More on the Art of Blending

 

 

I posted this chart last year and meant to say more about it (if you click-on the image you can enlarge and see the details.) At that time I said I was going to elaborate on how the chart could help with the “art” of blending but the season got ahead of me. The main thing I'd like to say about it is this: The chart is just a tool to help with the art, it's not a recipe for making it. Mastering the formal qualities doesn’t make a person an artist, it just makes them skilled. And there is a HUGE difference.

 “What any true painting touches is an absence - an absence of which without the painting, we might be unaware. And that would be our loss.”
― John Berger (towering twentieth-century English art critic)

 I chose this quote to illustrate that art involves more than just skill, the goal is ultimately about the search for certain truths (Idealism.) But I also chose this quote to speak of the importance of this quest. Notice how that whole statement changes with the addition of "And that would be our loss"! In addition to aspiring toward something, Berger felt compelled to say that our reception of art is just as much a component of "true art."

Artistic expression is about that relationship. It involves (1) an originator (in cider's case, this includes the land, the tree, the variety, as well as the artist/ farmer), and it involves (2) a receiver (in our case, the drinker or critic.) When a cider-maker aspires to artistry he or she assumes a deep relationship with the audience and they are on a quest to reach an ideal together. As with art, cider can show people what's missing in their world and it can bring them to a new place. In other words, cider has the power to change things.

This is profound shit we are talking about. But let’s face it, put in the context of the above discussion, cider isn’t usually art-worthy, now is it? Usually, it’s nothing more than an attempt to satisfy taste and not an attempt to elevate Man, or even just make us think. Not to knock wines that are made purely for aesthetic pleasure -- that can be art too -- but "true artists" (to use Berger's words) generally want more out of the relationship. They want a conscious connection between originator and receiver, a connection that sometimes has the power of change things.

How does my chart help with that? It doesn’t! My chart only helps cider-makers prepare for the woods. Being able to make green from the combination of blue and yellow isn’t art. Or, to use my chart as an example, making a bittersweet cider from bitters and sweets isn't art. In my opinion, being able to grow or dial-up certain traits (like colors) is only the beginning of art, like a hiker gathering supplies in a backpack, but it is not the art itself. If we have green on our pallet we have more arsenal should we discover a landscape that requires green in the painting, but it’s not about the pallet, it’s about the painting. What is the significance of the painting?

I think an artist who works in the medium of cider needs to know those formal properties, and they need to know the audience too, but they also need to aspire to something that isn’t already there. You can’t just pander to a market or to a predetermined expectation because that's not saying anything new -- it's already there. The quality of "true art" (again, to quote Berger) is that it has the power to change us -- to help us transcend. Without it, it would be our loss.

Let me give an example for those who prefer concrete forms: Cider, for me (and this is true for a lot of my colleagues too,) is significant when it connects humanity with the land -- that's the primary goal of most my ciders. So I want people to realize what it’s like to be in that landscape when they drink my cider. Hopefully, they ponder this and wonder what it's like to survive there, to acclimate to that location, like the trees do. I want that because that's precisely what amazing me about wild apple trees and I hope the fruit can transcend -- bring us into their world. So as an artist, I am unsatisfying if people can't make that connection. I'm aspiring to an ideal. 

But that's just my example. The chart doesn't paint the picture for me, it only gives me the ability to organize my pallet and see what I'm working with. More importantly, it shows me what I'm potentially working with. I could go on and on about my approach for days, because (no surprise) I have a million analogies about how composing a cider is like painting a picture. But if I did, I'd only be speaking about how I paint. I believe that every cider artist has their own message of originality, because everyone is working with different apples and different locations. All I intend on showing with this chart is how to organize and blend objective properties for your own use. I wish you the best of luck reflecting on your cider, or someone else’s cider, and discovering the greater significance.  

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The human imagination... has great difficulty in living strictly within the confines of a materialist practice or philosophy. It dreams, like a dog in its basket, of hares in the open.  -John Berger

My Annual New Year's Diary Post

 I feel like I spent 10 years fighting the cider industry, starting when we formed our business in 2008, up until 2018, when I completed my book. I can't count all the beefs I had with the industry, except that they fell into three categories: 1) cider agriculture, 2) the art of cider making, and 3) the way capitalist "entrepreneurs" do business (exploit the labor force, exploit the customer, and exploit the two aforementioned categories, art and farming.)

I wrote about this a lot over those 10 years and my discontentment also came-out as a major element of the book. (One might even say it was the dominant theme of the book and the reason for the sub-title.) But the second I finished the book in the summer of 2018 I suddenly became less critical of the cider industry and instead focused on my personal life. Over the past 3 years there have been some huge changes to my family, to me personally (body and mind), and to society in general, which I've reflected-on for personal consideration. Trying to influence cider just isn't my preoccupation.

I've also noticed that the cider industry got better in those 3 years and it's not as easy to get worked-up about it anymore. One can find decent cider easier in stores now, there's a greater diversity of producers, and more farmers are growing cider apples (even if they are doing it the completely wrong way still.) Yes, I still want to stick a fork in the eye of all the capitalists and sell-outs who disguise their true motives as "art" or as "doing good for the economy and planet" (they may not even know they're doing it), but every industry is dominated by those types and, in fact, cider has a smaller percentage of them. Long story short: The cider industry is a relatively good team to be on, even if I wish to distinguish myself from most my teammates. 

Now when I write, I'm writing about broad philosophical ideas that relate to a greater audience, so I haven't been publishing cider diary posts like this one recently. (In my head, I'm writing stories that are more for lay-people, though I'm pretty sure what I write will never get "polished and published.") But I'm also nostalgic for the dialog I've had with my colleagues in the foodie world, and the winter is historically when we all got together (we've been doing so for over a decade now!) Let me just say to you now: I MISS YOU BROTHERS AND SISTERS! Happy 2021.

Why Cider (Real Cider) Can Be the Healthiest Form of Alcohol

(Below is an excerpt from a lecture at UVM School of Medicine, 2020)

Preface:

Alcohol is not a healthy thing -- you know that, I know that -- so let’s start there. The fact is, frequent consumption of alcohol in medium amounts or as occasional binge drinking (large doses) can damage the liver, harm the kidneys and pancreas, destroy gut health, weaken the immune system, and can contribute to mental illness… so , YES, alcohol is dangerous! Let it be known that I think alcohol is not good for you.

But, alcohol can also be a beneficial thing in many circumstances. There’s a window in which it can play a positive roll in human health and in society if the negative impacts of alcohol can be contained. Alcohol is known to temporarily relax people in times immediate grief or stress (“Line ‘em up, Sam”), it can help in society-building, both on the local and macro scale (as in the Irish Pub or Greek symposium), and it can inspire creativity (as in everything Hemingway or Fitzgerald ever wrote.) I’m just saying… alcohol has it’s place.

And then there’s “the French argument”, which defends daily red wine consumption as specifically good for your health. They claim it’s the main reason they, as a nation, have lower heart problems than most. They say the grape’s natural phytonutrients lay waiting in an old bottle of wine just as they would in the fresh fruit itself. And when these phytonutrients (which are specific only to wine grapes not table grapes) are passed to the human body they help attack “bad cholesterol” in the blood.

I’m not going to restate the French argument but you can read the common explanations and research on phytoalexins, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoalexin), and specifically resveratrol, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resveratrol) to see why many people think that if a plant has a strong immune response then that beneficial quality is then transferred to humans after we consume the plant’s fruit. Likewise, you can also see the logic in the argument that if a plant has a weak immune defense (genetic), or if the plant’s immune system is repressed or controlled by human intervention (environmental), then the nutritional value of that plant will be reduced for humans.

The pivotal condition for all of this is the plant’s immune response, a form of natural intelligence which has systematically been breed out of cultivated plants over the past 150 years (except some wine fruits), and this is why it’s absolutely crucial cider detached itself from existing apple farms and the predominant cultivation methods.  

Summary Statement:

Factoring the above pro-alcohol arguments I still say, “alcohol ain’t good for you” but I will argue (as I tried to do at UVM) that if cider fruit is grown correctly*, the fermented drink has the potential to be the healthiest of all common forms of alcohol -- healthier than even French red wines!

I think this because (1) real cider has less alcohol than it’s only other healthy rival, red wine; but also (2), if the right apples were selected (genetic varieties), and (3) if they were grown the right way (such as wild-simulated, or as I call it, “uncultivation”), then these particular “cider-apples” will express all the properties that the French espouse in their grapes, and maybe more. These apples (which, I'm sorry to tell you, are all but absent in 99.999% of all the cider made in America) deliver infinitely greater sums of tannin and polyphenols, more nutrients and phytonutrients (like anti-oxidants), and more beneficial acids and minerals (like Vitamin C and Vitamin E.) In short, they are the exact opposite of the kinds of apples grown on modern apple farms and purchased in stores.   

Plus, if the person making the cider does not** add sulfites, sorbate, sugars, commercial yeast strains (which are also cultured on GMO corn), or run the juice through sterile-filter (stripping out whatever nutrients were left), then the finished drink can potentially remain health-positive despite the presence of alcohol. (Note that I’m talking about fully fermented ciders. Ciders with partial sweetness, or ciders that are chapitalized with foreign sweeteners, produce a hypoglycemic effect, disrupting the body’s transfer of energy and mental function, and are likely a source of “wine headaches.”)

Ultimately, I will show that when cider-farming focuses on the health of the fruit first (it’s nutritional capabilities, not the superficial health of the tree) then the cider from those apples will switch from being health-negative to health-positive. But interestingly, I will also show that a happy consequence of that switch is the monumentally better taste the cider has. Or said concisely: Cider’s taste and health potentials are intertwined.

This is all but absent in modern cider and apple farming given that customer patronage is what governs agriculture (all of agriculture, not just of apples.) Customers need to understand the full scope of cultivation options and farmers need to fully disclose their particular practices, neither of which happen beyond the surface level. Later, I will detail the obstacles we face when trying to reverse the trajectory of unhealthy cultivation, including transparency and customer participation.

The above graph was published in 2013 by the NY Times as apart of Jo Robinson's article, "Breeding the Nutrition Out of Food." The notes in black are clarifications I made to illustrate the trajectory of apple agriculture.  

Note about this essay: It's currently about 20 pages long but I consider it a "start." Last winter while preparing my talk at UVM Medical Center I realized it would take volumes to bring consumers up to speed on what's going on in apple farming and cider making. Even among apple farming professionals this understanding is almost completely absent (they either except the wisdom of progressivism or they don't feel it's possible to turn back now.) 

Rather than posting this paper all at once I’m going to post it in installments or, if you can link me to the right agent, I’d be happy to craft it for the appropriate publication. This is all to be continued…