515: World of Cider: The Baltic Region

00:00 Baltic Cider Blank Slate

01:16 Host Intro and Cider Tours

03:17 Why the Baltics Now

04:05 Meet the Baltic Cider Association

04:52 Origins After 1991

05:57 Climate and Growing Conditions

08:17 Orchards and Apple Types

10:22 Styles and Ingredients

11:39 Challenges and Marketing

12:07 Abuls Cidery Story

14:36 Abuls Orchard and Pét-Nat

16:30 Pienjāņi Orchard Journey

19:47 Conservative Dry Cider Approach

21:51 Mr. Plūme Philosophy

26:17 Wild Fermentation Method

28:01 Audience Q&A and Sweet Cider

28:45 Real Cider Education

29:59 Selling Sweet and Natural Cider

30:16 Restaurants Build Awareness

31:09 Organic Orchard Practices

33:03 Wild Apples and Bitters

33:46 ABV Limits and Taxes

35:37 Building a Baltic Cider Identity

36:49 Apples in Latvian Life

38:54 Food Pairings with Cider

40:01 Where to Drink Baltic Cider

41:17 Market Niches and Bottles

43:11 Baltic Cider Association Communication

44:28 Regulations and Labeling

47:20 Fences and Wildlife Pressure

47:57 Grafting and Tree Sourcing

48:58 Closing Thanks and Signoff

 Did you know that in the Baltic region of Europe, cider is still an open book? We have no fixed traditions. We have no background. We have no traditions. So these are, are experimenting all and trying to find our own style. That is Asnāte Ziemele who leads the Baltic Cider Association. You’ll hear from Asnāte and three Latvian cider makers in this episode, recorded during the World of Cider, the Baltic region panel at CiderCon 2026.

And what Asnāte said recently just gets to the heart of this conversation. Without a long-established Baltic cider tradition telling these makers what cider is supposed to be, they have the freedom to experiment and develop their own styles using the apples, orchard, and growing conditions they have around them, which is all to say that they have a broad stroke opportunity to make whatever the hell they want, and guess what?

They are, and it’s pretty dang tasty. They’re gonna be our featured presentation in this here episode 515 of Cider Chat. Hello, my name is Ria Windcaller, and I am the producer and cider emcee of this weekly podcast, where we speak with makers, cider enthusiasts, and folks within the cider trade from around the world.

Hip hip hooray. If you are listening to this here episode in real time, it’d be around the week of September 20th, and at that time, I will be on the French Cider Tour, making my way from Paris to Normandy and into Brittany. And by now, I’m pretty certain my glass has been filled more than once with French cider, exquisite Poire, Pommeau, and Calvados.

And yet there’s even still more to discover and, of course, consume. One thing I’ve seen both on the French Cider Tour and the UK tour is how these trips can completely open people up to Poire in France, or as it’s known in England and the UK and the US as perry. You may come on a tour thinking you already know what perry tastes like, but what you’ve tasted may represent a very small slice of what perry can be.

For many new makers, particularly in places without established perry orchards, just getting the fruit can be part of the challenge. That is very different from visiting makers working in regions with a long history of perry making, where generations of knowledge are paired with something incredibly important.

They have the trees. They have mature perry pear trees and varieties that have been worked with for generations. And when you get to taste perry in that context, it can completely reset your idea of what that drink can be. That’s one of the things I love about the Totally Cider Tours. Sometimes you don’t just discover a new drink, you discover that the drink you thought you knew is much bigger than you realized.

And that’s what this whole episode is kinda like today. We’re gonna be discovering what the Baltic region is doing, and it expands outside of Latvia to other countries too, because they are at a very different point in cider history, kind of much like the US is today. They’re planting, grafting, searching for those wild seedlings, and figuring out what works in their climate and their orchards.

So from the long-established cider and perry traditions of France to the Baltic cider culture being created right now, let’s head to CiderCon 2026 for World of Cider in the Baltic Region. Walking through the orchards. Dancing in the street.

 Yes my name is Asnāte Ziemele. I’m a, a head of Baltic Cider umbrella organization, and with me today is we have three speakers Janis, Martins, and Maris. And the structure of today’s presentation is that I will let you know what we do, what is Baltic Cider, and then each of the guys present their farm, their cider and what they do and how they do.

The Baltic Cider unites four countries.

It’s Latvia with 12 cideries. Estonia with five. Lithuania with, so far, two, but they are coming, they are booming now. And Finland with five. And yes, and today’s presentation is more for Latvia and Estonia than because not to take all the countries and just tell about everything.

So how did we start? We got the independence from the Soviet Union in nineteen ninety-one, and then the life started actually including the cider production. Of course, in the Soviet time, we also had apple wine. We had it in the stores. It’s it was traditional. It was always possible to buy together with Russian vodka.

But in nineteen ninety-one, we really started to to develop the cider. We learned from the Western countries the, especially from UK Austria, Germany. And and then we’re looking for our own way of doing cider and make it maybe different as other places. And who we are and what we do.

I am the searching the money for Baltic Cider. And that, as is very important. We are writing the projects, EU financed projects, and we started it from the two thousand nine- nineteen.

And mostly the projects are focused on training, marketing, different events and competitions. We also had the festivals and competitions o-of the cider. We are from the Northern European climate. It makes it we think very good for the cider.

It’s fresh, aromatic distinctive acidity, and very aromatic apples What are our climate? Climate are maritime or continental with maritime influence. The Baltic Sea is actually shallow sea, but it influence the climate very much. And it’s not not a very hard winters and not a very hot summer.

So we are good for the apple growing. So this is just to give you the understanding or comparison with the Rhode Island cold hardness zone is six to seven, so we have five to six.

The climate, we have average temperatures in July, which is the warmest months in the Baltics. It’s yeah, plus seventeen, eighteen, and maximum we also can have plus thirty.

And we also have a very nice winters with the average minus three. But like now, it’s minus thirty, like today. So we can have everything, and but not too much sunshine. It’s one thousand eight hundred sunshine per year, hours. So it’s not very sunny country. Don’t come there for the sun holidays.

Yes, but the vegetation grows very well. It’s apples grows very well. We always had apple trees in our orchards. Every Latvian who has a orchard, has a also the apple tree. And it’s very slow ripening, which makes these apples aromatic. Its blossom begins in May.

And summer sunshine and rainfalls is up to thirty, gives the apples yeah, aroma and slow ripening. And we harvest apples from starting from August to November, also very long- you also don’t come to us for downhill skiing. However, we are- … we like it quite a lot, and we are having even in the Olympics now, there’s one skier, downhill skier.

So not so bad, but we are flat. The highest mountain is three hundred meters.

Yes, we have sandy textures soil to the clay and loam, soils were formed by g-glacier ten thousand years ago.

And yeah, it’s we have sandy to loamy, and yeah. And some some limestone base rock.

What we do with the, our orchards is of course the new orchards we have a special smaller trees and and we use these rootstocks, which is for the apple cider. But we have a lot of traditional old orchards which grow, grows very high and very big but we use it also, the apples use it, for the cider.

And what we do with the apple orchard management, from nothing to very yeah, working a lot with the apple trees and it’s actually a lot of orchards are organic, even if not certified, just to save the money. But we don’t use chemicals. One of the, our Estonian colleagues said “If something grows well in, in the Baltics, that’s apples.”

Actually, that’s only one which grows there. Yes, and apples are picked by hand only. These are the types, six types of apples, which we use for the cider. It’s traditional, as I said, the older version apples, which we use a lot. Then we also introduce the European cider apple cultivars and Baltic original cider ap- cultivars.

This project, for example, we run together with the horticulture institutes, which comes up with the new and new sorts of the apple trees for the cider. And we also have crab apples, wild apples, and wild seedlings So just to give you the, the outlook how the apples look like. These are these all traditional apples we use.

These coming from the old Latvian and also through the Soviet time. Some are coming from the Russian sorts like Sinap Orlovsky and and Auksies and Pepinša. Pepinša is our own old which every Latvian has in their garden. Auksies Lithuanian. Auksies is Lithuanian. Oh, sorry. Yes, but of course new cider apple tree variations coming now in the orchards and it’s dominant.

Just few of them which are very popular. Sidros, Kuku, and the, the flat one, which is Maris is the author of the name for that sort of apple. Yes, if you ask what kind of cider styles we make we make absolutely everything. But what is important, we– the cider and perry are based only on the apple and pear juice.

We don’t use any concentrates. We add natural ingredients, the fruits, berries, and botanicals. The most popular flavors we use is aronia, rhubarb elderflower, hops black currant. These are all our tastes from the gardens and orchards. And the styles are really from the modern carbonate ciders to the keeved and wild fermented.

You can find it all in, in our offers. Just to summing up of the Baltic cider What kind of cider it is. We have no fixed traditions. We have no background. We have no traditions. So these guy are, experimenting all and trying to find our own style. And that I think is for me it is very interesting because every year they come up with something totally fresh and new.

And that can be variation from different influence of the different countries, different sorts of apples and and it really doesn’t limit us anyhow. And also we don’t have a, a special rules or regulations which would limit us to try something new. , And challenges we have as as all of us, as you and us the marketing, the understanding what is real cider, what is difference between the lower shelf ciders and the ciders from the apple juice.

And that we actually help with the, with our Baltic Cider Umbrella Organization to make it more recognizable. And now the word to the producers. Yeah. Hello, hello. Jānis. My name is Jānis. Yeah, Abuls Cidery. It’s I’m very happy to be here. Before coming, I just heard it’s very nice, but it’s really, like- It’s very nice

one of, one of the best cider events, like very organized and so on. Okay the cidery- Cidery called Abuls. It’s means actually we have small river next to my place and it’s, a small river named Abuls. We are founded in year 2017, but we have cider making like practice before already.

And we are located in , Latvia is small, but it’s in northern eastern part of Latvia. It’s like I can hear Estonian radio in my h- home and … almost speaking Estonian. It’s very difficult language. , I’m o-only one who works.

I have a lo- help from the friends. We have this, Sometimes the apple picking and pressing, I make make a pot of soup, make a sauna, and they do for free work for me. But officially, I- it’s one, one, one full-time job. And I started long, already long time ago, around the millennium.

It w- it happened, like I was still like a teenager. , Just me and some friends of us wanted to have some drink, and we just pressed apple. And it was cloudy, sharp, and bone dry. And we said, “Oh, nice.” But I kept going and yeah, 2017, I started to make it commercially.

It’s still very small in Latvia we have no fixed traditions of making cider, and I do, I think, all styles of ciders. I think it’s not very wise because I think for each style you need some more special methods, equipment, and so on.

But we do Pet-Nat. In a glass you can taste it. This is a Pet-Nat style s-cider, and we do many of them. We just carbonate, forced carbonization we put in the kegs make some sweeter to easy to… It’s much easier to sell it. And some real stuff I make it in small quantities and for ourselves and, yeah.

And we do traditional method as well and, it’s Like a cooking when you just go in a kitchen, “Oh, I want to make this,” and it’s the same as cider making, just it takes a year, two years to, to make a cider. So and as, as I told, we are pretty small. I think it’s 10,000 liters.

It’s around two and a half thousand gallons could be something around. And yeah, we ha– in Latvia have a small license for it’s less rules for if you h– if you produce not up to 15,000 liters, it’s much easier to do the paperworks. And it’s cool. It’s good. Yeah.

This is my orchard. And down there it’s I have one hectare, and it’s pretty small. And we sourcing apples there. I grow there more cider apples, crab apples, and and I f– I have found some locals wild seedlings which are quite nice. But we are still experimenting with them.

And we sourcing apples as well from the surrounding s- family or small orchards. It’s everybody have apples, and they don’t know where to put them, and we just buy them. And sometimes we go for a wild apple hunting. Not hunting, just take a car and drive it down, and yeah. Yeah.

Here is me and Anna in the orchard. We do cider tastings. And sometimes we make there is one day in a year when we make a home café day. It’s very good that you can make a food without any license one day a year.

And, … you make a small restaurant, and it’s nice feeling. A lot of work and the whole family is involved and it’s cool. Yeah. He’s a great cook. Oh. Thank you. Now the cider. It’s a vintage 2023. It’s called Naturalists. I guess it’s the same in English almost. And it’s made in Pet-Nat style. Apples are mainly bittersweet and one– 25% of wild apples. And yeah, and it– I made it long time ago, and I really can see how it changed during the time.

At the beginning, I wanted to throw it away because it’s some not good. But after waiting two years, it became one of the best. The patience is yeah. You never know how it goes. So it’s bone-dry, a bit rustic and tannic. And as, as you can feel, maybe if you talk about climate and different places, I think in England or more softer climates bittersweets are more leathery, more deep in a way.

But in our climate, it’s more juicy or, I don’t know, more refreshing a bit. It kind of– it really behaves de– like, different from place to place. Yeah.

The next one is Martin’s, Pienjāņi Sideri. Hello, everyone. Thank you for having us. It’s a really great it’s an honor to be here.

For me, it started in 2009 when I felt some urge in myself to create something finally proper in my life. And but and and maybe caused by midlife crisis or something so I decided not to buy Porsche 911, but why not to start up a cider thing?

And so I chose the long way because we as, as now already explained we didn’t have any cider culture very small information about that and so I started with collection of different varietals of apple trees, which I could find in Latvia, in our research institutes, in their collections.

Grafted them on different rootstocks and using different interstems. And after that I attended a cider academy in England led by magnificent Peter Mitchell. And from a-there, I brought, in a suitcase method, back some good English new cider varieties, which I grafted as well.

And then it was let’s say some five to seven years of waiting time since the first apples came. And since I couldn’t do it all myself, because you have to cut the grass, it’s around three hectares. I thought I would, but I wasn’t able to because I had to work. And n- then I had to buy a tractor and equipment and hire an employee.

And then once that was done, there was nothing much to do for him because it’s only three hectares. And s- since we had a land there, we started to plant like edible apples, like dessert apples and not cider apples. They were growing rather good, and we had nowhere to put them.

And then it somehow, after 10 years, we found ourselves in planting more and being actually mainly the edible apple producers within quite a big stuff for Latvian size, quite a big stuff. And then in around 2015 i- in order to be able to sell sell the apples without losing your dignity.

We– Because it’s very cheap. And and to, to grow them, it’s rather expensive. I decided to to switch to organic which I– which took some three years. And by that time, already the cider apples I had made the– my choice of, We had around fifty different varietals.

I chose those ones which I will then graft and make my cider orchard, which is now done in about– It’s seven varieties predominantly I chose from those I brought from England. Yes that, that’s something it. So it started in two thousand and nine, but first cider in bottle I, I had in two thousand and twenty-one actually only.

And , the method is apart from these guys who are experimenting a lot I’m a good student of Peter Mitchell. I go narrow and very safe and conservative way. I I do only dry and basically only one type. But sometimes I have some surprises going on there, this one , I fermented it with a, an intention to be a base cider.

It’s made from one one variety which is Hislop, as you can see, which turned which turned out to be American, as I found out in these days. Yeah. So thank you. And when it was done, I was really surprised of the color. It’s a bit diminished now, but it was even more active by that time.

And yeah, I thought w-why not try to make a, a rosé like a wine-like one? Actually, when I tasted it I had some– I still have some kind of a problem with my palate. It’s distorted after COVID, and I don’t want to ruin it for you. But for me, the first impression was like it’s a marinade from a pickles.

But then it either disappeared, or it’s only my perception, or I get used to it. I actually really like it, and that’s why I brought it here. It’s not carbonated. It has very low addition of sulfites to keep the color. Yeah that’s pretty much it, I think.

It’s six ABV. Yeah, and it’s organic. We can– Yeah, I know you’re Ameri– in America, you cannot call cider organic if there are some sulfites added. You cannot a-add at all. We live by European standards, luckily, and so I can sell it as organic by adding just a little bit. In this one, it’s a little bit above twenty ppm.

But we are allowed actually to have it by one hundred ppm to be organic. Yeah, that’s it. Okay. Thank you, Mati. And then Maris. Yeah. Hello. My name is Maris from Mr. Plūme Cidery. I’m very happy to be in this fantastic event. We are family operation, me and my wife, Dace, who’s there with a iPhone in her hand.

American. And we are orchard-based cidery, so means we have orchard from where we get most of our fruit. How we started first it was 2010. I’ve had an opportunity to be for a while in France, in Domaine Dupont for a month, and then in Austria, in Mostviertel, where they make fantastic still perrys at family Distelberger.

So that was very good start, I think so, ’cause before that I had zero knowledge of cider. I will not explain now how I got to this exactly once. Then later. Okay? So yeah, and then came back to Latvia and started it. And our approach is very non-business. We are dreamers, hippies almost, we focus on quality not on quantity, and sometimes do– w- put way too much effort into creating some drink and then sell it way too cheap.

Yeah, but, I think many of you are like that.

Yeah. About apples, what we grow. So we of course realized we need tannins and where we were finding them, first we are looking at crabapples, so we have at least 10 different crabapple varieties. Then we tried out also English bittersweet apples like Dabinett, Yarlington Mill, and now we are trialing also some French varieties.

And also have to mention that each season we did and still do this apple safari, as Janis already told, when we hunt apples. And what we hunt is these tannic wild seedlings or pure Malus sylvestris, which are green, very sharp, very tannin. And if we find something really good, we graft it in our orchard and we already have few bitters with Latvian origin.

So let’s see how it turns out. Yeah, also we grow a bit of Perry pears Austrian like these Mostbirnen and English we are trying now, and also some self-found acidic pears that we found also in our safari sessions. About our cider styles. So as there are two schools. One is add yeast, feed it well, and then there is opposite strategy.

Don’t do nothing yeah? And let the juice, if it’s from good apples, they do– it does itself job by itself. So we go both directions since day one, always had wild and cultured fermentations. And it– what we t- we’ll try today is wild fermentation, but don’t think it’s only our taste. We do also different styles.

Also silly, to do so much different styles, but that makes life interesting. And I guess the– that’s the main reason why we do it. Yeah, how we sell our ciders. So a lot of direct sales at farm where people come, and we do guided tours, tastings, you know how it goes. Then of course, farmers markets, some bars, some shops but not much.

Also a little bit exports to Portugal, for example, which I find very interesting. To Porto.

Yeah, and what else? Oh, yeah, I have to brag a bit that we already earned a lot of international awards like highest s- gold, silvers and I, it’s hard for me as Latvian to say, but I’m probably pretty good ’cause I’m being invited to judge as well. So international competition. And

yeah. Everyone has our c- postcard on, in front of you. So if you feel like , being in touch with us, take it with you. So that’s pretty much shortly about who we are, and now about the drink. So this one is wild fermented. Quite minimal intervention, but we do clarify the juice before fermentation.

And and it it’s this style as in France, but of course different apples, so it tastes completely different. But the idea was to, by several rackings, to remove the nutrient content so that it ferments slow and becomes stable. So basically it was fermenting in a tank for about a year. Then we, at the moment when we felt it’s safe and stable enough, we bottle it.

So it… And then it slowly, almost another one year, it gained some bubbles. , It’s non-filtered. Sweetness is natural. And it’s from vintage ’23. And we put the best apples what we could get our hands on at that year. So it was Dabinett from our orchard. Seapolinch was from non-treated… The Seapolinch, by the way, is very old heirloom apple, which I personally love, although it’s not the, the best for juicing.

It doesn’t give a lot of yield. But it’s fantastic. I love it. And it’s very typical to r- that region only. And then there are wild seedlings. There was one bitter sharp that I remember. And crab apples from our orchard. Yeah. What else can I tell? Drink it and hope you like it.

And I think now we can turn to questions if you have some. Yes. Please yes.

I’m wondering how you … Or maybe Kopparberg doesn’t come to Latvia? Like They do. Unfortunately, they do. Get people

I think people who really appreciate cider then were like, “Oh, finally,” like there’s a lot of sweet cider available you’re a niche producer, and so how did you have a lot of people coming to your tastings asking for- Is it question to me? You don’t have a lime kiwi or any yeah, of course all these years since first cideries were established, so we call beginning of our cider tradition 2010, but all these years, I think each of us just put a lot of effort just telling the same thing over and over again, that there is this non-real cider, and then there is real cider.

And real cider is made just like wine. And, you know how it goes. You just repeat it million times. There was a story in I remember it’s long time ago, I think. When I started, at first I went to some some festival and and I sold, I think, 10 glasses per night of cider. But now it goes much better.

Like people really understand what cider is. B- because at that time “Oh, it’s not that sweet and nobody… better to buy a beer.” Latvia is beer country still and will be. Yeah. But I think it’s getting better, much better each, I think. It’s improving, yeah. But of course we envy you when we look at prices at which you can sell your drinks, ’cause we sell at least half the price or even less.

But yeah, so we… But overall, I think we do similarly as you, s- the same struggle and the same slow, gradual increase. And I noticed what works. If you make a natural and sweet cider, it really sells good. It’s I think it’s maybe it’s not nice to do, but kind of it, it sells better.

Which? Sweet? Natural sweet cider. It’s, yeah. There’s nothing bad about it. Yeah. Yeah, and I just want to add that one of the ways what I’m particularly exploring more, I don’t go to farmers markets, and I don’t do tastings. I actually don’t have a place to to do them.

But I’m selling to through restaurants. And those ciders you mentioned a- are never in a restaurant, and- They’re in pubs all over England. Oh, in pub, yeah, maybe. Yeah. But in re- in restaurants they’re not. And that’s how people get to know that there is that kind of cider firstly, and secondly, that there is that kind of Latvian cider.

And of course it’s it improves magnificently after let’s say, knowledge of This kind of cider in Latvia after A- Asnate was starting to take care of us, so So thanks to her. Yeah. Yeah, it takes really a long time to- to explain what is what.

And that, that is our actually aim of the umbrella organization. Yes. There were more questions. I know you mentioned you’re organic. I was hoping each of you could talk about your orchard management practices. And also, this is a very nerdy question, but you’re a lot closer to Kazakhstan than we are, and that’s like the birthplace of the apple.

So if you could talk a little bit about some of your native apples, the ones that you love to use, and why. Orchard management, I think in Latvia they do here, like many ways. Some do organically, and some don’t do anything. And myself, I love to be in orchard, and it’s a good spending time.

But yeah, I do like to feel like yeah. For me o-orchard man-management, so since we’re organic especially in a cider orchard, I don’t do anything. Only cut the grass between lines and do some… How you call? Pruning. Pruning, yes. Yeah. And doing some pruning. We don’t spray for scab or any pests.

But those ones I chose, those varieties, they’re pretty resistant. So I don’t have any problem with that. And regarding the varieties there is one local variety called Antonovka which I think is of Russian origin, but it’s like a Latvian which I use.

But otherwise, I don’t have any local favorites, unfortunately. They’re more into that. They’re nationalists. Y- A little bit about my management. Yeah, so similarly as Jānis, by feel, and often it is, as we– I don’t have tractor with sprayer, so if I want to spray, I have to go and with the hand, or with little motor on my back, so it takes a lot of effort, And that’s also one reason why I’m often too late, and spray-spraying management is very bad. So a little intervention with that. Cutting, pruning trees and cutting grass, that’s the main thing. And- Sometimes a bit spraying. And ab-about the apples it’s a bit hard to describe in three words, but if we imagine Latvian apple, it could be…

I think it’s sweet rich in a flavor and acidic in the same way. And, yeah that’s average what you found. Yeah. And of course, typical to Baltic region is this Malus sylvestris what you can find in forests, and which is like bitter sharp, but extreme. Very sharp and very bitter. And if you find those, it’s of course difficult to collect ’cause it’s pretty much jungle then.

And, But if you collect them, they are in very small quantities, had a lot of effect. Yes, the offerings today that you have here are six and five percent. Is that what the juice is giving you, or is that a target you guys go for, or is that law-based?

Typically we get around six. It’s less than here in– I’ve noticed in the, in cider share you have really nice ciders, like with ten ABV. That’s unimaginable in our- Yeah. And we can get to seven point five, eight, especially the cider varieties can go up.

But traditional apple, it’s six, seven maybe. Wow. Rarely o-re– go over six with those. Yeah, rarely. And also it’s good for us because our excise tax rate changes at six, that’s right. You are above, it’s you are like taxed like wine. If you’re under, then it’s a different tax.

So you might be finding something different if you measure it actually. Sometimes. No- not for us, of course But

part?  but actually this one is for us I-I six is the, I would say, most common maximum we can get out of it. I've never seen in my juice more than twelve Brix maybe thirteen. Never? Yeah. No. In the summer, one summer before last, so in, in summer of twenty twenty-four, it was very good apple yield, very sunny and so on.

Then for some varieties, but again, for those English ones I introduced I had some thirteen and a half, but never more. And but if you go for this Apple Safari, you can find really good examples last year I found twenty-two. Yeah. But it’s just exception. It’s not as well. And actually, this Safari are doing only by these small scale farms.

No one big one can afford something like that. They do, but they are fantastic on that. . So the Baltics are some of the oldest countries in Europe, but you probably have the youngest cider industry, and you don’t have history that goes back hundreds of years like Spain or Germany or France or England.

So as the, the pioneers of the new Baltic cider movement, how do you create this unique identity for your region? And then how do you share that with both your local markets and the people that are coming to visit your country? We still try to figure it out, actually. And Asnāte is helping a lot.

We somehow look at each other and see what on average our cider looks like. And I think also our customer dictates, what people buy more, that we make more and that’s, in a way, it also affects how Baltic Cider looks from distance. . We had some small cider history years ago or more. It used to be, like, more an apple wine, like still acidic and like a wine.

Twelve percent and- And, yeah, no, before even in in, In oh, in the Latvian time. Yeah, even before. But of course, that Soviet time of years ruined a lot. There were- … Russian vodka influence also. And sugar was cheap. Yeah. You say there’s no cider tradition, but there are a lot of apple trees, and everybody has apple trees. So what are the traditional uses of the apples? Do people eat just fresh, or are there certain dishes? Yeah, a lot of juicing. Yeah. Some try to keep them, but these old varieties which are most widely spread doesn’t keep that well as commercial ones.

So a lot of times people just collect them, press a bit of juice for self-consumption, and then just g- bring them to forest side for animals. And that’s silly, and that’s not logical I think. But apple is our fruit. This is what we grow. Oh. Nothing else actually grows there so well than the apple.

And then before all these open world for us started we had apple. That, that… not much. We didn’t have bananas or apricots or… That was wow. That was… Have heard the stories about it, but never had it. Yeah. I w- I wouldn’t agree with Maris totally on this. I think everybody who had has an apple trees, and that’s nearly everybody, those hundred years ago or more, I think they saved some part of juice and they fermented it- Yes

always. But it wa- it wasn’t like a, a cider production per se. It was for for the lo- for the only home use and for a family use and… But since we were for 700 years under Germans so we are – predominantly a beer country. So it’s… Everybody made beer at home definitely, and cider or…

That we actually don’t have a name for it. Yeah. About we, we call it cider. Yeah. Yeah. And I think to understand we have to imagine how it was be- because ancient times Latvians were a bit like Viking style type of people. And, … yeah. That… And they definitely like to get drunk and they definitely found the ways to do it.

So it’s just not written- We have to presume that … and we don’t have proof of that. Maybe me drinking too. I’m wondering what people will think home about all this.

Any other… Yes, please. I was just wondering what’s your favorite Latvian dish to eat with your cider?

Oh yeah. With dry cider, there is this old porridge, putraimu biezputra ar speki. So it means kind of ka- kai putra- Porridge with the bacon. The bacon is- Yeah … is not American bacon. It’s, Different … we have our smoked bacon, which is very tasty. Which is wonderful. You have to try it. And it’s very simple dish, but with dry acidic cider, it just goes so well.

And of course, cheese. We, we- Yeah … we like to eat cheese. I like very much this we… In the Baltic Sea, we have small fishes called renge. It means like Baltic herring. Small one … small. It’s not a herring, but it’s, I think it’s sardine or something like that. Sardine, yeah. K- kind of this.

And if you fry in a dough, and it’s super nice with some dry cider. Yeah. And cheese, yeah. We got a lot of cheeses, and it’s well- And we have a lot of smoked things generally. This is our how you call it? The, Identity. Identity, yeah … yeah, preservation of the food. And and the smoked things goes very well with cider.

Also with the beer, but… Yes, please. Are there any restaurants or bars that are focusing on showcasing a lot of Baltic cider side by side to taste? Or is that… Has it been hard to get, a movement in that direction, to showcase them all kind of side by side as an expression? Yes, that there is one shop and bar.

It’s only one, no? In Lithuania. They bring all Baltics cider. Not like a French or English cider, just local. But I think it’s only one place. But there is Sidro Historijas. For those who are– who want to know, they are Sidro Historijas. Yeah. But I think in Latvian’s called Market, Now we, now we- Oh, yeah

we’ve developed more and more of these places which gather, because we work with the Baltic cider, getting them up and trying to get from all the Baltics in one place. We also have one of the biggest producers who owns several pubs and bars, and they are only his cider, unfortunately. But it’s a lot of different varieties, and it’s very popular.

So he’s making a really good cider, and and he sells only through his bars and he doesn’t have a restaurant, but only pubs and yeah. So- If you go to Riga, to our capital, to a restaurant, then it’s, I think in every second you can find real cider. Yeah, exactly. At least one tap and- Yeah, one place you can get a good one.

Yes, Albert. Yeah. One thing that I thought was really impressive when I visited Latvia was the range not only of the styles of cider being made, but the, the places that you would find them. There were fine dining restaurants, but there were also more kind of mass appeal draft ciders.

Can you guys talk to, how you guys are pursuing multiple kind of niches in the market at the same time and how cider is fitting into both, being on draft or in small bottles?

In a lot of markets, from Oregon and we’re really good with the pubs, but having a difficulty in fine dining restaurants. And now I’m making cider in Norway, and it’s almost the opposite, that cider’s gotten acceptance in fine dining, but not in, in pubs. But that was something that I thought you guys were doing really well.

I think we’re still in the making phase, not selling phase I would say. And and if you saw our volumes that’s, that’s– I think that’s not what we’re focusing on now. I think it’s more on establishing our identities individually and commonly, I would say so.

And we don’t have, I think, a common m-marketing or, No, no … market achievement program. They are really very different, so I’m ashamed to answer you that we don’t do it. , last month I got a call from , two restaurants. Yes. Like they say finally, like expensive bottles, big ones.

They say, “I have small ones. We don’t know. I need, we need big ones.” And, yeah. Yes we see that trend all over the world. At the restaurant, the people don’t want to get drunk, so wine is changing with something. We just were in Austria with our seven producers, and we asked at the restaurant, and he said yes, we want a nice bottle, which is not twelve percent, but we, five, six percent.”

And this is a trend. I think you all have noticed it, yes? You’re in this really wonderful s- kind of learning stage in the industry, and you have an organization now. How do you communicate with each other as an organization

Working this year or how do you do that so that you’re effective as an organization? This is our strengths. In my office, we have people working for, the administration. Of course, it takes time. And all these EU money, which EU projects, which we write and get, it also gives us the opportunity to meet at least once in half a year or even more.

Every four months, we meet in a different project meetings. And then we always bring all the or not all, but majority of the producers so that they can meet, they can discuss. And it’s different topics. In one time, it’s export. One time, Gabe gives us trainings and different needs or different aims for meetings.

And then we have a WhatsApp group, quite efficient. When we, when I ask them something, they always answer. And then we have a video also meetings on a Zoom platform, but it needs money. Yeah, and if they, when they pay hotel and we take some cider with us, it really helps, yeah. But it’s got more, yeah, there’s– Yes, please. This is a wonderful presentation. I’m fascinated. We– Often in the US, we’re fighting tax laws or different regulations that are barriers to us being able to make cider in a certain style or labeling it differently or having a certain amount of alcohol. Do you have any laws that are in your way or aspirations for legal challenges?

There’s a EU regulation. There’s a regulation now we are fighting about because we don’t like the definition of it. We’ve sent back our comments, but generally we don’t have much regulations on- we like okay, age. Let’s do it. Okay. No, it’s about production. Yeah. Not about drinking.

I think it, it’s getting more strict slowly and abo-about c-commercials, I think it’s shut down and, but it’s still especially for our small makers, it’s free, so as Maris told before, so in order to make cider up to fifteen thousand liters a year, you need to apply only in your municipality for the permission and then to register with the IRS to have your excise number.

And, and- But this is actually about Latvia. Yeah, I’m talking about Latvia. Are you were asking about? The Baltic States. Ah, about- anywhere there. For us- Okay. We can’t write the harvest date on cider, for example. What you cannot write? The year when the Apple That’s not that strict.

It’s not regulated. We need a good lawyer. This is, this is- I’m a criminal one, so- … we don’t want me. First I have my word. This is why we are so happy and so careful not to over-regulate. At the moment, we are free to do whatever they come up with almost being that frame, which is quite big frame.

That small producer rule, which we lobbied in, I don’t know, two thousand and nine or something This is why Latvia has more producers than Lithuania and Estonia or Finland, because all three countries need to reach that high volume and high licensing and all the bureaucracy and all the papers, and they just started from from one permission from the municipality and the hygiene office, and that, that was it.

Yeah. So this is our luck. So we are very careful not to over-regulate to keep them- But I know in Lithuania, for example, it’s really strict. Just lately, that’s– they have two or four cideries. But yeah, it’s, it was really hard to make a cider. And I heard that they don’t call it cider. They had to call it sparkling or carbonated apple wine or something.

But now it’s has changed last two years and it’s yeah, more, more free. Yes. In this photograph, I wonder if I’m seeing a fence. And is that because there’s some animals or wildlife that- it’s my place. And yeah, it’s a fence and it’s actually middle of forest.

And no, I’m just making a cross-country because not much to do in the winter. But, yeah, it’s a fence and because of animals. Yeah, they come deers and rabbits and all those. Yeah. In Baltics, you need to have a fence. Without fence- The deers are problem … yeah, you will not succeed without fence. Most, mostly deer.

Deer and hare. Yes. Hare. Yes. Rabbit. Are there tree nurseries that you are able to buy your trees from, the varieties you’re looking for? Or do most people graft their own trees if they want like certain varieties for cider? No, we cannot buy cider varieties. We can buy some of those juicing varieties which are like our heirloom varieties.

But we… i… for example, me myself I take those , scions bring them to Lithuania and then they graft them for me. And in, in a year I take back my plants. But yeah. Yeah. Me and Jānis, we, I think since Many years already realized that grafting is very useful skill, so we graft a lot of…

And for o-our new orchards, we just ordered root stocks and did winter graftings. And that’s the way we get all those interesting varieties. Because scions we could somehow get from somewhere and and s-some we just find. And thank you for  traveling so far. Yeah.

 that wraps up, the sold-out crowd at the World of Cider: The Baltic Region panel discussion at CiderCon 2026, held in Providence, Rhode Island. A big thank you to Asnāte Ziemele, who is the coordinator and director, I believe, of the Baltic Cider Association, Jānis Matvejs of Abuls Cidery, Mārtiņš Knipšis of Pienjāņi Cidery and Māris Plūme of Mister Plūme Cidery too.

And a special thank you to the Baltic Cider Association for providing the original slide presentation from the CiderCon session. Just as I did with the Ryan Monkman Doing More With Less presentation, I’m syncing those original slides with the panel audio to create a video version of this session. That video will be released first to patrons of Cider Chat at the Cider Chat Patreon page before becoming available to everyone on the Cider Chat YouTube channel.

This week, I’m raising my glass to Tom Oliver of Oliver Cider & Perry based in Herefordshire, England. He is an ongoing supporter of Cider Chat and is listed at the Cider Going Up campaign page at ciderchat.com. He has joined me for multiple conversations over the years on Cider Chat, and I do hope there’ll be many more.

I am just so enamored by his 1.9% alcohol by volume perry that he makes. It’s just delightful, the perfect welcome drink to have, celebratory drink. I could go on and on. Anywho, Tom, tip the glass to you, and thank you for being a Cider Going Up patron and supporting independent cider media. And to everyone listening, your support helps make it possible to keep traveling to places like CiderCon, recording conversations like this one, and bringing these stories back to you.

If you value independent cider media and want to help keep stories flowing, head to the Cider Chat website, click on the Cider Going Up, and become a patron today. Or at the very least, see the makers that are supporting this podcast and support them. You’ll find links to their websites and a little bit more.

And with that, I leave you here. This is Ria Windcaller signing off for now. Looking forward to seeing you in Ciderville. We drink it like this. There is a reason why we do it like this. There is a reason. There is a reason why we do it like this. We like cider. There is a reason why we do it like this. We like pomme.

There is a reason why we drink it like this. We like orchards. There is a reason why we do it like this. And having fun. There is a reason why we do it like this. Yee-haw!