fermenting

We made this.

And by this I mean the liquid inside the bottle.

And by we I mean Kevin and our friend Ben.

It’s hard cider.

Hard apple cider.

Hard apple cider crafted by hand from apples picked in nearby North Carolina at our favorite orchard Skytop.

I think they’re calling it Spider Cider.

It’s been a work in progress. A learning experience. An art. An act of patience and perseverance. A lot of knowledge and know how on Ben’s part. A curiosity and willingness to learn on Kevin’s.

(Mostly Alli and I just hung out while the process has been perking.)

But today we celebrated.

We ate lunch. We relaxed by an outdoor fire in balmy December. And we cracked open a bottle of homemade hard cider.

It tasted good.

Like – really good.

It’s kind of amazing really.

What was once mounds and piles of too-ripe apples, squeezed and juiced and pressed and put in bottles, can turn into a grown up drink. (That’s what we call it around our house.)

I believe a car boy was used and food grade something or other that looked like soap to me. Long tubes. A few ingredients with long sounding difficult to pronounce names for fizzy-ness or preservation or something or another. (I didn’t catch all the details really.) a super groovy contraption that secured the bottlecaps to the bottles.

I’m not going to lie. The Spider Cider is pretty impressive.

And all the good times shared being together with a fabulous family was just a lovely bonus to the entire cider crafting experiment.

Cheers!