We're growing up.

Selling our Cider at Whiteladies Rd Market.

We've been selling the Cider from Half Moon above the farm for a few years now. It's idiosyncratic stuff in its way. All natural, no added yeast, sugar or sulphur just the juice of our apples. People love it because it's a no compromise sort of Cider and conversely, it has to be said that it's a bit too no compromise for others.  For a while ( well quite a few years actually) we've been thinking about stepping things up a bit. Restoring the orchard to the point where it has a consistent crop is going to take years which is part of the fundamental joy of doing it in the first place.
We have always done small bottling runs for other small scale local Cider and Perry producers with our tiny enomatic machine but now, deep breath, we're thinking about making and bottling our own blend made with apples from other local growers. Cider maker and all round good guy George Perry has agreed to help us scale things up. .  Way back in the day even before we came to Higher Plot, we had always thought about making something that would travel ( see previous posts) and keep fresh while retaining it's glorious Somerset character. We both remember wandering round London pubs sometime back in the last century  buying halves of every cider they had in the hope of finding one that reminded us of home. What we wanted was something dry but still with good natural apple fruit. It would have to have some tannin. Good strength but not so strong that it wasn't really refreshing, or put in another way, we wanted  pints not halves. Maybe more than just the one pint.

All we can say for now is, we've made our first attempt at a blend. We like it. Tonight we're putting a leg of new season spring lamb from Pitney Farm on the barbie and we're going to strap ourselves in for a full test flight.  - watch this space.