Any misapprehension I had about my host being a native farmer quickly disappeared when Vincent, a transplanted New Yorker with iPhone in hand and laptop close by, greeted me. He and his wife were business consultants, and I guessed immediately that converting part of the house into a B&B paid the taxes.
“Welcome,” he said. “I’ll show you to your room and then perhaps make some suggestions of places to see in the area, if you like.” He led the way from the large, modern sitting room into a smaller one filled with antiques and then up a narrow staircase to the second floor and a succession of small bedrooms. Each room contained a Victorian iron or brass bedstead, beautiful handmade quilts, a small writing desk, and a dresser. I took the smallest room, because it looked out over the back of the property onto the hills and forest above. Victor pointed out the bathroom and left me to settle into my base of operations for the next two days.
My appointment to see a cider pressing wasn’t until the next morning, so I changed into workout clothes and descended to the kitchen to see what Vincent could suggest for a late-afternoon adventure. He was on the phone, so I wandered the common rooms and decided that this couple had a great gig going. They’d collected high quality antiques. A garden room of glass walls, which acted as both a greenhouse and a lounge area, opened off both sitting rooms. Out of the side windows, I saw a small orchard, and through an open door marked “private” a well-equipped, high-tech office—which, I assumed, was where Vincent and his wife ran their businesses. I shook my head. I still couldn’t get Ethernet cable at the farmhouse in Northport.
“Is the room going to work for you?” Vincent asked, having quietly appeared at my side.
“Absolutely, thanks. I’d like to take you up on your offer to steer me to places of local interest. I have the rest of today free.”
“Better yet, how about I take you on a little tour?” he suggested. “How are you on a bicycle?”
“A bike ride would be great, that’s so nice of you.”
An hour later, I’d heard much of Vincent’s life story and experienced a strenuous hill ride along the banks of the Connecticut River. I had picked out Frank’s Restaurant for a good home-cooked dinner and a beer, and Vincent had interviewed me regarding my breakfast choices for the next morning. As soon as he heard the purpose of my trip, I also got the offer to try his own hard cider, bottled the previous year and made from his homegrown apples, as well as instructions to hike up to the top of the hill behind the bed-and-breakfast to see a new orchard of hard cider apples that had been planted by a local landowner two years ago.
Pleased at this bonus, I felt a surge of confidence that my investment in this research mission would actually work to educate me in the way I’d hoped.
Breathless from the climb up the hill, I found the new mini orchard laid out in neat rows, the young saplings just beginning to branch. The Aikens’ trees were giant by contrast. The steep hill provided a spectacular view over the town to the left and the valley meadows stretching into the distance to the right. A squeal of delight escaped me as I took in someone else’s new foray into the fellowship of hard cider makers in this spectacular spot. I headed back down the hill. A perfect first day.
The cider mill in New Boston, New Hampshire looked like the classic image of an old New England mill. Set right next to the road, built into the side of a hill, its two-story, metal-roofed, aged gray timbers rose like a natural outcropping from the flinty soil. The sign fixed to its façade, Cider Mill Gallery, confirmed the new identity of the space.
Because health department codes had become so restrictive, commercial cider pressing was no longer an option for this two-hundred-year-old structure. Bob and Eileen, the mill owners, were transplanted New Yorkers who had bought and preserved the mill in the 1980s. They supported their habit with “real” jobs in the city and through consulting. Old-fashioned cider pressing, a life’s dream for them, had led them to connect with the cider mavens in the area, many of whom were gathered on this warm October morning for a private pressing.
My host, Bob Walker, had welcomed my interest, given me some background, and extended the invitation to come. His email had been clear, however: he would be busy with an author whose book he was editing, and with the other friends and family members working for their share in the pressing. I got it. Look, ask questions, join in the work, but don’t demand too much attention.
I parked my car and found the entrance at the side of the mill. After stepping inside, I took a moment to let my eyes adjust to the dark of the interior. Eight-foot tables bearing the contributions for a potluck lunch lined the only open space in the cavernous ground floor of the building. A gargantuan, belt-driven apple grinder and press, built of massive oak timbers and painted a cheery red, occupied two-thirds of the lofty space.
I’d seen a small modern press, which gleamed of stainless steel and efficiency and electronics, at Tandem Ciders in Michigan. I’d also seen the pieces of an old press in Charlie Aiken’s barn. But I’d not seen an old-fashioned press in action since my childhood visits to a cider mill.
I located Bob Walker, whose solid, Flemish fairness complemented his air of brisk efficiency. He introduced a group of volunteers, all gazing up at a billowing canvas chute already feeding ground apples into the press’s cloth-lined frame. The chute disappeared into the ceiling above. I located a staircase in the corner of the room and, climbing it, found myself in an airy gallery with lovely landscape paintings covering the walls. A sectioned-off area of the floor featured an ancient wooden hopper that sat atop a large grinder.
A tight group of workers, ranging from what looked to be a seven-or eight-year-old girl to a woman clearly in her eighties, bent over the hopper. At the center of the group, directing the activity of feeding apples into the grinder, stood a white-haired, white-bearded man in jeans and a work shirt sporting bright red suspenders.
Allen Swift. I was stunned. For years, I’d watched this man on his public television garden show, and now he patiently explained the virtues of the different apples stacked in bushels around the hopper to the small girl. I listened, transfixed by his presence, as he conducted my first real-time cider making training.
“We’re starting here with the Baldwins, these bright red ones with the white stars,” he began. “They’ve got good solid flesh and they’ll guarantee some sweetness. Let’s dump a couple of bushels of these in.” Many hands helped the little girl’s and the apples jumped in the hopper, where knives sliced and ground them, before they dropped through the chute below as pomace—apple mash.
“Next we want these Stayman Winesaps,” Swift continued, warming to the audience. “They’re the dull, greenish-red-looking ones over there. They’re soft and yellow in the flesh, but they’re tart and spicy tasting. They’ll add a wine-like flavor to our cider.” Strong arms lifted the heavy bushel to the edge of the hopper and soon the apples were being tossed into the grinder.
“Next we’ll put in some Ribston Pippin. They’re the yellow/orange ones right here. We need these for their rich, sweet aroma.” The glint of the knives at the bottom of the hopper and the disappearing apples seemed to fascinate the girl much more than their flesh and flavor characteristics, but I hung onto Swift’s every tutorial word. I grabbed at the next designated bushel to lend my hand to the effort.
“Does it much matter if you get all the balance of cider apples in at grinding time, or can you mix it up with the musts after grinding?” I asked as I heaved the last of the Pippins into the hopper. I suddenly wondered if my use of the word for extracted juice sounded pompous, but Swift didn’t seem to mind; he paused and considered my question.
“I know people who do combine different juices after grinding, but I can’t help but feel that there’s some magic in the mixing right from the get-go. If you really want control of the taste or you’re not sure of what you’ve got, you can mix single varietals.”
I stood at his elbow and, as I lifted the next bushel from where he’d pointed it out, asked my next question:
“Do you change up the type of apples each year?”
“That is part of the fun . . . every year we find different apples people are bringing back, or find substitutes for varieties we didn’t like from last year, or just find ones we like better this year. Here, have a look.” He pulled out a piece of lined, coffee-stained paper, smoothed it out onto a clipboard lying on a table by the doorway, and passed the clipboard to me. Then he was gone, back to directing apples into the maw of the grinder.
Varieties, read the title. A list of apple varieties and amounts in bushels identified the stacks of baskets and boxes crowded into the grinder loft. Liberty, Gravenstein, July Red, Manning Miller, Kingston Black, Cortland, Chisel Jersey, Ashton Bitter, Yarlington Mills—all were varieties I had read about in orchards going back to Thomas Jefferson’s. Charlie Aiken and I had discussed nearly all of them. I was surprised to see two different varieties of pears listed on the paper. I filed a question on my mental list. Allen returned to my side with his pocketknife open and sliced a wedge of a small orange apple with juicy yellow flesh. I popped it in my mouth as a burst of aroma filled the air.
“Mmmm, Pippin,” I guessed cautiously.
“Cox Orange Pippin, to be exact,” he shot back, grinning, as he turned away again.
I silently thanked the Kilchermans and their orchard of antique apples, located down the road from the farmhouse in Northport. For years I’d stopped all through the fall and tried small boxes and bags of different apples, some so bitter it took hours to lose the sour memory from my tongue. I’d learned to ask, “Cooking or eating?” of the senior Kilchermans before purchasing, and to make sure the paper sacks were labeled. I’d now progressed to a point where I could taste-identify some varieties, but I had a long way to go.
The first load of pomace had filled the press frames below, so I returned to the first floor and watched as Bob Walker and three assistants raked the mash evenly around the cloth-lined, square frame. Four such frames, called a cheese, would be stacked for the next step—the pressing. I’d done my homework.
The massive hydraulic press switched on, and belts whirred above me around pulleys the size of semi tires. As the press began to do its work, juice poured through the slats of the frames and into the tray at the bottom, where it flowed to a low corner and down through a large plastic tube leading to a tank outside the lower doors of the mill. This fine old machine, in all its glory, did what it was meant to do, with knowledgeable stewards of the process ensuring that each step happened as it should.
I had joined into the work next to a petite woman named Ona, whose well-behaved thatch of grey-streaked hair, swept up in a pair of combs, framed her classically pretty face. It turned out that she owned the orchard above my B&B in Antrim. She described the pressing procedure going on in front of us in detail.
I learned that apples needed to stay above twenty-eight degrees, that Stayman Winesap and Castle apples are incredibly delicious, Porter is great for pie, and that Thomas Jefferson cultivated Esopus Spitzenburgs. Furthermore, as a cider maker, bleach is your friend; all parts of production and storage equipment have to be thoroughly cleaned, as bacteria can produce mold. Ona recommended three-gallon carboys rather than five-or eight-gallon glass jugs, as the latter were heavy and unwieldy. Camden tablets, she said, killed natural yeast so champagne yeast could be used to get controlled fermentation. I also learned that a fermentation lock lets gas out but no oxygen in so the cider won’t “turn.”
Three pressings later, with lunch and cleanup behind us, we were offered samples of the juice—not yet cider—from the tank. The cider makers brought their carboys to be filled with the spoils of the day. As I stood in the loose line waiting my turn, I watched the faces of those before me light up with pleasure. When my turn came, I took my first sip as Bob Walker smiled close by.
The cider’s taste and aroma were like the visual effect of an Impressionist painting—bursting with light and colorful flavor and intensity. I’d never tasted anything this wonderful derived from an apple. It made me giddy. And this was just the beginning. Next the juice would be strained, and in twenty-four hours it would oxidize and cloud, dropping sediment to the bottom of the container. After that, the juice would be transferred to containers to drink or set up to ferment for hard cider.
“How’d you like your first cider pressing?” Walker asked.
“Pretty fascinating—and delicious,” I replied, returning his smile. “If I squint my eyes a little, I can see this happening a couple of hundred years ago.”
“With Allen, you don’t have to squint much.” Walker put his arm around Swift, who had joined us but still had an eye on the containers being filled, one by one, from the tank. “If you want to see the cider making process in its highest form, from apple to bottle, go see Orphan Lane Orchards and have a sit-down with David Waters,” he continued. “He’s a real master and has been in this business for a long time now. It’s only about an hour and a half from here.”
“It’s on the docket for tomorrow, and I’m really looking forward to it,” I said, pleased that my plan anticipated Walker’s advice.
“What made you decide to get into this business?” he asked.
I’d been asked this question before, mostly by skeptical friends and family members, my husband not the least of them. But Bob Walker seemed more genuinely curious than skeptical, and had, after all, hosted me and sponsored this event, so I decided to tell him the simplest truth I knew.
“I fell in love with hard cider during a year I lived in England. Then I fell in love with a little piece of heaven on the Leelanau Peninsula in northern Michigan, where apples grow, and where a robust wine production and distribution network are already in place. I needed a business to support a real estate purchase and my desire to make a life in that area. And I’m looking to partner with someone who’s already invested in a cider apple orchard. There you have it. Not an elegant business plan, but I’m hoping to wrap some pieces of my life into something that works with my dreams.”
I had said more of my truth than I’d planned but felt a defiant pride in my response; I felt there had been a tacit permission to respond as if the question were more than perfunctory.
“You’ll need a lot more than luck,” Swift said, “but I wish you luck and I wish you well. The power of passion is formidable.”
“That it is. I thank you both. It’s been a real pleasure meeting you.” With a last look around the mill, I took my leave and found my way back to Antrim for an evening of rest.
Chapter 9
It took only a single warning light to scare me out of my false sense of independence, born of complacency and the fantasy that I could manage everything on this trip by myself. Driving the back roads of New Hampshire on a fall day gone cold and windy, the rental car’s “check engine” light illuminated with a ping. My cell phone read “no service,” and I hadn’t seen another human being or habitation for miles.
This followed the previous night’s version of travel’s underbelly. Owen’s contact, whose one-hundred-year-old family apple business had brought me to this area to begin with, had called yesterday morning with the news that he’d received an unexpected visit from a child in crisis and had to beg off hosting me at his home at the last minute. I had spent the night at the only available motel in a fifty-mile radius. For a hundred dollars I’d gotten a musty, run-down room overlooking a parking lot filled with at least a dozen motorcycles, with more roaring engines arriving periodically. Steven’s concerned voice over the telephone had been a comfort, but the last thing I wanted to do was worry him. I’d not slept much.
Now I began to make my way toward the town of Lebanon, where I hoped the car could be repaired or switched out so I’d be on time for my one o’clock appointment at Orphan Hill Orchards. The endless arch of trees over the well-tended two-lane road, which moments ago had felt like an enchanted bower, now looked like menacing arms overhead. On Star! Relief flooded my veins and went to every prickled nerve ending. If I had to stop, On St
ar would find me.
Fear receded, replaced by the larger questions that had nagged at me in solitary moments on this trip: What am I really doing? How have I come to invest so much time and energy and resources into this potentially risky business? Steven’s concerns, never far from the ruffled surface of my equanimity, pulled at my confidence like an undertow.
“At this age we shouldn’t be making risky investments,” he’d said when I first seriously talked to him.
“I’m only investing money we never counted on having,” I countered.
“You don’t know the first thing about starting a business, much less running one. Do you really want to be working this hard at setting up a business at this time in your life?” he retorted.
“I do!” I answered. “I’m excited to be trying something totally different and interesting to me.”
We’d been having versions of this conversation ever since.
The morning’s coffee started to burn in my gut. My defense of my plan played in my head as I sped through the deserted countryside. What do you mean “at this age”? I’m fifty-four years old, I ran the Chicago Marathon last year, I’ve had successful careers as a teacher and speech therapist, and now I want to apply my love for growing things to an upscale market for artisanal drinks and foods in a place I want to live. Works for me! The fierceness of my solitary defense amused me. Steven had, after all, agreed to my pursuit. I’d gotten agreement if not enthusiasm from him, and it was up to me to maintain the courage of my own convictions.
I finished the drive without incident.
Orphan Hill Orchards sat atop a steep hill above the town of Lebanon. An article I’d read about the property remarked that it had everything you’d expect from a multi-generational, family-owned apple farm: a quaint old farmhouse, a barn, open outbuildings filled with tractors and other equipment, and, of course, miles of well-tended orchard.
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