Sustainable Cider

Folks within my industry keep telling me the cider market is in decline. Really? What timeframe is this based on? 

I can't help comparing this speak with Wall Street's rumors just before the Dot-Com Bubble or the Great Recession. Back then I had an office job, and I was making regular retirement contributions to a mutual fund, so needless to say, all the stock market anxiety was making me nervous too. 

Well, you the history... pop! 

I lost between 40% and 50% of my retirement investments, so it seemed. In retrospect, however, all the money I put those funds (even immediately before those crashes) is ten and five times higher today. So, what does that tell you about making predictions and the good of worrying?   

I had begun planting apple trees in Wurtsboro around that time too, in 2007. I imagined a cider business to supplement my "real work" in architecture, but when the housing market collapsed in 2008, I went all-in the orchard game. Feeling the need to be professional about pomology, I attended an all-day apple conference in Saratoga Springs, NY. I will now relate the only two things I recall of that day: 

 

The first, was a lecture given by a large-scale Hudson Valley apple grower, the kind of generational farmer that's been entrenched in the commodity market since the day he was born. He bemoaned the usual diseases and insects, but his speech was mainly about the financials of a typical apple operation. Factoring the price-per-acre -- including the spray bill, cost-of-sales, and workman’s comp, for example -- he was, in the end, very pessimistic about the sustainability of small-scale orcharding in the 21st century. By his standards, that meant less than 100 acres.

He was, however, a proponent of the “fruit-wall” orchards, claiming the new super-dwarf trees were likely to be the only money-positive option going forward. Even still, he was doubtful American farmers could compete against low-wage or subsidized workers elsewhere. His lecture concluded with this: “If the high-density orchard doesn’t save my farm, I’m not worried. I already have it subdivided on tax maps.”

Cheery. 

 

The other thing I remember that day? I was my first face-to-face encounter with a licensed cider producer. 

About ten years my senior, this guy produced the drink from his family's orchard 3 hours north of me, not far from the seminar, in fact. His bread-and-butter, he told me, was the U-pick operation but he took his cider lineup very seriously. Somehow, in a room full of more than 100 apple growers, the two cider makers found each other like we were both wearing propeller beanies on our heads.

At the time, my cider-producer application was rejected due to my inability to navigate the farm-winery forms (there was no such thing as a "Cidery" license back then.) I knew only two licensed farm-based cider producers, one in Massachusetts and the other New Hampshire (both of whom I wished to emulate stylistically), but since alcohol laws differ from state-to-state, I had no intention of bothering them with my application woes. At the apple conference, I finally had a chance to ask a New York producer how to get started selling "real" cider legally. 

As it turns out, there were as many as six other NY State cider producers I could've called on at the time, but this was the DSL-era and information was relatively scarce. Plus, there was no Cider trade association, nor was the government even familiar with the drink (they thought it was "brewed" like beer and classified it accordingly.) It wasn't until 2010 that an agricultural non-profit advocated for the beverage that there was a network of producers-

Wait, where am I going with this?  

Oh, yeah! I bring this up because I wanted to say: Of the first ten cider producers I met between 2007 and 2011 (all in NY or New England), only one has since gone out of business. And of the next ten I met, between 2012-2014, only two others have quit, albeit for personal reasons and not financial. That's an 85% survival rate, which seems pretty good to me.    

So, there you have it, two competing memories from the apple conference addressing "sustainability" and longevity in the orchard world. And now, if you wanted to know if capital-c, Cider is capable of sustaining your professional aspirations, honestly, I don't know which narrative to heed -- one is a pessimistic outlook, the other is factual --- but I suspect it all comes down to expectations and the timeframe you're imagining.     

How to Sustain a Sustainable Cider Business

I got my license in 2010, so I don't consider myself qualified to talk about longevity, or what is, and what isn’t, a "sustainable cider-business model." That's too short a span. 

Sure, I’ve seen a lot of changes in that time, I’ve seen numerous trends come and go, but 14 or 15 years is a short career in the life of the average person. It's also a short span if you intend to plant "real apple trees", trees from seed, because it might take a decade of more to see fruit. Why, even Bud-9’s will outlive the business if it doesn't survive two decades! So, I won't speak as a veteran of the cider industry (which most people consider me), but I will speak to you as a word enthusiast. Why? Because it's always important to investigate key phrases, such as "sustainability," which has been thrown around willy-nilly in recent years. If nothing else, to be mindful of the meaning of something brings it closer to heart/ closer to integration.  

 

But you already know the definition of sustainable. 

Etymologically, it stems from a combination of “sus” (the precursor of sub, as in below) + “tain” (once meaning, to float) + “able” (suffix meaning, ability.)  In other words, sustainable describes something’s ability to stay afloat (which, again, you already knew.)

But let's NOT overlook that sustainability considers both effectiveness and duration. It's not the same as “whatever works.” Yes, it needs to work, but it also needs to work in the future too. It's about longevity. The trouble is, no one knows the future; And here in lies the first mystery around "sustainable business." 

Anyone can claim adding solar panels or recycling glass bottles is good for the environment (such actions are assumed environmentally sustainable given current information), but it’s a failing of the word to say we know even that with certainty! Acknowledging that we don’t know how things will go is essential to sustainability's definition, but more importantly, it's essential to our attitude if we, in fact, want to behave sustainably.

The other definition of sustainable, if not literal, evokes even more mystery! The way the word is used today suggests a holistic vision, meaning, if we were to create a "sustainable cider business" we'd have to look beyond cider, beyond agriculture, and even beyond business. It’s a holistic consideration (or, substitute whatever nonthreatening word you use) which aspires to bring together the multidimensional aspects of life: the environment, the economy, our culture, and probably a million other things I'm failing to acknowledge.

But to consider “all the aspects of life” is pretty hubris, is it not? I mean, how can anyone claim to be holistic with a straight face? Nonetheless, it's important to think this way (or to try to think this way) if we are to behave sustainably. 

The hope is, if one considers behaving sustainably, it will trickle down and become integrated in our business too. And, hopefully, our business will be sustained.

   

That's a lot of uncertainty. The long and the short of it is, it's impossible to know if Cider will sustain you because it's impossible to know what is sustainable. No one knows the future. Beyond that, I'm unqualified to say anything, but if you’d like to hear me make a fool of myself, this is my advice: 

Ignore everything an MBA grad would say. Embrace uncertainty with a light heart and simply acknowledge that you don't know what will happen. This isn't part of the Wharton/Shark Tank business formula, but you'll be massively advantaged if you have "other reasons" to be a cider maker. Follow that rabbit and do the best you can without worrying about it. 

I'm not saying, "the future is unknowable so don't worry about the financials," but use the information (as much info as you can get your hands on) and don't assume it leads to an outcome. In other words, research things, consider the expertise of others, but attend to your own garden first (or orchard, or cider.) I believe this is the soul of our being, because if we only listened to information no one would ever do anything!  

Embrace that fresh, fun, and liberating attitude in your work, and you'll be far less likely to grow tired. "Resolve always to be a beginner," as Rilke would say. (And if you think this is bad advice, consider Rilke's longevity compared to most people!)   

 

 

P.S. I hope that doesn’t sound pessimistic because ultimately, I have a lot of faith in the way things go. This includes the cider industry. Anyone who knows wild apple trees and their constant ability to surprise, will develop a deep faith in the resourcefulness in all things. If you want to know what the experts say about sustainable apple farming, ask the right ones: the trees. 

Is Cider a Wine?

 

  I recently read an interesting article in Malus Magazine claiming cider is NOT wine, and to think so is detrimental to cider's development. Point taken, sort of. 

  I couldn't agree more about the limitations the "wine" label brings to consumer minds. I especially agree with the author that "cider" liberates producers more than wine does due to the general confusion of where cider is as a category (she used the word "anarchy" to describe this current state), but the author primarily focused on man-made distinctions between cider and wine (words, categories, and market impressions), when, in the end, the two are fundamentally 99% similar. The botanical difference between trees and vines is an interesting one, and worthy of further dissection, but as a drink producer I approach both wine and cider without any real difference. Sure, you can argue the minutia of their differences -- the acids, sugars, esters, etc. -- but there is something far greater that unifies the two drinks: the goal. With both wine and cider, we want to represent the land, we "step back" and let Nature do its thing (rather than taking charge with, for instance: brewing, distilling, or "cheffing" the ingredients.)   

  Even if you want to focus on just the market distinctions (entirely manmade distinctions) and you want to praise cider for i's liberties there; the fact is, a wine maker could be just as free to explore the grape. A wine maker could, for instance, allow for true-terroir* (instead of soil-amended terroir); They could allow for the natural gene expression of grapes; Or they could explore the vine's feral process and "real-world" acclimation. These are issues that some of us are free to explore with cider but no one's stopping a wine maker from doing the same. 

  Plus, wine makers are free to explore co-fermentations (with different fruit) and free to get weird with lab-concoctions too (keaving, "flaw" additions, etc.) as a cider-maker does. Yes, the winemaker would have to forgo the established wine-market lingo (a decision that'd severely limit them economically), but, again, these are only man-made limitations. The only real difference between cider and wine comes down to the nature of the apple versus the grape, which again, share the grander goal of location expression.   

   Ultimately, to label anything is a man-made invention. Words represent our best effort to encapsulate reality for the purpose of communication. They're pods of meaning but they're an artifice, they don't actually embody the reality they're supposedly attached to (don't make me bring up Duchamp or Magritte's Key of Dreams.) Applied to "cider" and "wine", the definitions are literally different but both spark conversations about our place in Nature, our understanding of it, and our ability to MANipulate it to serve our desires. At best, we'll put words to these things and hope the person we're talking to is on the same page, but in the end, no one can definitively understand another's reality. 

  Let's not obsess on linguistics or philosophically, the Western understanding of reality, but let's just agree that we could literally (and I mean literally) interchange "cider" and "wine" if we want to. Neither word exists in Nature, but we're putting them there and appropriately arguing the meaning. Like with any word, its a tug-of-war, and professional marketing is free to MANipulate too. It can be frustrating, but it could also be liberating. I prefer to revel in the freedoms, and if possible, fight for more!  

  So, to sum up my opinion: Both cider and wine have the capacity to explore man-made inventions but more importantly, they could be united by the larger goal of allowing Nature to express itself. I say, follow this rabbit and don't limit oneself by the artifice of capsules or classifications. Lable it "cider" or "wine", I don't care, because to me, they're interchangeable. Just be honest about additions or MANipulations (ask producers to disclose this) but in the end, each of us has the responsibility of direct experience. We create our own meaning of life, which is a good thing, and we should be on guard for when artifice substitutes for it.  

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 BTW, I believe I've done exactly what the Malus author is advocating for. More than most, I've taken great advantage of the liberties of "cider," as a distinct category. This anarchy steered me to "co-ferment" long before it was even a term; It's allowed me to be a "natural" producer ("natural wine" was more fringe back then); and it's allowed me to bottle "pet-nat" before the word was common in the marketplace (actually, I call my ciders "undisgorged" and not "pet-nat" to skirt the attempt to encapsulate real reality within the box of market reality. Plus, I bottle way later than most pet-nat producers.)
The MOST important freedom "cider" has given me, however, was its complete absence of a "terroir" conversation. This allowed me to explore its depths way (WAY) beyond the parameters of viniculture's encapsulated meaning. My mission, if anything, has been to expose how MANipulated farm environments and species are. (*That's why I use my own term, "locational," believing true terroir is incompatible with soil amendments, sprays and irrigation and cloning. I emphasize this by foraging and separating the locations.)

Apple 101 to 401 (or, How the Basic Properties of Apples Inevitably Leads Us to Advanced Anthropology, Ecology and Philosophical Conjecture)

The first thing to say about apple trees is that they’re not from around here. 

Seeds were first brought over from the “old world” in the early 1600s when European settlers began setting-up shop in the Americas. From the east coast, the apple tree made its way west in the 1800s. Western New York, Michigan, and now, Washington became the U.S.'s largest apple producer. From there, the apple even hopped the vast Pacific Ocean to Japan (Fuji apple), Australia (Granny Smith) and New Zealand (Gala apple) were born from European/American apple lineage. 

But the apple isn’t from Europe either, although genetically, Malus Domestica (the scientific name for the common eating apple) does have some European crabapple in it. The "domesticated apple" is thought to descend predominantly from Malus Sieversii, the baseball-sized apple still growing wild in Central Asia. It was by way of ancient trade routes, such as the Silk Road, that Sieversii genes spread east to west, all way between China to Portugal.  Western Europeans brought it further west, across the Atlantic, and then it even hopped the vast Pacific Ocean to Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, where the likes of the Fuji apple, Granny Smith, and Gala (respectively) were born from European and/or American apple lineage. 

So right off the bat, we are talking about a successful globe trotter, which is important to remember about apples. Malus Domestica has thrived under modern transportation, and it now grows as far north as Alaska and Iceland, as far south as Patagonia and South Africa, and it succeeds anywhere there's cool temperatures for a few nights each year. In fact, apple trees exist in parts of Florida, Thailand and even Bermuda! But the MOST important thing to say about apples is that they're extreme heterozygotes. The reason why Malus has succeeded throughout the planet has to ALL do with this very unique genetic talent. 

Being an extreme heterozygote, the apple tree will never grow true to its seed, just like a human, which has half the number of genes of Malus Domestica. The point of this massive DNA bank is to form new combinations which are designed to test compatibility with different climates and terrains. They also possess an intelligence that allows them to acclimate and adapt to real-time environmental changes. Proof of this is evident in their biennial fruiting pattern. Ferral Malus Domestica, and even MANipulated orchard trees have the ability to read the ecosystem and participate in forest-wide mast years (sometimes known as "bumper crops.") Epigeneticists, the scientists who study adaptive genetics, are only now scratching the surface of Malus Domestica and discovering what the ancients have always know: This is the tree of wisdom.  

"But humans are intelligent too," you say. Well, that may be true but take a closer look at Malus and you'll discover that the genus possesses an intelligence that Homo Sapien do not (not modern, "Western" Man, at least.) For one, they always blend in with environments as they travel the world. They read the pre-existing cultures and know how to co-exist in peace (they participate, not destroy.) We, on the other hand, compete with "what is" and then we out-muscle the other species. We even eradicate other human cultures if they threaten to live in harmony with the landscape! If feeling at peace with the planet is more intelligent than feeling against it, than apples are wiser.  

This is where apple 101 suddenly becomes apple 401, when we reflect on our shortcomings and realize Malus Domestica has succeeded where we have not. Our intelligence, for instance, is in our brain, in our concepts not our being, ruling us to MANdate the environment (dictate how it's "supposed to be".) If you think science is intelligent, guess again. Our MANipulation of the planet has only accellerated and we're constantly re-upping our MANdate to steward the land. We assume we know what's best. 

This vision, this concept, we predominantly realize in the form of agriculture, the 12,000-year-old occupation serving Man's relatively sudden population growth and non-nomadic civilizations. In fact, we call it cultivation, not MANipulation, to suggest actual culturing, but the latter best fits the act of unilaterally altering the environment with only our species in mind. At its worst, agriculture has looked like all-out war with the larger cultures of this planet (the clear-cutting of the Amazon, the American Dust Bowl, and mass extinctions, discarded like mutilated roadkill in our wake, for instance); While at our best, we try to "cultivate" a mutually beneficial ecosystem. 

We know now (or some of us do) that we can't go on bullying the planet with the trajectory of the Western agrarian concept. We are not spiritually or philosophically "other" than this planet, and to continue to uphold that biblical destination is, at this point, clearly suicidal. Instead, some people are reevaluating what cultivation means (a word with deep anthropocentrism in its etymology) and learning of other versions of success/ larger success. Apple trees represent one such version. The tree of wisdom might one day teach us of a more intelligent harmony.