A love letter to Cider

on the next episode of sips Suds and smokes today. We're probably going to butcher a couple of words. We may insult a couple of countries but you know what? We're doing it all for you guys are and our listeners, the things that we do for them. Right, okay. Well today's episode is a cider episode. Cool. We recently picked up a random collection of ciders, both domestic and some imported.

So one of the key things that you have to know about cider is that cider is usually not made from the varieties of apples that you see in the groceries, correct? There are no granny smith, No, no granny smith involved, you know, kayla with no, no kayla. You know sometimes a gala food. We will be right back after this break brought to you almost live from the dude in the basement studios. Why? Because that's where the good stuff is.

It sips Suds and smokes with your smoke and host the good old Boys Suds. Suds! Suds. It's time for more Suds. Hello? Hello. Hello. We we welcome to another sub segment where we don't discriminate. We'll drink just about anything you put in front of us. We may have our pinkies up or down though at the time joining me at the table. Today is a good boy Sean. Hello. Hello. Good to be back and ready to try some cider. Give it away. Give it away.

Give it away right out the window, screwed up those of you that are still with us. Good boy mike, Yes, I know I'm still here. I think it sucks. Well, I mean as you know, as long as you had nothing else to do and hang out with, I can't believe you bring that Oh my goodness! Yeah, I knew that was gonna bite me, yep, yep, yep. Little Boy Drew Oh, hey, sorry, wasn't true, is getting his vocal cords ready. Me, me, me, me, me, me. How much do we have the dropkick Murphys?

Now these guys were the dropkick Murphys before the dropkick Murphys Giants. We, we should have done a snakebite for this episode as well. There's still time that shutting us down for the after show party. You got to have the same board. That is correct. That is the only way it's going to happen. Well, I am good old gal juliana. And today we're probably going to butcher a couple of words, we may insult a couple of countries, but you know what?

We're doing it all for you guys, our fans and our listeners, the things that we do for them. Right, okay, well today's episode is a cider episode. We recently picked up a random collection of ciders, both domestic and some imported. No, not that one, that one he was going by the color doing with your hands. You said random. Well making your shopping process go to boy Drew, are you warmed up and ready for the lineup today? I will do what I can, but I'm not 100% sure why you talked me into this.

Okay, so the Siders that will be tasting today and apparently I'm going to be singing them operatically because while we were discussing this, I I revealed that you know my fun fact is that I'm an operatic singer train so I can singing lots of languages. I don't know what any of them means. So here we go. Very cool craft basque cider from there is wall to braga in the pOSco Spain 6% HPV. Yes, yes.

Insider from cidre, realize it and keep posco Spain, 6% ABP sig Aldo natural a from Missus steg G cyber house in Tolosa Spain also 6% HPV. Cornered y from subsidiary manoir du kinky's in kim parents 5% HPV lightweight. Sit down from potter's craft ciders in Charlottesville, Virginia America 9% HPV.

That's the porgy and bess version, farmhouse drive from potter's craft ciders in Charlottesville Virginia, dolly, Parton America 8.4% a BB sila mammal from true family cellars in elk California America 7.5% a p p you know, I just want to say this, I'm I'm hard and I have an overwhelming desire to go to sonic right now, I'm not really quite sure, which was hard. Yeah. You know what I'm saying is I think this is a family cider show. Yes. Oh we are so over the rails right now.

Opera has absolutely nothing to do with anything we're talking about. Why the heck not. It was fun. You you did a much better job than I would have. So thank you. Thank you for taking one for the team there. Drew Well when you sing it they can't tell you mispronounce it. That's the secret you can tell from his voice that Drew is not a, you know you're a song. Nt I don't believe any of the evidence against you. I mean if you can wear a wig in british for sure. You know. Can you imagine?

Well as as a solicitor, I don't get to wear the wig. So you know as only the barristers get to wear the wigs. Don't agree if there was anything that would actually step up in the high court that would make it like entertaining is if you turned it into an opera, you know I think they tried it. It was called cop rock was like I have a hard time finding librettist.

Okay well Alright boys, alright we'll be discussing and writing these ciders with these Suds ratings plus our signature belching sounds here are those ratings now? Subs number one, the lowest rating That sucks. Give me anything but an angry orchard hard suds to.

Was that a belch or a woodchuck? Uh Suds three. What a relief for a body should really not make that sound unless it's good old boy Drew or strong. And our top rating reserved for the best of the best Suds five. Listen to that hang time. Give me another. Okay that was awesome. That was good. That was a strong beginning to it was how do I? It's all downhill from here? I don't know. I hope the cider can hold up to us. Okay, so let's get to the cider and the first one is from Spain.

It is the rodeo in Iberico craft basque cider from marta a stigma gara. I'm just guessing my wife is basque. So hey, seriously, if you can't pick up on all the names of these products today, there are show notes for the episode. You'll actually get to see, well we're butchering them. So in other words, this is spanish cider from the place where the pigs eat the acorns and get turned into the most delicious ham in the world.

See, so certified organic biodynamic gluten free and all natural basque hearts is a county or region in spain in Northwestern Spain. I believe in the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain are known for their separatist. Yeah, actually there's actually two types. There's large mouth bass and I like that. Once again go to Spain. Anyone from the show. Okay, so in terms of cider cider is fermented apples. As simple as that rumor has it, rumor has it? We have a BJ CP certified cider judge.

So one of the, one of the key things that you have to know about cider. Is that cider is usually not made from the varieties of apples that you see in the grocery, correct? Um there are no granny smith, no, no granny smith involved gala with no, no, you know sometimes a gala. And so one of the difficult things that's happened with a lot of the cider industry over time is that they have lost a lot of the varieties of cider, apples that have been around for eons of time.

And so this is this is just a real tragedy that a lot of, you know, a lot of cider makers are really dealing with is that they simply cannot produce or recreate a lot of historic blends or uh ciders that they've been making, its been a combination of they've lost the varieties of the apples that they're working with as well as the yeast components have been lost over time as well because there hasn't been really good, you know, management of, you know,

either one of those things over time and so um I know this really well our family owned a cider cider mill and uh I mean I grew up with, you know, going to, you know to the cider mill, you know every summer and just would walk in there and it's just you know, sticky sweet and really awesome.

Yeah, I did, we did, so give me the juice, but I remember hearing a lot of the challenges, you know, that was happening kind of year over year because you slowly changed out a lot of the variety of apples to appeal towards,

you know a lot of the grocery produce crowd and we stopped you know actually making less and less you know apples that actually would work with the cider well and the other thing to know about apples and especially in particular the seeds is that every seed and you find in an apple core is genetically different from not only the seeds out of 10. Yeah, not only from the seeds containing that core but also from the tree that it came from. So um hybridization.

Yes, so the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, the genetic apple falls far from the tree. Crazy. Can you can you smack him for us? I can't reach him, wow, she will later. Okay so let's start getting into this. So this is a little cloudy. Yeah and we will after the break, welcome back everyone today we're taking a trip around the world with an apple in her hand, freaking apple seeds. So I like a little bit of the conversation we had there at the break.

So Drew and I were talking about you know kind of what happened with the cider industry, why is it just kind of you know a bit of a dwarf, you know of of where it was because there were just hundreds of cider mills, you know all across the globe and I mean seriously you're down to probably you know 50, 100 cider mills you know globally. Yeah, maybe. Yeah I asked if it started with prohibition. Yeah, no it really had to do with you know economic elements of supply and demand.

Um so yeah the you know basically I mean cider was a bit more of a commodity and you know there were yield management issues that you know really played in with a lot of the cider, you know, apples themselves.

I mean it was not unusual for you to lose a third of the crop, you know for a variety of reasons, you know like whether thinking yeah like in Ireland specifically there were certain uh or breeds or whatever that is, potatoes like kind of like that has happened with some some wine grapes like if if an infection or whatever gets in there it can wipe it out and then like if you aren't able to bring that stuff like we're,

it's all like everybody that we've eaten all the same clone of the same plant that's like 50 years. I would definitely say the apples that you eat at the grocery store probably have been homogenized and genetically modified, you know to the point that literally if I asked you guys, you know how many variety of apples that you know, you'd probably hold up two fingers red delicious and granny smith. So you know or gala maybe if I had not you and I little expanded but apples were snobs.

So the thing I was telling Drew is that you know a lot of what led to the demise was, you know, a lot of a combination of just, you know, pricing yield management, you know, with with cider, apples and then, you know, overall supply and demand and a lot of that was displaced by beer.

And so you know, I guess the thing that's kind of sticking out to me is are we kind of in the middle of this same situation where beer is being marginalized by hard seltzer, you know, again, I mean, you know, so the you know, woo girls are down to the point of going, I just don't like the grapefruit seltzer, you know better, What do you guys think about this first cider, awesome cider for the spanish cider is very well balanced.

Two of the three that we have, I believe we had to shake the bottle. I think this was a while to get all the poo off the bottom because you want to do. So this is a serious what they're saying in the description is it's a seriously bone dry cider made from organic and biodynamic um heirloom apples in the basque region of spain, which is northern spain, it's dry.

I really love the mid palette of this particular cider is really the star of the show because it has that kind of thing where you want to scrape off, you know, the middle of your tongue, where you're going, usually when you have an apple, you're like, you know, I just want to enjoy a little more and kind of scrape off the middle of my tongue. That's, that's spot on. That is really right where you want to be the finishing off. This is just, you know, kind of a little disappointing a little short.

Um I kind of wanted a little bit more sugar to kind of hang around in my mouth. Um but I mean I this is a very solid cider. I guess the question for me is this, this would be considered a still cider. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I definitely wouldn't move at all. It didn't move when I put in there. What there goes, what do you mean by a still site? Very little to no carbonation. Yeah. It's like what still semi, still semi sparkling is this is this is, what do you say? This is a still cider.

And for those of us who don't understand the designations, like, you know, is this like a off a beer engine? You know, like cast here, like naturally naturally fermented because I mean there's a little bit of a something going on. I would say if there's the big mistake that I really see and serving ciders and specifically people throwing it on a c 02 tank and they're doing that purely for the point of convenience and then they screw up, you know, a lot of natural ciders.

This is a natural cider we're enjoying right now and you know, I think Jackson's point which is enjoyed the way that the cider you know, maker actually they want it this way. Yeah. You know this is very enjoyable because you can you can make this side or the exact same way you make champagne or something, you know, a sparkling one. Okay, we are going to rate the ordinary joe Erico Basque cider a four gets great, great salvo. Yeah, I don't anticipate liking these as much as I am. I know.

Right, okay, the next one that we are going to try is the corn is the corner way cornhole leo corn away cornwall from France born from the harmony of the soil.

Apple trees and climate of the Brittany Coast. It is a gold insider with fruit aromas to the eye presents a golden orange color, a generous and fine mousse. It says crystal clear. I mean yeah, it is beautiful, golden delicious. So golden cider is going to have more sugar in them. Um So that was the, not only do they look different, but they should taste different.

I mean that should be like the very first thing on the front end of your palate is going, it feels like you have sugar right on the sort of 5% it's all still in it too. Right, yep, for sure, but it's not super sweet. I mean there's definitely a sweetness to it, but there's an interesting like almost like thinking like lockable and the fried, like give me some band aids and, and, and you know, the crazy thing is, I hate those types of school hates a strong word. Hey, can you smack him?

I'm like, I'm more of a highlands or, or, or space, that guy, you're a girl, It's way more challenge right now. I know you're from Russia, pennsylvania, whatever. So I really love something's off of the, of the tasting notes, you know, associated with this. And I really love the suggestion of enjoying this as an app for TIF. I guess if there's anything that I would say right up front is, this is a great way, you know, to uh, combine it with, you know, a meal as, as an aperitif or a cheese plate.

Yeah, this would be phenomenal with the cheese plate with some nutty creamy and not very lactose intolerant. There's a complexity, you know, with this, that, um, it definitely feels like there's, you know, um, eight layers, you know, of apples that are with this, it doesn't really kind of feel very one dimensional at all.

And I really, that's one of the things I really enjoy about this particular, um, there is some carb, you know, yep, it's probably on the semi semi, you know, uh, semi side, but I've had sparkling water, you know, far more carbonated than what do you think I have this outrageous accent, you silly king, I told them we are the cat one. So to echo what you're saying. Yes, it's very layered. This gives me like a balsamic e kind of tomorrow we kind of taste to it.

You know, because when I think of tomorrow it's very layered and that's what I love so much about seven degrees and the average tomorrow at least. Right. So, so this is this is in that same family. I mean this is not your grocery store cider by any means, not your grandmother's tomorrow. But that I mean for somebody I do like I like cider but I'm not well versed in the complexities of cider. This is making me, you know, appreciate. And I want to I want to have more.

I mean, I could never drink beer again and have siders like these. I'd probably be Ok well, right. I mean for as nerdy as we can be about our beer, which yes, we can be nerdy about that. You can really I mean this this side, this this cider and even the one previous to that there's just so much more to it. This is amazing.

I just, I I think it's very fortuitous that we had these first two right next to each other because they could not be more dissimilar, both, both outstanding in their own unique way. The one thing I'm picking up here is on the finish. There is a um element of bitterness and it has, you know that uh the bitterness that you would typically get, you know from the outside of an apple, the skin of an apple and it's not off putting.

I actually like that, you know, it reminds me that I'm having a cider, it's you know, I'm not having a sparkling, you know um white wine of some kind, you know, that has gone bad and it's golden, this has all the essence of the apple, you know about it. I I love this, it's it's very complete, it's very balanced. Um and I absolutely love that suggestion as an aperitif. I think that is a super super suggestion, judge boy. Oh yeah, are they open or they, are they open fermenting?

These are the spontaneous um I would say this is close fermentation, let's not spawn, you know, just a drought. I don't think it's quite that there's just a little bit in the last one to control. It's maybe something on the left behind on the apple here. Just not quite out competed at all.

You know, some ciders are actually, you know fermented out and voters um you know where you're actually going to pick up, you know, some uh some funk over time, but that's, you know, let's say that's the exception now just, I mean the pure cost of you know Having you know photos around right now. Yeah, it's going to be a steel tank, $8,000 for 30 grand for 5000 years, that'd be like a basket tub, wow. Yeah, well the corn away from see dreary manoir du yes, this beautiful french cider.

We are going to rate a five. Send me more please. I am going to line this up with a meal soon. Nice. I'm going looking for this at my liquor store. Seriously, I'll tell you where to get it. Please tell you where I got Anyways. Alright so Oh yeah, so we have a topic here worth discussing today about Canadians, you know. Seriously? Um what do they know about apples? Have you heard? Have you heard about it? Have you heard about it?

There is a shortage, there is a strategic reserve of something in Canada Canada taps at strategic reserves to deal with massive shortage of, wait wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait maple syrup. I was going to say good hockey but that's not happening for a little while. They've been struggling about these for a while. So yeah.

Um you know the Canadian Quebec maple syrup producers, Christine mafia uh recently announced it was releasing £50 million of strategic maple syrup reserve, please call the people at cracker barrel. What percentage of the reserves is 50 million. Yeah, that's about half their total stockpile believe it or not. And Quebec produces about 70% of the world's maple syrup. So next time you drift into Quebec Sean it's like so what kind of business she into?

I mean the maple syrup businessman import export you know got a couple of cases you know, like, but seriously like the United States, we have a strategic oil reserve. The Canadians have a strategic maple syrup reserve, You know, they got their priorities. They also have a strategic poutine reserve. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the big problem is that that actual worldwide demand jumped 21%. Who's to blame for that?

Probably american breweries making maple, no whiskey whiskey companies doing maple barrel finishes, I can't believe, you know. Yeah, So Norwegians, we should blame them anyway. So um maple syrup is made from sap maple trees. If you didn't know that by inserting a metal tap into the tree's trunk. Um and then they, it involves usually a systematic plastic tubing. It's interesting if you ever walk into, you know, maple syrup farm, it really looks like above ground irrigation. Yes, it does.

It's pretty amazing. Pretty funny. You see all this stuff going all over the place. Uh, so so are there any like environmental, um, like activists that, yeah, you're plunging a metal piece of metal, you know, so our family actually does have a maple syrup farm, you know? Um so you got out of the apple cider business? No, it still, uh, so I've walked through a few times and just kind of, it's really interesting. It's fascinating business.

I think the thing that I'm really shocked about is definitely the price. I'm like, wow, you know, are we selling crack cocaine here, what I like is the crack cocaine totally is. Yeah. If I had a national sport that I sucked at that bad, I wouldn't talk about. What's the one with the Yeah. Yeah. So to adopt that getting drunk on the maple who I know I want to be the president of make curling the national sport of Canada again.

Yeah. So I know like julianna has brewed some maple stouts in the past and that's where we found out like there are a couple of different grades of maple syrup and the there's like just changed the grading to, it changes based on so the grades tend to follow the harvest so you get a lot of sugar flowing.

That's the top grade, The early part of the season where there's not as much sugar flowing, that's usually the grades that are lower and the grades that are lower are usually the ones that people brew with because you don't necessarily have a lot of food products used to buy exclusively grade B maple syrup for my pancakes and everything else because it was always super dark, very maple intense flavor.

Always equated it to olive oil, homemade olive oil, which is when they're expressing like the seeds and the stems and there's nothing more olive flavor, you know, and it's not just a big sugar rush, You pay more for extra virgin that tastes like nothing but you know you pay so that I don't know that's curious. Well this is not the first time that Quebec's maple syrup reserve has actually made headlines. Guess what happened? Oh there was a big heist. That's exactly right.

There were 3000 tons of maple syrup were stolen from the stockpile over the course of months. The value of the highest was estimated 19 million Canadian dollars. That's like what like 75 americans? Was that metric tons? You know, can we get a rim shot please? You know, I mean seriously? So anyway, so uh listen, next time you enjoy, you know your maple syrup realize that their entire mafia behind their strategic reserves were tapped for your pancakes and now we return back to you cider.

Okay, let's go to the United States and let's go to Charlottesville Virginia. The next one that we are going to talk about is cider nuovo from potter's craft ciders.

This one so far is the highest A BV. Um It is, it is a very, it's a very dark e like it's a rose style cider fermented on petite Verdu mm merlot grape skins from the King family vineyards. It's aged in french oak and this is from october of this year. So absolutely.

The first thing you pick up on is which one of these things doesn't look like the um and the thing that's bringing that around is absolutely the wine barrel is bringing a lot of the, not only the color variation that we're having here but it's actually bringing around a lot of the whole experience, sugars are very different in this great tannins. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the great definitely comes through on this. It definitely feels like a crossover sider for sure.

Like, you know, something's wrong, but something's also right. I really want to serve this with me. Like I'm, I'm just running through my head like what would you pair this with? Yeah, it's amazing that this is a cider. Like I got like a lot of cheeses bouncing through my head for sure. Like I said for the first one cider and something I've already ah yeah, for sure. Yeah, we'll ponder this over the break. Yeah, this is really, really tasty.

We'll be back with this cider from Charlottesville in just a minute. Unless we wanted to bring up an apple jack. Maybe not. Welcome back everyone today, we got apples in our pockets and we are on a hunt for some really good cider and something new and something new. So the cider that we were talking about right before the break is from essentially our backyard in Charlottesville Virginia. It is the cider Nouveau from potter's craft ciders.

This is okay, so up to this point, our ciders have been traditional blond colors. This one is a beautiful rose and what we were talking about during the break is despite all the different flavor profiles that we've had up to this point, the apple is still there and it's still prominent, like, so, you know, you're getting a cider, but for somebody that doesn't like wine. I think this is an amazing alternative for them, you know what I mean? I think I'm getting up front is a lot of the tannins.

Um, you know, and the barrel but yeah, like right behind. I don't, I can't believe it would have been on there more than six months. It had to be a short period of time. Yeah. And it's also, it's funny, it's the first american cider we've had and it's like almost double strength. I think the thing I like about this is the reduced sugar, you know, off this, there is barely any sugar in the mid palette of this at all. But also the first thing that comes to mind isn't that it's dry.

No, it's not, I'm not saying in a way that I don't like that. I think the carbonation probably plays a little bit into that, that experience, if I had to take a guess that I'm guessing hey, your guess is as good as mine. This is, this is Gordon? Yeah, this is so nice. Um, we are going to rate the Sergeant evo from potter's craft ciders a four strong today come in.

Okay, so now we're gonna know now we're going to go back to Spain and this is another 6% a BV cider again from the basque region, this is cigar, donuts Kerala and this is another one we had to shake up in the bottle before we opened it. So it has an Effervescence that that is immediately apparent in the poor. It is a strong it has a strong oyster like minerality that comes across on the palate. I get oyster.

Well I think the oyster kind of an off putting term but there is a minerality in it for sure. I'm with Dave. Yeah that is totally where I'm got some rock peak uh river rock in my mouth. I don't know. I don't know if you guys ever had like an ordinary dosa like from for oyster stouts you get that kind of been tortured with it. This has definitely the sour characteristic of of like a ghost or something like that. That's kind of where my Yes, no. What do you think of that?

Bad idea mike? I think it's a bad idea. What are you talking to yourself? Yeah, sort of, what else will I um I really love the mid palate you know off of of this one as well and it is unlike any of the others that we've had so far. Like if you were to ask me if if one of these could be open fermented or they did something funky with it. This is the one I would do it. It's so consistent in the way that it's funky though. It almost I would see I would say that they inoculated it. Yeah, 100%.

So the thing that again that the sugars are things I tend to think about, you know, and I don't mean to sound repetitive and talking about where it is, you know with each of these, it's on the front end but it is very, it is very faint, you know, in terms of a lot of the sugars. The thing that's really kind of shining through is that minerality, you know, component in the in the mid palate here. Um This is definitely something that you want to eat something with this.

Um You know, I would probably enjoy this with a really great pasta dish. I would yeah. Pay a wood which would work really well. Something very heavy tomato um you know, based this is a great pizza cider I think. Yeah. Yeah. Well this is very indicative of spanish cuisine. I mean like I could, I could understand why this is made, give me some topics with this. Yeah, I mean let's let's just work. I mean we could hang out a peninsula and just run the gamut with like, you know what I mean?

We've had so far this is one of those ciders that I need something else alongside of it to really enjoy it as much because it has that cleansing quality component about it. And I think even as we're sitting here just kind of enjoying it all by itself and like dying for a cracker or a piece of cheese or something else. Yeah, it's just uh it needs a, it needs a companion on the palate to enjoy. It needs a companion.

But again, so completely different than anything else that we have and the minerality is just blowing me away like it's, it's light and it's funky but it's delicate and it's yummy. And we are going to rate this one the cigar to naturally a four ah some heavy hitters. Okay, we're going back to the United States now and we're going back to Charlottesville. This is the Sur la Mer from the Drew family cellars California. Oh sorry, California. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Um, I was thinking about the other one, sorry, a light and refreshing dry cider made like a traditional sparkling wine and containing notes of citrus green, apple quartz and subtle saline notes indicative of the coastal proximity to them. Now the Drew that they are mostly a vineyard. Um, they make a lot of wines, but apparently they decided to take a swing at some cider. We are very um, shall we say uh, renaissance people.

We drew's not unusual because you know a lot of the same equipment that used for winemaking really, you know uh comes over and across, you know in terms of cider making as well, really kind of, the fruit crush is probably the big thing that's very different um, piece of equipment. But in terms of fermentation and you know racking,

you know, cider or anything else that's not really the similarities between why making and cider making or what drew them To try it. I am betting that they had a back 40 of their property where they had a certain variety of cider apples and they just trying to figure out what they're trying to figure out. I think there was probably like a third child who was like, I want to get the family comes down from Washington. Yeah, I'll make Apple cider. What do you guys think about this man?

It's pretty good. This is delicious. It is so far my least favorite of the flight, but that doesn't mean I don't like it, Is it more just like what you normally think of a cider? It's straight, basic, straightforward, deliciously basic, like a basic bitch. Um, I mean there's no dog to this.

You know, definitely the, so the carb component around this is, you know, probably the most, I, I think probably the most endemic element of saying, oh yeah, this is a cider because it takes like sparkling, you know, uh, out of this is the carbonation part of the drying effect on this one for you guys. Not really, you know, for me, anyway. And I think it's probably whatever apple it is. Um, this is definitely probably the most green apple we've had so far.

Um, it's not full blown granny smith tart. Um, yeah, well crab apples are a lot better than this. Yeah, you would never have crab apples in a, in a society like Anderson apple or something like that. I can buy that you know. But the uh definitely uh I I think the mid palette here is is totally the green apple, you know tart component that is kind of right there in the heart of this.

I think the uh I think the fact that this one is carved up, this is one of those things that you pull off the shelf when somebody says I want a cider, you know anything about a cider. This is totally what you serve up you know um to say that will absolutely hit the target. You won't be overwhelmed, you won't go this is too much or too little or whatever. It's middle of the road. Yeah, absolutely.

But it's solid, it's a solid if you had a sauvignon blanc or Riesling drinker and all you had was this this would go great for them to yeah, I I like that you know I think that's a good way of looking at it and I think if you were going to a uh like a winery visit in California and you want to try cider, this is probably what you get for sure very wide like. Yeah um in essence good apple flavor and then that saline on the end to like help dry it out. Yeah I think it's yummy.

We are going to rate the sur la mer from Drew family cellars in California a three Nice job. Drew I do my best. Okay going back to spain, we are now going to the is cider is from caesarea zeta sure is 6% a BV um made from 100% locally grown apples from their apple trees and other farmhouses along the your Ola coast. I want to move here. It's interesting going from that last one back to this one, wow, just so dramatically different wow.

And not to say that the last one was bad or that this one is so just like amazingly better. But yeah, I'm getting some of the phenolic notes that we had in the one earlier. Yeah, this is good. It's tasty juliana. What are you going love? Um I don't get the salinity obviously that we had in the last one. I'm getting a little balsamic nous. Yeah. Um on there which I like. It's, it's reminding me again of another tomorrow just in the layers um on this and the apple still just shines.

I mean because it's true apple and yet different from all of the other apples that we have already had. Yet still unexplainable man on the nose.

It's almost like a flanders. Like if you were to think of it. Yeah it is. But I'm not but I'm not sad about it at all and this really makes me appreciate ciders because you know the grocery store version of a cider that you can get is just so sweet It almost, you know and it's so artificial, but for the novice you think that, oh this is just what apple cider is and this is you know and this is great,

but then you get into this and what we've been tasting and my palate is just blown away because there's so much more complexity of what an heirloom cider can be and it's not, this is beautiful juice with booze, no, so much of that necessarily on the show. But if you've tried to sign in general in general, yes and local to anywhere in the U. S. Sure, sure, this is gorgeous.

To me, this one has a taste profile, I would describe as like an upside down U where it's kind of like hanging off the side of your tongue and you kind of, you feel the bitterness component that's kind of riding on the outside, kind of like a set of guide rails and yet you still have the the sugar and the tart component that's kind of flowing right over, right over the middle of this.

And so it's this very interesting, you know, uh balance you know between all of those and I think that it's the choice of the variety of apples that's really absolutely bringing this all around.

So you know, I I always had this interesting discussion with somebody you know really recently is this about skill or is this about ingredients um you know and yeah and so to me this is something that the ingredients are bringing around actually we had the conversation with david skill to know not to mess with the ingredients.

This is one of those things where you kind of step out of the way, let the product speak for itself and you know, say the only thing I can do is screw this up, I just need to execute the process.

This is why you can only get certain things from certain places like this, jeez Yeah and I love how you're saying about how the sweetness is in the middle of the tongue and it's just going straight down and as I'm, as this is sitting on my tongue, I'm like scraping the side of my cheeks because I'm getting that little bitterness and I want and I want that, I want that mix and I'm making like my own cocktail in this, in my mouth, so to speak.

Yeah, this is the one cider we had in the mix that you know, definitely has a lot of the bitterness components writing kind of through, you know, I love the choice of of apples with this really great. This is beautiful. So the, is cider from Spain, we are going to read a five. So I'd like to let the field trip to basketball. Well, okay, last but certainly not least we are going back to potter's craft ciders in Charlottesville and we're going to do the farmhouse dry.

This one is 8.4% a BV pale gold and effervescent with pronounced fruit aroma 8.44. And they're using Gold rush album oral pippen old Virginia winesap apples and that's so like the first one that told us what apples. Yeah, I I will call that out right now but I didn't I I actually get the honey do because like right off the nose man, you know very much marlborough new Zealand sauvignon blanc smell very different. This is like a blend of melons in your mouth.

This is like yeah this is cantaloupe and honeydew and every kind of you know everything in the cantaloupe family family you know and I was dancing all over you know like that's what's so crazy. But you know like it's a nice finish for this flight. Yeah it's because it's it's such a break, dramatically different, it's clear enough as well you know,

it's almost palate cleansing too you know. Yeah, yeah this is very light refreshing, not farmhouse in the way that I would like a farmhouse, beer, little funky you know. Yeah, so the farmhouse drive from potter's craft ciders, we are going to rate a four and if I may say I mean I think this has been such a great flight. Yeah, it's crazy. I really love the variety of everything that we went through you know in this discussion by all of these.

Yeah, I definitely that minerality one, it's like well even the ones that were from a similar region were still different. Great flight and while that is going to do it for today with us and what an amazing, amazing flight um where am I? We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you are listening to us online, do yourself a favor and tap the subscribe button. The easiest way to listen to our show is to ask Siri, Alexa google or uncle Larry play podcasts. Soapsuds and smokes.

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I wish you kind of sung that good. A boy Sean thanks so much for being here, Great, great to be here and it's good to revisit Siders. It's been awhile. So yeah, cheers Oh boy mike. Hey I would really encourage you to embrace one product out of today's flight, Step outside your, your norm and pick up one of these. I'll ask you to come back, enjoy another great episode of episodes of smokes and to keep on sipping here you are stuck in the middle with Drew is it with maple syrup?

Good, avoid Dave. I'd like to echo what mike said and ask you all to hug a cider. Yeah, ciders need love to do. And we certainly have had a good variety of cider today. Thank you guys so much for listening to us. Keep on struggling, grab some cider and we'll see you on the next one. Is that an apple in your pocket? Are you happy to see me johnny? This has been a one tan hand production of sips suds and smokes.

A program devoted to the appreciation of some of the finer slices of life from the dude in the basement studios, your host, the good old boys will see all next time.