Ancient ways, modern tools

One of the appealing things about cidermaking (and winemaking more generally) is the opportunity afforded to the producer to use as little or as much modern digital technology as they want in the process.

Many professions you simply could not attempt to do the way it was done one hundred years ago and still make a product that would appeal to consumers. Good luck selling a telegraph or a typewriter, or conducting business via handwritten letter.

Lots of businesses are required to keep up with and use the latest digital tools just to compete. In cidermaking, by contrast, at least at the craft scale, the basic steps are virtually unchanged from the days in Tudor England when cider was made by farmhands paid in farthings.

The reasons for continuing to do things in a somewhat archaic fashion, like using oak barrels and wild fermentation and bottle conditioning, isn’t just for nostalgic reasons, but because what technology adds in repeatability and consistency it can sometimes remove in serendipity and wonder.

What modern technology offers in its ability for testing, verifying and monitoring, is to allow one to understand why something went well, or poorly, and to repeat it or avoid it again next time. This is a pretty useful thing. Our canned cider line, which we let wild ferment but otherwise monitor and manage pretty closely, we work hard to ensure they are in the same ballpark as the previous year to ensure some continuity.

The bottled experimental ciders, by contrast, are intentionally hands-off and we have learned to embrace the loss of control. These ciders can taste vastly different year to year, and the excitement as a maker comes each spring when we start sampling to see how each is developing. Like wine, each vintage is its own unique product.

This type of production is a privilege of the craft producer to be sure, and not afforded to large scale as easily. But that's OK, because we are a small, niche producer. The ciders we make won't all be for everyone, and we’re fine with that.

There is something about all of this that appeals in a deeper way to me personally. I often feel that there is a relentless push to adopt the latest technology in everyday life without much pause to consider the impacts.  Being forced to upgrade a phone or a computer because the old one is no longer supported, even though it still works, is a frustrating loss of agency for which there is little recourse.

Making at least some of our ciders in the ancient way therefore, counts as a small personal rebellion.

Until next time,

Mike