a charming man with a great knack for humor.

There is a tiny hill town in Pennsylvania called Roseto. It was established in 1912 by a small Italian community that moved to America from Roseto Valfatore, Italy and it is part of our family's rich heritage. It's a town where everyone's related, you're always meeting another new cousin, and everyone knows everyone. 

What was amazing about this town and these people was their incredible history of longevity. They had low heart disease rates and cancer, especially among the men. Because of this they were outliving the average American in upwards of 8 to 10 years. So a 10 year study was done to figure out why. It was called the "ROSETO EFFECT".

Our heritage is in our wine.  

Everything they ate and drank was tracked daily, and the final result was that it wasn't their gardening and homemade foods that helped them to live longer.

Everyone in town made wine, and wine is good for you right? Well, it wasn't the wine either. The answer is quite beautiful, it was the tight-knit community, that sense of well-being and love that everyone felt, that made them live longer, happier and healthier lives. You see, everyone took care of their own and their neighbor. Even the town bum who was lovingly called "mangiare e bere" or "eat and drink", I was told that he never slept on the street and never missed a meal. I wish times were still like that.

So that is why we decided to honor our family as well as the community of Roseto, Pennsylvania for their remarkable history because they knew how to live right. That is why we called our Italian red wine the "Roseto Effect".

Members of the study: my great-grandfather Domenico Finelli (bottom left) and my great great grandfather Pasqualli Finelli (center with white beard) 

We honor their tradition of winemaking by blending Sangiovese, Chianti, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon to make a beautiful Italian Red Wine just like our forefathers did, perfect for pasta Sundays.

Perhaps having a glass or more a day may make the "Roseto Effect" rub off on us too. We may never know if it will work...

...pass me the wine please... 

*to read more about the Roseto Effect, visit our "Wines" page and select "Roseto Effect"

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...