Quality cider begins with quality cider apples. Foggy Ridge Cider blends heirloom American apples like Harrison and Roxbury Russett with traditional English and French cider apples to create cider with uncommon depth and balance.
Cidermaker and apple grower Diane Flynt continues to experiment in the orchard. See theFoggy Ridge Orchard Notebook for detailed bloom and harvest records. Every apple plays a role–the striped red cherry-sized Virginia Hewe’s Crab contributes sugar and texture to Foggy Ridge’s First Fruit blend. The English cider apples Dabinett and Tremlett’s Bitter balance Sweet Stayman with acidity. Cox’s Orange Pippin adds aromatics to all our ciders.
Diane’s Foggy Ridge Orchard Notebook
Cox’s Orange Pippin
Raised in England by Richard Cox, a retired brewer, at Colnbrook near Slough around 1830 and highly prized as a dessert apple. The orange skin gains red strips and russetting as it ripens. This apple is so fragrant you can catch its scent on a breeze from inside a pickup truck.
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Dabinett
A full bittersweet but with soft astringency and a full body, this high tannin cider apple comes from Somerset England, a reknown cider producing region. William Dabinett found this apple as a seedling in a hedge in Middle Lambrook–proof that “apple rustling” is a valuable pastime.
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Harrison
Once lost to cultivation, Tom Burford found a 75 year old Harrison tree in 1989 and returned this valuable cider apple to the trade. Harrison juice is viscous and dark with complex flavors. We wish we had an orchard full of Harrisons.
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Roxbury Russett
The oldest named American apple, originating in Roxbury, MA in the early 1600s. Mountain grown Roxbury Russetts are excellent keepers. The dusky green skin is flushed with a rough yellowish brown russet. The greenish white flesh has a unique spicy flavor that surprises those of us reared on the ubiquitous Grocery Store Five.
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Virginia Hewe’s Crab
The most celebrated southern cider apple, enjoyed by George Washington and grown in Thomas Jefferson’s North Orchard. The small light green apples are striped red when ripe. The soft yellow flesh yields an intensely flavored syrupy juice. These small apples cover the trees and prompt curses from pickers at harvest time.
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Tremlett’s Bitter
A full bittersweet with hard and bitter tannin, this cider apple from Devon England is difficult to grow (derisively called a “pig of an apple”) but adds valuable qualities to cider blends.
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Winter Jon
Southern cidermakers used this late season apple for cider for hundreds of years. Winter Jon ripens late and stores all winter…no one knows who “Jon” was, but this apple’s complex flavor and soft tannins add complexity to any cider.