New York's farm cideries
Fermentation tanks at Nine Pin in Albany.
The hard cider industry in New York continues to fizz -- there are now 24 farm cideries around the state, according to the Cuomo admin. That's up from eight in 2014, when the farm cidery law took effect.
Farm cidery? It's a type of license issued by the state that smooths out some of the regulations and requirements for running a cidery -- if the operation uses New York State apples to make its products. (There are also farm winery and farm brewery license.) The state's first farm cidery was Nine Pin Cider Works in Albany's Warehouse District.
Of course, the requirement to use New York apples isn't too much of a hurdle. The Empire State is the nation's #2 producer of apples, behind only Washington State. So the hard cider industry is another way to make use of the state's abundant crop.
Given the growth in the number of farm cideries, we figured it'd be fun to roll together a map of where they're located around the state.
Let's have a look...
Look up for the map
It's above in large format -- click or scroll all the way up.
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Nine Pin advertises on AOA.
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Comments
Is there a reason Indian Ladder is not on the map? I just had their dry hard cider and it's fabulous.
... said chrisck on Oct 19, 2016 at 5:52 PM | link
@chrisck: There is -- Indian Ladder isn't operating under a farm cidery license, so it wasn't on this particular list. There's an explanation above the map.
The map would have been better if I had pulled all the places making hard cider -- regardless of license type. (I was just crunched for time, and the fact that this particular type of license seems to be giving rise to all these new cideries seemed noteworthy by itself.)
... said Greg on Oct 19, 2016 at 8:22 PM | link
@chrisck: Last summer, I stumbled (hehe) into a cider tasting room on Cayuga Lake and got talking with the pourer about the various farm alcohol legislation and licenses. She told me that a lot of the cideries in the Finger Lakes, at the time, were opting for the farm winery license as it gave them more latitude and flexibility. (I would imagine that many, like Indian Ladder, that hold a farm brewery license, did so for similar reasons.)
I believe upgrades to the legislation this past session addressed some of those concerns, but my guess is most of the already-established cideries aren't going to swap out their licenses at this point.
... said JOTeepe on Oct 20, 2016 at 9:17 AM | link
Get this: there is a "cider focused restaurant and bar" in New York City called Wassail. It is aptly located on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side. A truly amazing selection of local (New York) and other North American and European hard ciders.
http://www.wassailnyc.com/drink/
... said chrisck on Oct 31, 2016 at 6:00 PM | link
Psst: It's Beak like on a bird. And 1911 is pretty tasty, too.
... said Z on Nov 1, 2016 at 12:14 PM | link