Eric and Katie Rider are making cider on the hillside of the Santa Cruz mountains. They are dry farming their apple trees and also using apples from Five Mile Orchard in Corralitos. (Jake Mann whose family own’s the orchard will be on an upcoming Cider Chat.) Eric and Katie’s home and cidery is smack in the middle of an old Stagecoach route between San Jose and Santa Cruz, California.
Imagine for a moment stagecoach riders snacking on plums from San Jose and tossing out the plum’s pits along the way. As a result this mountainside cidery and homestead has plum trees growing all around the property. Katie makes a Plum Port from the surrounding trees, that she likes pouring into a glass of cider as a cider cocktail called Plum Jerkum.
Their ciderhouse is 120 square feet (10′ x 12′) with variable cider tanks ( a stainless tank with a floating top that rises and lowers as the cider flows). This small shed is fully tricked out with air conditioning and all the needs for making a range of ciders at Rider Ranch.
The current cider offerings at Rider Ranch are ciders made from apple trees that were planted pre-Prohibition, which provides a specific niche to their branding of using only trees that are 90 years or older. However, it looks like they will have a cider made with 75 year old trees coming up in 2018. Either way their ciders are rock solid, tasty delights!
Ciders at Rider Ranch
- Pre-Prohibition Pippin
- Dry Farmed Pippin
- 75 year old Pippin
Contact for Rider Ranch Ciderworks
Website: http://www.riderranchciderworks.com/
eMail: mailto:info@riderranch.net
Mentions in this Chat
Jake Mann – Five Mile Orchard LLC, Corralitos California – Jake will be on an upcoming episode of Cider Chat
February 11, 2018 – New York International Beer Competition (NYIBC) is accepting cider entries NOW! NYIBC is using the United States Association of Cider Makers new cider categories for this competition. The judges at this competition are in the trade of buying and selling cider and thus judge the cider on the merits of taste and price point.
Ask for the following 9 #ciderGoingUP Campaign sponsors – By supporting these cider makers, you in turn help Cider Chat
- Kurant Cider – Pennsylvania : listen to Joe Getz on episode 14
- Big Apple Hard Cider – NYC : listen to Danielle von Scheiner on episode 35
- Oliver’s Cider and Perry – Herefordshire/UK ; listen to Tom Oliver on episode 29
- Santa Cruz Cider Company – California : listen to Nicole Todd on episode 60
- The Cider Project aka EthicCider– California
- Albermale CiderWorks : listen to Chuck Shelton on episode 56
- Cider Summit : listen to Alan Shapiro founder of this cider fest on episode 75.
- Ramborn Cider Co. Luxembourg.
- Big Fish Cider Co. Virginia
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