Snowdrift Cider

History

Our present orchard was planted in the late 1960s and Peter and Mary Ann started farming it in 1974. Our earliest memories of making cider are with a 100-year-old hand crank press borrowed from a family friend, and big glass carboys bubbling away slowly through the winter. One of our family's favorite apples for cider and eating was given by the owner of the old press, and turned out to be an old French variety, Calville Blanc d'Hiver dating to the 16th century. Our paticular love of hard cider began around 2003. Between discovering a new world of 'lost' apple varieties and some coaching from Peter Mitchell, we found our way into the world of artisan cider. Great cider starts with great apples Cider apple trees are as wild as the flavors in their fruit, and it took several years to learn the habits of our new tenants. Besides their wild habits, the new apples gave us an entirely new range of flavors to work with and our finished ciders improved by leaps and bounds.

Specialties

We craft our ciders from great cider apples that we grow on our orchard in sunny East Wenatchee, WA. Our incredible region gives our trees the ideal conditions to grow apples packed with the flavors necessary to produce fine ciders. Hot sunny summers and cold snowy winters result in apples that mature with incredible aromatics and delicious flavors. When ripened to perfection, we pick these apples and craft them with the utmost care into fine cider blends, resulting in rich ciders full of delicious complexity.