Story and photo by Doug Jackson
Apart from watching U-M football, jumping in leaf piles and carving pumpkins, what could be more of a quintessential autumn tradition than apple cider with cider donuts?
Though considered as much a part of the fabric of Americana as baseball and Chevrolet, apples and their cider originated well before and far from our nation.
In fact, before the Puritans arrived in the early 17th century, the only apples found in North America were crabapples.
The type of large apples we’re all familiar with in our orchards and grocery stores originated millennia ago in the region between the Caspian and Black seas. Apple cider was enjoyed from ancient Rome and carried its popularity throughout modern Europe.
Of course, this European cider is what we Americans call hard cider, an alcoholic beverage.
The pilgrims were the first to plant European apple trees in their new-world gardens, and by the early 19th century, the days of Johnny Appleseed, just about every pioneer’s homestead had an apple orchard.
While some of the apple harvests were used for eating – sometimes called winter bananas or melt-in-mouths – most of the apples grown were not carefully cultivated for this. Rather, the fruit’s flavor was unpredictable, often being too tart for eating, and thus processed into hard cider.
The cider not only was a convenient way of preserving apples, but also a safe alternative to potable water, which was less available due to poor sanitation in those days.
In much of the 19th century, hard cider was very common and was also used for currency in some cases, including paying one’s taxes with.
As farming and manufacturing expanded here in the late 19th century, so did European immigration, including Germans and their beer.
Their beer quickly replaced the popularity of apple cider. Eventually, most of the cider orchards were cut down, burned, and replaced with other crops, including the cultivated and grafted sweet apples we’re more familiar with today. The apple cider mill industry looked destined to be doomed.
Alas, during the Prohibition Era between 1920 and 1933, hard drinks were replaced by soft drinks, including sweet apple cider. Revived and new cider mills became popular autumn tourist destinations and have remained so.
Now, within the last few decades, with the increasing popularity of microbreweries, hard cider is making a strong comeback as well.
Each fall, at the Eddy Discovery Center (EDC), we have a couple of weekends where we provide visitors the opportunity to make their own sweet cider with our old-fashioned cider press.
Last year, I tried to resurrect some of that old-time, heirloom cider flavor by adding a good dose of wild crabapples to our mix of grocer’s apples. Many commented that it was the best cider they’ve ever tasted.
Stop by and visit us this fall to see if we can replicate that success. Check our latest program schedule for all our events. Perhaps we should brand our new recipe “EDC” – Exceptionally Delicious Cider.
