Iced cider a blast of pure apple

I’m not a big cider fan, or at least I wasn’t until just before
this year’s Great Alaska Beer and Barley Wine Festival. I attended
a private industry trade show and discovered something truly
unique. Cider is not beer, but like mead and sake, it’s discussed
and evaluated the same way because it’s a fermented alcoholic
beverage that doesn’t rely on distillation to produce
alcohol.

Maybe I wasn’t a big cider fan because, although I’ve had various
ciders, the truly good ones didn’t start showing up here in Alaska
until recent years. By then I was fully vested in beer. I never
dismissed the beverage, but I’d never been really wowed by it
either.

Much goes into a good cider. Certainly the quality of the apples is
paramount, but then so is when they are harvested and pressed and
how the juice is fermented. Lesser ciders often use a hodgepodge of
apple varieties, obtaining them from any old source, disregarding
the relative quality of each. But an artfully blended cider can be
truly remarkable if the maker balances qualities such as tartness,
sweetness, and things like tannin and acidity levels.

There is a huge variance in individual cider styles. Ciders range
from light to relatively dark, from 3 percent alcohol up to 15
percent and even beyond. The carbonation level in ciders can range
from entirely still to sparkling or champagne-like, with most
having a moderate carbonation level. Some are lighter and others
heavier on the palate depending on their concentration, but in
general you can expect a cider to be about as full as a substantial
white wine.

Simply said, a good cider can be as complicated as a good
beer.

Individual preferences vary, but I’ve found the cheaper,
mass-produced ciders rely on adding more sugar in process and tend
to taste overly sweet-almost candy-like at the expense of a rich
and complicated true apple flavor. To me, these examples come
across more like cheap wine coolers than distinctive and flavorful
styles.

At this year’s Specialty Imports Trade Show at the Dena’ina Center,
tall, cylindrical bottle at one of the cider tables a caught my
attention. The distributor kept the bottle purposely low and out of
sight for the most part, and I got the sense that what was in the
bottle was something special and not to be squandered on the casual
palate. I moved in for a closer look.

Eden Vermont Ice Cider comes from the Eden Orchards and Eden Ice
Cider Company in West Charleston, Va. Established in 2007 in what
was then an abandoned dairy farm, the fruit comes from 800 apple
trees surrounding the dairy and a small operation that turns out
very small batches handmade specialty ciders.

Ice cider is a relatively new product that originated in southern
Quebec, Canada, about a decade ago (it’s known there as “Cidre de
Glace”).

Eden Vermont Ice Cider is only made once a year due to a special
process that relies more on Mother Nature than anything else to
achieve uniqueness. The fruit is picked at peak ripeness, then put
in cold storage until temperatures outside drop to below freezing.
At just the right time, the apples are pressed and the resulting
juice is moved outside to freeze. The concentrated juice is removed
from the ice that forms inside the container, and the process is
repeated. This can take up to six to eight weeks.

Once a sufficient run of concentrated cider is obtained, it’s cold
fermented at between 50-55 degrees, then filtered for packaging. In
contrast to other “ice distillation” processes, the juice is frozen
and concentrated before fermentation, allowing the cider to retain
more natural apple flavor.

Eden Vermont Ice Cider’s Calville Blend is a dessert-like product
that’s made to be enjoyed in very small samples. Indeed, at 10
percent alcohol, it’s not at all quaffable, and slow, measured sips
bring out the best in this incredibly flavorful drink. The
distributor poured me a very small sample of this golden or
honey-colored, crystal-clear still cider. It looks thick and
concentrated in the glass, and rolling it around to rouse the aroma
leaves a thin layer that momentarily clings to the side of the
glass.

Bringing it up for a sniff rewards the drinker with a blast of
pure, fresh apples, some cider character and a waft of warming
alcohol. Don’t look for an overall fruity essence to the beer; it’s
all about apples. Imagine cutting a perfectly ripe apple in half
just after it’s been pulled from the vine and getting your nose
right into it, and that’s what the aroma delivers in this
incredible stuff that’s made with a blend of 11 different apple
varieties. It takes over eight pounds of apples to make a single
375-ml bottle.

When I first took a small sip of this stuff, I was totally
unprepared for the intensity of rich apple flavor that overtook my
palate, even with a minute amount coating my mouth. It was gone
before I could react, but I found myself not wanting to swallow,
wanting to savor every nuance. I looked at my small sample and had
to hold back. This was something to experience and cherish
slowly.

The flavor is both sweet and tart, and incredibly clean. I don’t
think I could get the same amount of apple intensity by eating a
fresh apple, but I’m sure that has to do with the concentration
that comes from the freezing process. The mouthfeel is full and
soft and the alcohol, though slightly evident, is buried in the
complex, swirling flavors and makes itself known in a slightly
warming swallow.

Don’t look to run out and buy a six pack of this stuff; we’re lucky
to get any at all. And at $31 bucks for the small bottle at La
Bodega, it’s a treat you’re not likely to indulge in all the time.
Still, you owe it to yourself to indulge in it at least once. If I
could afford it, an apple a day of the stuff would keep this Doctor
running for it.

james.roberts@gci.net

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