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2015 ESSENCE

Ice Cider
$26 | 375 ml

Aromas browned butter and brown sugar mingle with cinnamon baked apple. The mouthfeel is viscous with flavors of lemoncurd and caramel. The finish is mocha and spice cookie with plenty of acid to carry the sugar.

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The Story of Essence

French Canadian apple growers were said to have invented ice cider, but there is no record to substantiate this.  Regardless of it’s origins, ice cider is a unique expression of the apple. We make this ice cider through a process called cryo-concentration. We set aside late harvested dessert apples in our barn to use in the winter. When the weather looks right, we press them and put the juice outside in tanks to freeze. As it freezes and thaws, the water begins to freeze solid as ice while the sugar begins to concentrate in the center of the tank. When it reaches the brix we want, we extract that sugary portion, leaving behind 5/6ths of the liquid frozen as ice. We estimate that there are about 30 apples, minus the water, in every bottle.

Pulled out of the tank at around 32 brix, this nectar ferments very slowly. We taste it regularly, and when we like the sugar acid balance, we stop the fermentation early. And it’s the sugar acid balance that we really love about this dessert beverage. At nearly 16 grams per liter acidity, the finish is long and soaring allowing you to savor the warm, rich aromatics.

Ezra Sherman Cidermaker/ Orchardist

Apple Varieties:

  • 100% Estate grown late harvest dessert fruit.
  • Idared
  • Fuji
  • Jonagold
  • Mutsu

 

Production notes:

  • Late harvest fruit was stored outside, pressed in January and set out in tanks to freeze.
  • Cryoconcentrated juice was collected at 32 brix.
  • The fermentation was stopped at 14% residual sugar.
  • 176 cases made