517: What Made ACE Cider Brand Worth $40+ Million

00:00 Cider Without Overthinking
02:13 The ACE Cider Origin Story
03:19 Out & About in Ciderville
06:05 Cider Events, Tours & News
09:31 Meet Jeffrey House
11:18 From Local Apples to National Scale
15:52 Building a Cider Company to Sell
18:58 Immigration & the Early Hustle
24:19 Finding Product Winners
30:34 The Reality of Cider Distribution
33:37 Building the Brand & Planning an Exit
37:21 Location, Costs & Business Decisions
38:32 Serendipity, Timing & Luck
39:58 The Entrepreneurial Mindset
41:58 Building a Product vs. Building a Business
42:29 The Pareto Principle & Persistence
44:41 Scaling, Cash Flow & Margins
46:38 Standing Out with Fruit Ciders
47:35 Selling ACE Cider
52:26 The Reality of Corporate Ownership
54:11 How the Cider Market Has Evolved
56:07 The Origins of ACE Fruit Ciders
58:36 Jeffrey House on Cider’s Future
01:00:43 The Cider King
01:01:52 Ria’s Wrap & Totally Cider Tour
01:03:17 Closing Song

[00:00:00] When it comes to the drinks category, I do have some very strong opinions, specifically on how beverages should be drunk, and most specifically for this here podcast, on how cider should be enjoyed. So when I heard Jeffrey House, the founder of Ace Cider, say this Drinks, in my opinion, drinks are refreshment.

I don’t really want to sit down, re-um, like with wine, they swish and swirl, and with Belgian beers, they do the same thing. I don’t wanna be thinking too much about what I’m drinking. I just wanna make sure i- it’s good. And then the key to it is, do you go for a, another, a sip after the first one? Oh, yeah.

You could bet when I heard that, I felt validated. And if you’ve been listening to Cider Chat for any length of time, you’ve heard me say some version of this again and again. Sometimes I think [00:01:00] we’re trying too hard to explain cider. We’re overthinking it. And in doing that, we risk losing one of the best things about cider.

It’s fun. Give me a cider that’s full-bodied. Give me complexity. Give me something that makes me pause and go, “Oh, that is interesting.” But don’t make me stop the conversation just so I can understand what’s in my glass. Because for me, a great cider can be complex without being complicated. It can give us something to geek out on without requiring us to geek out on it.

And I think that’s important if we want to bring more people into cider, ’cause wine, beer, they’ve both traveled pretty far down that road of analysis, terminology, and buffed-up expertise. And though that could be a lot of fun for those of us who love going deep into apples and cider, the super geeks, overall, let’s face it, we’re a pretty small [00:02:00] slice of the people we want drinking cider.

Sometimes, then, the most important question really is the one Jeffrey just asked: Do we want another sip? And Jeffrey House knows something about getting people to take that next sip. He and his wife, Angela, founded California Cider Company in 1993 and built Ace into a cider brand distributed across all 50 states before selling the company in 2021.

And that is where we’re going today. This here episode, number 517, is packed with lessons about cider. But really, the really key I want you to zero in on are the lessons about business, building a brand, finding distribution, creating products people actually want, knowing when to sell, and what happens after you do.

So we’re gonna be heading to what made eCider brand worth 40-plus million in this here [00:03:00] episode 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. Going to get to our featured conversation with Jeffrey House of Ace Cider coming right up, but first, a wee bit of news from Mountain About in Ciderville. And before anything else, I want to give a big thank you to the patrons of Cider Chat. We’re now more than 500 episodes into this podcast, and your support really does help Cider Chat roll out week after week.

And I also want to thank all of you who take the time to send me a note or stop me when I’m out and about. Sometimes somebody recognizes my voice. Sometimes I’m wearing a Cider Chat shirt or hat, and that person comes up and says, “Hey, I listen to Cider Chat.” I have [00:04:00] to tell you, that never gets old. I was at Heirloom Apple Day at Scott Farm in Vermont this past weekend, and met a fellow orchardist and cider maker who told me she listens to Cider Chat while she’s out working in her orchard, and that some of what she’s doing there was inspired by things she heard right here on the podcast.

Those moments mean a lot to me, because I spend so much time sitting here behind the microphone, and then suddenly I get this little glimpse of where the podcast goes after I send it out into the world. And those glimpses are just sometimes just plain funny. Like this guy Cody, he recently sent Cider Chat a photo of a package of General Tso’s chicken sitting alongside a container of cottage cheese with the message, “I don’t know what cider to pair it with.”

Now, if you’ve been listening to Cider Chat, you know exactly what Cody was responding to. I mentioned recently, well, before he sent me this message, of course, that one of my comfort foods is a [00:05:00] combination of General Tso’s chicken, which is the most Americanized version of Chinese food there is, with cottage cheese.

Yeah, I know. Uh, but don’t knock it until you tried it. Anyways, Cody, to answer your question, I’m going with a cider with some good, bright acidity, something that’s really gonna smack the mouth a little bit. It’ll help cut through that sweetness and a little bit of that greasiness, and then you got that cottage cheese in there to melt everything back out again.

Man, I hope, I hope you had a good one. But seriously, it made my heart swell because it tells me that you out there in Ciderville aren’t just listening. We’re having fun, and that’s the most important thing. So keep those notes coming. I notice them, I read them, and they mean more than you probably realize.

And if Cider Chat is something you look forward to each week, take a second on your favorite podcast app to give the show a rating or recommendation. We do prefer the five stars. [00:06:00] That’s a simple way to help somebody else find their way into cider. Now, speaking about getting together over cider, support for Cider Chat this week comes from Cider Feast, which is a cider fe- Fest in the best way possible.

In fact, they just wrapped up a fantastic cider feast in Brooklyn, and now they’re headed to the Beantown itself, Boston, Massachusetts, for their annual Boston Cider Feast on November 14th. And guess what? Cider Chat will be there. I’ll be getting in early to talk with some of the makers, and once the doors open, I’m looking forward to talking with you out there drinking cider, too.

And if you’re coming, I highly recommend the VIP ticket. You’ll get more time with makers, more time with cider, and more time to enjoy yourself before things get really rolling. You’ll find the Boston Cider Feast information and ticket link in the show notes. And another way we get together in Ciderville is through Totally [00:07:00] Cider Tours.

In fact, last week’s episode was a total recap on the French Cider Tour, which just took place. And guess what? We are returning to France and now looking towards blossom time and the next Totally Cider Tour, April 24th through May 1st, 2027. And we are ready to visit some more incredible makers, orchards, and drink some pretty extraordinary cider and perry.

But one of my favorite parts is what happens afterwards. I still see messages going back and forth between people who met on these tours. These friendships keep going. People visit one another. In fact, I heard that Dr. Deb was out in Hungary. She went all the way from Washington State out to Hungary to visit our dear friend Ancha at Argelette Garden Project.

I mean, how would that happen otherwise? It just is. This community has stretched so far and wide that I’m starting to think I need one giant [00:08:00] Totally Cider group thread just to bring everybody together, because you don’t just come home with cider knowledge and a bunch of photographs and maybe a ton of cider and perry in your luggage like I did.

You come home with people in your life that you didn’t know before. And that, that, my friends, that is pretty special. Details about the April France tour will be coming out, but in the meanwhile, if you wanna get on the wait list, send an email this way to info@ciderchat.com. And over at eCider News, this week’s story takes us to Somerset, where Wilding Cider and the Rawlins Family Cider have teamed up on a new Somerset cider box subscription.

It’s a chance to explore cider from Somerset through a curated selection that includes their own ciders, other producers, and a wild card selection, and even a book. The first box includes The Folklore of Trees. I, I just love collaborations like this because [00:09:00] rather than saying, “Come buy my cider,” they’re saying, “Come discover our cider region.”

You could read that story at eCider News. There’s a link waiting for you in the show notes. Walking through the orchards, dancing in the streams. All right. That’s the latest from out and about in Ciderville currently, although there’s always a backlog of info to send it to you. I could just do one dedicated episode just on that.

But I really think it’s time for you and I to head over to our featured presentation next with Jeffrey House of the Ace Cider brand. He founded Ace back in 1993 when he and his wife started the California Cider Company, and they built up this brand through the many years and then sold it in 2021 for a bucket load of money.

We’re gonna dive into how he did that, why he did that, [00:10:00] and should he have done that. So get your glasses ready. It’s time to join this chat with Jeffrey House, the founder of Ace Cider

Welcome, Jeffrey House, to Cider Chat. It’s such a pleasure and an honor to be able to speak to you. We’re gonna be diving into your book, The Cider King, and also really looking at your business savvy in terms of cider and what you did with Ace as a cider brand in the US, and how it impacts the broader community, too, of the cider world.

For listeners out there in Ciderville who aren’t familiar with Ace Cider, how would you describe it to someone who has never had one? They’re clean, refreshing tasting ciders. I think that’s probably the best way of describing it. And, uh, and y- ’cause they’re sugar-free, all natural, and vegan. [00:11:00] And when we first started, we were using the local apples in Sonoma County.

We were able to get them very easily. A lot of people consider it’s probably one of the best commercial tasting ciders, and I’m gonna su- subscribe to that, Ria, of course. Of course you are. And for listeners out there who are a little cider curious and know a little bit about cider making, you said you use local apples, and then did it kinda move out where you’re bringing in juice for production and- Yeah.

The thing is that Sebastopol was, is kinda unique in, in many ways. It’s the home of the Gravenstein apple, which is a, the Russians introduced it back in the 1850s. I actually live in the Russian River Valley here next to Sebastopol, where Sonoma County being next to the wine county of Napa. Sonoma’s wine now too.

Used to be apples. But there were many apple plants here, like five different plants, and I had no idea about this [00:12:00] when I first got into cider. Somebody mentioned there was a gentleman making cider in Occidental and I drove up this way and, uh, along 116, the west county of Sonoma County, and it was just like England with sunshine.

And then I looked up and there were little street signs with apples on them and I said, “What is, what’s that?” And it just all fell into place, but there were actually five canning plants, pressing plants in town. Now the final one, Manzana, is destined to move up to Yakima, Washington so there won’t be any presses.

And when it comes to local apples, the number of orchards has rapidly decreased and Pinot Noir has taken over. And if you’re in the apple business, you have to be growing organic apples around here, which get a bit more money, and you sell them for eating rather than cider making. That’s right. Yeah. Now [00:13:00] Ace, and, and definitely correct me if I’m wrong, but I see it as a modern cider.

The ciders were produced and it was a quick turnaround because you were doing such high production for Ace, really. Yeah. It, it w- Shipping out to all 50 states. Yeah. Again, there’s reasons for that, Ria, that we, we had some idea about distribution with my first company, Thames America, the beer company that I started in 1980, January the 1st, 1980.

And then of course that- I got involved with the Blackthorn cider from England, so I had some idea about the potential for cider. But a lot of the distributors we knew through the beer business, so that helped us. But yeah, in terms of growth or scaling, the plant still has about 5 million gallons of capacity, and we got up to about two and a half million.

When I sold the company, it was close to 1.3 million case equivalents. Mm. That’s quite a lot. When you get to a million in any [00:14:00] beverage business, they think you’ve made it, if you like. You’ve achieved something. But we were going gung ho all the time. We had 40 employees at the plant, and sometimes we worked evening shifts.

We were canning, we were bottling, we were kegging, and usually producing something like $100,000 worth of cider a day. Okay. Uh, so, well, and so that turnaround of a couple of weeks, yes. The, then we used the champagne yeast, and, uh, that was quick acting and the li- the, the, the cider was pressed. We didn’t press it, the apples were pressed.

And yeah, we managed to bottle, can, or keg within a, a couple of weeks after filtration. And you’re one of the early pioneers in the US as a commercial brand. 1993, you and your wife, Angela- Yeah … founded the California Cider Company and then the brand name of Ace. I really wanna refer the listeners out there to do check out Jeffrey’s book, The Cider King.

[00:15:00] It’s not only an incredible story of your backstory with beer and how you came to the US, some of the obstacles, really quite, quite a, a narrative there you have. Quite a- astonishing. Also, just the buildup of Ace and the different locations that you’re moving it around, managing the, the employees. But what I’m particularly really curious about is you came from a sales background into the category.

Yeah, my father was a salesperson with Tobler-Suchard chocolate. My mother was in sales in fashion. So yeah, I studied marketing at college and, yeah, marketing and sales is my background. And I’m speaking to you as the marketer and the brand manager that you are, where you brought a, a business from the floor up to a very formidable sale in 2021.

Did you approach it for yourself as a job for your family and something [00:16:00] to get into, or was it always an approach that it was an asset that would eventually get sold? Yeah. I think one always hopes that you’re gonna sell your company. It’s a very difficult proposition, and that’s in the book. There’s 2% of companies actually sell for a significant figure, the, an enterprise or entrepreneurial company that they started.

And, you know, the odds, I mean, hopefully business schools are not told those odds, but it’s a very difficult thing to do. But we were following craft beer and I kn- I knew most of the guys, probably all, all the significant guys, Jim Koch and Ken Grossman and Fritz Maytag and all these people, and the amount of merger and acquisition in the beverage business was quite significant.

Enormous, really. More than significant, and it still continues. We always thought there would be a knock on the door, but only if you’re attractive to another company, which means you have to grow fairly [00:17:00] quickly and you have to be sizable. We even spoke to Heineken, if you remember, bought Lagunitas for a billion dollars, if you can believe that.

That’s tremendous amount of money. Yeah. So we contacted, or I contacted them. They came to see us and their parameter was, “Yes, you’re doing $25 million worth of turnover, but we only really look at companies that are doing 100 million.” We had several knocks on the door, Ria, in the growth period, which really our growth period was 2010 all the way through to 2021.

When we sold it, we were growing at about 15 to 20% a year, and we won that Impact Magazine award as Hot Brand of the Year consecutive for 12 years on the trot. So we had French people, a big Agrial Group, a, a French co-op interested. They came probably about three times knocking on the door. We had [00:18:00] Sapporo, the Japanese company, and we had the biggest…

I got hold of them, which was Kopparberg. You might be familiar with them in the UK. They’re, they’re the biggest people in fruit cider in the world. Pr- Too sweet for my liking, but- Yeah … but anyway, we did speak to them. We got close with the negotiation. But to answer your question, we were just trying to grow the business and survive.

It became a family business when my boys graduated from Cal Poly and Berkeley in, in the early 211, 212 period. But before that it was, I started undercapitalized and it was a bit of a slog to get the, to get past $2 or $3 million worth of turnover every year. And one, one, one or two years when we first started, the equipment cost so much money, I think the accountant told me I was behind the eight ball for a million dollars, which is a, a big shock since I only came to America with 1,000 bucks.

And had your own dealings [00:19:00] with immigration too. My goodness. Yeah, that, that, that was probably because Angela, she, she’s more famous than I am. She was in the most famous scene of the most famous movie of all time, the Star Wars cantina scene. And she was supposed to have a part in it, but it got reduced to an extra where she’s smoking a hookah pipe with her friend at the end of the bar.

She’s got a few seconds of fame, but that’s continued with Comic-Cons where I think she gets $45 per a signature. All these people are crazy about Star Wars. That’s great. And then I finished up making a cider called Space, where I stuck, uh, the, the neck label with her with smoking the hookah pipe, and I had to change the words in case Lucasfilm were gonna sue me.

But I think, no, on the, on that one, somebody snitched. She was a, a model in London, and she came over to join me, and I think they were trying to separate us from each other. And that actually caused both of [00:20:00] us to spend one night in Pleasanton, which is a misnomer. It was Santa Rita Jail in Pleasanton. It wasn’t very pleasant at all.

And that’s where I got the idea of I’m going to stay here. I’ve made the decision that I like San Francisco and the Bay Area. Angela actually went round the world on a Father set ticket for $999 on Pan Am. You could do it in those days, travel the world for a year. And I got involved in selling spirits and with a guy from the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory who very fortunately sponsored me.

And I said to him, “Listen, we need to bring in beer ’cause that’s what’s happening in Britain, craft beer.” And he said, “Go over there and find one.” I said, “‘Cause that’ll help me substantiate my green card application.” ‘Cause I was positioning myself as an expert in importing beer. And then he said, “You can [00:21:00] also try and sell some California wine.”

So- That’s how I got legal, was importing British beer. I had to do it. I had to get the beer and I had to sell some California wine. And of course, he then buggered everything up by losing all my invoices at the back of his BMW and bouncing checks on the US government, so I thought I’d never get the green card.

When I actually did, then it was, “Oh, this should be plain sailing.” And I started that Thames America Trading Company, importing the beer and exporting the wine, and then later on, of course, bringing the Blackthorn in. What’s really interesting in reading your book is that you name names. You don’t hold back.

You don’t hold back on your history, your health, anything. So for anyone looking to become an entrepreneur or who is already in it, it’s just a wealth of information to really access right there, which leads me to the question, knowing your background now and in terms of looking at cider, [00:22:00] a lot of folks go into cider making, they do think that they might be passing it on to their family.

Obviously, you had your sons involved. To be honest with you, Ria, my preference would’ve been, a- and certainly my wife’s preference, would’ve been to have kept it a family business going, going forward. And I suggested, I recommended to my sons, having given them some money after the sale, that they put some skin in the game and we buy the business back from VWE pre-bankruptcy, and we could have done that if we’d moved more quickly, if they’d been more decisive.

They thought that the brand had been too seriously affected. But that probably would’ve been the most ideal position, that it would’ve stayed in the House family. But that didn’t come to fruition. I get that, and you tell that story very well. Mm-hmm. I just want folks to know when Geoffrey’s r- saying VWE, you’re referring to the full [00:23:00] name of the company is Vintage Wine Estates, which bought eCider, uh, to the sum of, like, 46 million, I think.

Something like that? Yeah. Something like that, 40. A dollar here or there, what does it matter? Yeah. But, you know, it was sizable. So there, there is a lot to draw here from you as an individual and your… entrepreneurial style. You need to have a pretty strong constitution to do that. Hey, you should be my agent, Ria.

This is good. Hey, we’re doing it right now, buddy. I’m liking th- It’s all- I’m liking this. All about cider going up. So with that said, I know you were early pioneer in, in the US becoming a, a, a commercial brand. There was only a handful. I think West County was the first to come online post-prohibition.

Martinelli’s gave up their cider license in ’79. But you were early on in there, along with Farnum Hill and some other small makers. Yeah. [00:24:00] When you came in, were you looking at it as, “I’m really good at making cider,” ’cause obviously you are. You knew how- Mm-hmm … to figure out those bells and whistles to do it.

But was it also really figuring out how to sell cider in America? Yeah, definitely. The, it’s all about, you probably know this is, in every business it’s all about distribution really, and getting on the shelf. So- Yeah … I did have an idea obviously on that, and I think that’s where a lot of people in our business, if they’re neophytes, they probably don’t realize how difficult the distribution side is.

When it comes to cider, you said I’m, yeah, good at making it. I was good at thinking about new product development, new ideas, and I’ve got a pretty good, I’ve gotta say this, I’ve got a pretty good palate. So, uh, because of the history with wine and spirits and beers, I’ve developed a, a [00:25:00] reasonable palate. I can usually tell straight away when we make a product, whether it’s gonna be a winner or not, which is pretty, it’s a good thing to know.

Absolutely. How do you know that? Did you have a script or was it just based on your palate? I worked with a lab guy. We had a very good laboratory guy for 20 odd years, he was with us, Robert Holt. And I would just say to him, “I think the pH should be this,” or, “We gotta bring the sugar up a little bit,” or not, “Don’t take it to dryness so much,” or it was…

Yeah, it was just playing around. And then we’d do blind tastings in my pub and I’d lay the bottles out and you wouldn’t know which one was which. And they, one of my s- my sons and probably the cider maker would come in and try them, and then we’d c- afterwards we’d concur which was, we’d decide which was the best and whi- which one stood out.

And usually one did. Usually one stood out. [00:26:00] So I don’t know, I had a lot of, had a lot of luck with that, or that’s probably one of my best talents. I was able to pick a few winners. We had obviously the Ace Pineapple. Oh. I just, the Ace Apple was the first apple cider apparently in California, which is pretty good.

That was a bit more like a Sauvignon Blanc. It never really caught on as well as it should’ve done, but it was a very good product. The Ace Apple Honey, I, that idea, Sonoma wildflower honey, I thought that’s good. You tie it in with a local producer. I call that a mead too A cyser is what I would call that Yeah, it’s a cyser Yeah, yeah It’s a cyser but that w- that, that became very popular.

Now people loved it and it won lots of medals, but it never took off to the same extent that the pear cider, which we eventually called Perry, is still probably… It was the number one cider back in 1994 and I think it’s still the second-best seller. And the reason for that is it’s got some vanilla in it from Madagascar [00:27:00] and it’s just, it’s just really refreshing.

Drinks, in my opinion, drinks are refreshment. I don’t really want to sit down, rear, and like with wine they swish and swirl and with Belgium beers they do the same thing. I don’t wanna be thinking too much about what I’m drinking. I just wanna make sure it’s good and then the key to it is do you go for a, another, a sip after the first one?

Are you taking another? And that happened very, with a lot of those winners, you put the glass down, you went, “Oh, hold on, I better check it again.” It, so there was some quaffability, what a terrible word, but, you know- I love it … quaffability. Yeah. Yeah. One of my favorite words, actually. But anyway, that, that’s, drinks are supposed to be drunk and enjoyed, and, and mainly they’re there to stimulate the conversations, which is what I thought was the best part about the business was, you know, having a pub and talking to customers and finding out what they liked and where they bought the products, et [00:28:00] cetera.

Yeah. It really appears to me now, having gotten to know you better through your book, and we actually met once back in 2016 at CiderCon in Portland. Oh, we did? I’m sorry. Me and my wife were there. Yeah. Oh. No, hey, no, it was just o- only in passing, and I’m like, “Oh, look.” Ah. “There’s the eCider guy. Okay.” Yeah.

Yeah. The Ace man. Yeah, the Ace man has cometh. Yeah. Yeah. I think that was the time I met the, we went to dinner with the big guy over in England who’s done extremely well, Thatcher, Martin Thatcher. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And we went to The Steakhouse, and I thought maybe he’s gonna take Ace on if I talk to him in the UK, but, uh- See, it’s interesting that you say it like that, because once again, here we see you’re business savvy, you’re salesman, and I do conjecturing here, but it does become apparent to me that throughout this history of your brand and your work, you always had that end game in line.

And [00:29:00] though your family, I hear about the family story of keeping it in the house, working on punning it- Yeah … with your own h- you, last name. But I think what really stands out amongst the cider crowd is it wasn’t necessarily revolutionary production on how you’re making Ace. Y- you sell the product, but it may be proving that cider could be branded, it could be distributed and sold nationally as a modern American beverage, and that’s really where I think you, as a, the lead and the founder, stood out in my mind.

Is that a good synopsis of Geoffrey House or…? Yeah. You can’t get a drink that’s more American than apple cider. Especially where you live. I mean, the water was so bad they had to drink cider. Even the kids were drinking cider. It was a lovely thing. Yeah, yeah. And I knew that the, it was the biggest single drink up until the 1850s in America.

I knew it [00:30:00] had potential, and that because of my sales and marketing side, I suppose I go to a lot of shows, and I see things like California Cooler or something that just exploded to do millions of cases. And I thought that cider could do the same. It’s got half the alcohol of wine, easier to drink, and it’s gluten free.

That’s a… A lot of people suffer with gluten, celiac disease. It almost cleans its own lines when it goes on tap. It’s a remarkable product. Cider is amazing. Mm-hmm. And it should be a lot bigger. Yeah, I agree. I’m wondering, what is it that you understand about the distributors and re- retailers and consumers that small producers might be missing?

Oh, dear. But- I know that’s a big question. You could kind of just mull it over. I don’t wa- I don’t wanna lose all my friends. I’ve only got a few. Hey, look, you name names in the book. Yeah. And anybody should go for there. No, no. I, I, I- So some of those folks who I’ve interviewed myself too, so [00:31:00] yeah. No, I have no hesitation to tell you the answer to that one.

Okay, go for it. Distributors distribute, they deliver. That’s the very start of the business when you’ve got your product. That’s only the start of it. So now you’ve got to sell it, and the distributor expects you really to sell it, and that’s changed. It used to be that a little more effort from them.

Sometimes they’d 50/50 promotions, they’d share in it. Sometimes they’d have one or two salespeople that would know somebody in the business and do you a favor and get you on draft. But basically at this point in time, especially with this group called Reyes, which is a big miller, they’re the largest distributors in America, that they’ll even charge you upfront now for samples on your American Express card.

They don’t share in the sampling. They’re really just huge profit centers. I mean- Mm-hmm … what I, I used to say, “When I die, I want to come back as a [00:32:00] Budweiser distributor in a cash state.” And you’ve got a few of them near you, Mr. Clark and all the rest of them that live in Boston. These guys, they walk around with $10,000 in their pockets.

It’s loose change for them. They’re some of the wealthiest people in their hometowns. Yeah. You can find the, with a s- a smaller guy sometimes on his way up who will work with you. That would be my recommendation for somebody starting in the business, distributors. Find somebody who’s a smaller chap and ride with him and become more important in his portfolio early on.

Because otherwise, I’m gonna use a terrible expression here, a British one, you’re peeing in the wind. You better cut that out. You know I won’t. ‘Cause, ’cause, ’cause it’s true. Yeah. You really have to stay on top of it, and that’s where I see you really have your pulse on the dial. Your marketing, your sales, your history there [00:33:00] really was able to like zero in on it, and you also deliver that in your book.

And I really wanna r- recommend anyone who’s a entrepreneur to go into this book and use it as a case study. Yeah. Because y- and you give… Yeah, there it is right there. Yeah. Yeah, and second edition too. So- Yeah … and further on, kinda like at the end of the book, you’re laying it out what you need to do to have a successful business, and then to be able to move it on if you’re not gonna keep it in your family forever.

Without getting too deep into the book, because of course I wanna recommend people purchase it. Yeah. Some- someday if a person’s thinking, “I wanna sell my business,” what should they be doing now? ‘Cause you started, again, back in 1993. Yeah. Sold the business in 2021, and we’ll get a little bit further into that in our conversation coming up.

From day one, do you start thinking, “I’m gonna sell this business”? Where do you start there? What in the mind of J- Jeffrey [00:34:00] House is going on there? ‘Cause it… W- I also wanna say too is as a guest on Cider Chat, you are one of the most integrated guests I’ve ever met. You’ve been so forthcoming with your information, sending me further information.

So that alone is a pleasure for me as a media person to be getting that information, so I’m already seeing some of your savviness there. You don’t sit idly, so I’m, I wanna throw that out as one of the first things. But for selling a business, w- any kinda tips there? You don’t have to sell it. When we started around here, there wasn’t anybody in Sonoma County.

You’re right, there was a few people in the- Yeah … west- eastern states, I think. Vermont Woodchuck were one of the early ones. I think they were before us. But it, it, now there’s 16 or 17 cideries just in Sonoma County. When we’re talking about building a brand and selling a brand, you’ve gotta get the name right, you gotta get the product right, you gotta get the packaging right, you’ve gotta get the press right, [00:35:00] the PR right.

You’ve gotta, it, there’s a lot of Ps in marketing. W- and also in business, uh, you’ve gotta have strong accounting. That was the trouble with VWE, is they went public and they didn’t have enough accountants to deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Yeah. Which was disastrous. You’ve gotta have a z- somebody’s gotta be able to sell.

Somebody’s gotta go out there and knock on a few doors and introduce it. You assume, and I, and make sure it is, the message is in the bottle or the can. It’s gotta be good stuff, otherwise you don’t have any credibility in my opinion. If you don’t believe in it or if, if it’s not good enough, you’re again wasting your time.

I c- I couldn’t sell a bad product in inverted commas. I’ve got used to selling quality And you can sell quantity with quality, but you probably won’t do as well because people buy on price, and it’s usually extremely inexpensive, and it’s BOGO and all that sort of stuff. And that doesn’t appeal to me [00:36:00] outside of the, of marketing fast-moving packaged goods.

I like good products. But yeah, and if you do, I suppose somebody’s gonna offer you some money, and I suppose it’s always the same thing. You can turn it down and turn it down, and eventually probably somebody will convince you to sell it. My wife, again, was very disappointed because she saw the family splitting up a little bit because of the sale.

It still remains whether it was the right thing or not. That’s part of this Ace case study to work out. Did I sell it to the right people? Right people? No. Mm. And I knew, I turned them down the first time, Ria, the wine company, Vintage Wine Estates, ’cause they’re wine people. Cider’s sold more like beer. My cider, Ace, was sold more like beer than wine.

Mm. Probably small producers’ products, which have become more and more popular, which is good, tied in with foods and high-end ciders. We made one called Ace Blackjack here, which was a very good product. Yeah. But you don’t [00:37:00] sell those as much because they cost more money, so demand is less. And you might make, with the margin, you might make a living out of it, but you haven’t really got enough to sell.

It’s not something that’s going to be attractive enough, ’cause the volume’s not there. So you have to limit it to, to being your own business and looking after your own economy. Jeffrey, I’m wondering about location, because reading your story, you had a couple different location moves over the course of production.

Mm-hmm. And you had pubs that were… Really sounded like a great time. I’m, I’m so sorry I missed that. Yeah. My kind of places, for sure. But I’m wondering about location, because that’s always a big question, and if you have a good distributor, does it matter? No, not so much. You wanna… You got… It’s very expensive, our area.

As you probably know, the Bay Area is a very expensive area. You could do it in Des Moines, Iowa. But you’ve gotta get [00:38:00] the apples, you gotta get the juice from somewhere, so you’ve got all that shipping. I- I- it, cost of living, yes, on both coasts is much higher. It’s b- it’s cheaper to make cider probably in Michigan than it is in Washington or California or Massachusetts.

I, I… Location for, for us was, it was, I just fell into that Gravenstein apple being the local apple. Mm. And then there was Gravenstein apple fairs, apple blossom fairs. Mm. The whole thing synced, you know? Mm. Synchronized. Mm. This is part of my, if you like, I’m a very fortunate person in many ways. I’ve suffered with depression, which is not very fortunate, but I’m very fortunate and lucky with family and I think synchronicity.

The, the, I believe in serendipity. It’s a chapter in my book, and there’s a lot of serendipitous things, just extraordinary things- Mm … that happened in my career. Were you noticing them when they were happening? Did you [00:39:00] go, “Oh, here’s another one of these magical, lucky Geoffrey House moments”? Because y- I read quite a few of them in there.

After a while you just shake your head. I guess so. Yeah. Goodness. You go, “That can’t be.” And I got some more I was telling you pre-show. It appears to me that the three things that make a cidery valuable is the product, as you mentioned, having good distribution, and we are seeing quite a bit of direct sale to customer now.

That’s really- Oh, yeah. That’s good … that’s a really important piece for a lot of makers now. Yeah. Certainly in the US and abroad. But also just plain luck. Oh, you just hit on the most important thing, right? Luck is the number one import- most important thing But you can’t bottle that. You can’t. That’s- No, but you can…

You know- Buy it? … thinking, thinking is required, Ria. You… Yeah, that, that’s one thing [00:40:00] I think maybe… I’m up, I get up fairly early these days, and I knew this show was happening. I think I woke up at about 3:00 or 4:00, and I sometimes unfortunately get on my, on my iPhone and start sending emails and all that sort of stuff, but I shouldn’t be doing that, but I am.

Entrepreneur. Yeah. I visualize. I’m an entrepreneur, raconteur, a marketeer. That, that’s me. I’m very lucky in that way. But I think the more that you put out there, and the more connections, and this is probably part of this serendipity thing, I will introduce myself. My wife says, “You talk to strangers,” on the beach or I’ll go and say, “Oh, hello.

Where are you from?” And then the connection is… You go, “Oh, yes.” And they go, “Who are you with?” You go, “Ace.” And they go, “Oh, that cider. I tried that in, in Bermuda,” or somewhere. And you go, “Really? Which one?” They go, “Oh, I tried the pint.” “Oh, that’s amazing.” You say, “Oh, I love it.” It… You wouldn’t… If you’re too shy or you’re too withdrawn or introspective, that’s not gonna happen.

You’re putting [00:41:00] yourself out there, and I suppose that’s the way I’ve been. I’ve… I came here not knowing anybody. Maybe one or two contacts, but I did, I really didn’t know anybody. And that was a big chance to take. My father… I had a good job in advertising in London. My father said, “You better not come back here with a tail between your legs.”

And that sort of was the motivation to say I better keep going. But I think… Anyway, sorry. I’ve wandered off a bit there. It’s okay. It’s okay. Really, what, what I’m hearing is you kinda did what a lot of people see as the American dream. S- Coming from a foreign land and seeing the possibilities and seizing that.

And you did lay out in your book quite well what you need to be in terms of an entrepreneur, to be a business person. I think you did that very succinctly. It takes a, a lot of tenacity, a lot of putting yourself out, as you’re mentioning there. I’m wondering, do you think that [00:42:00] cider, and again conjecturing, but cider makers in general, do they focus- Maybe too much sometimes on the product and not enough on building the company.

Yes, yes, definitely. Okay. I think that’s the same with winemakers. Some people are just really intent on making a really good product, which is wonderful if that’s what they enjoy. But don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t sell if you don’t go out and put in the energy and the work. And it does take a certain type of person to do that.

Mm-hmm. Are you familiar with Pareto’s law? No. Clue me in. This is a, this is kind of a classic. Usually, say 80% of sales comes from 20% of the sales force. So you hire 100 people, y- 20 of them are gonna deliver, and probably of that 20, 10 of them will probably be your top people. The other, the others will, won’t do as well, and that applies to a lot of different things.

If you looked at brands, we [00:43:00] had number one Ace Pineapple, number two probably Ace Guava or Ace Perry. You, th- they do 70% of your business, 70 to 80% of your business. So that Pareto law applies to a lot of different things. When you talk about building something, you can’t give up. Winners never quit, quitters never win.

Persistence is a very big thing. There’s gonna be lots of potholes or problems. I had a fine for $1.7 million for a tax bill I wasn’t expecting. I had a heart attack. Yeah. And- You skirted the law a, a couple times and, and sometimes the law caught you, which is y- you also have to be a risk-taker. Yeah, that’s the thing the corporation won’t do, an SEC company especially.

They closed down my pub ’cause it was a bit of a slightly gray area and you could have a certain number of people in it on a Friday, but yeah, you’ve gotta take certain chances. I had to take certain [00:44:00] risks. Mm-hmm. And I will say that one of the first things I saw when I came to San Francisco, coming to America was like a breath of fresh air after being in Britain during the Thatcher years, or cl- pre-Thatcher, and then Thatcher years.

And driving across the country and seeing how vast it was and I was… I left Britain ’cause I was a bit depressed. I, my depression lifted. I got to San Francisco. We got to the California coast as we drove up. It was just magnificent. It got better and better. And then I, at some stage there, I just saw on the wall a sign saying, “Just do it,” right?

The Nike thing. Yes. That essentially- That- That’s it. Just do it. Yeah. In terms of growth for a cidery, how do you know when creating value is worth it versus you’re simply creating- More work and debt. You’re getting further in debt because that, that kinda happened to you a little bit. You found looking at the books, they weren’t, like, squaring away.[00:45:00]

So you’re creating growth, but at what cost? Yeah, but, ’cause I think- How do you work that out? See, that’s when we switched from contract cider making to getting our own facility and putting in our own equipment, Ria. That was… It’s very expensive, all that stainless steel and all those pumps and- Yeah … and, and filters and- And tanks

and that’s, and then you had to hire more people. So there has to be a period there where you’ve spent your money. I had some money from the sale of the Blackthorn. I got recompensed a bit for losing that brand. But that money, I overspent, and then you spend a few years trying to get back to, to balance the books.

And when, what you just said there about putting value in, the margin is really important in business. You’ve gotta make a decent margin. If you’re not making 50% or so on the cost of, so if your sale is $10 and you’re not making five, you’re not really in the right area, ’cause you need that [00:46:00] money for cashflow.

You need that money for buying equipment. You need that money just to make it worth it. Why go out and s- again, not unless it’s a hobby, which it could be for a lot of people. So now you’ve got 1,000 cideries in America. Now, how many of those, we go back to the Pareto law, probably even fewer than what I said, it’s probably the top 10 or 20 that are sorta doing, oh, reasonably well, I would think.

There’s a lot of others that are probably doing well if it’s just a two-man operation or a small operation. But a, a lot of them probably are finding it tough. Yeah. ‘Cause it’s, how do you differentiate as well one apple cider from another apple cider? That was part of my issue is that, sure, 50% of the cider in the UK is apple and 50% is fruit.

But you can have a dry apple cider. You can have a medium dry apple cider. You’ve got a bit more variation when you start introducing the fruits. [00:47:00] And then the purists will say, “Oh, no, you can’t do that. Cider is just apple or pear. You can’t go outside of that.” And if I hadn’t done that, I don’t think I’d be talking to you today.

Yeah, so it was the right choice to make for your business. Yeah, that wasn’t always approved by everybody. I, I think that’s gonna go along with the territory, isn’t it? As a business person, everything you do, your competitors either are looking in adoration or they’re saying, “Not a good move.” Yeah. But at the end, you ended up selling the business and making it a value.

So I’m wondering, going to that sale, if we could talk a little bit about that, because I think that’s rather interesting. 2021 it sold, so we were still kinda slowly ebbing out of COVID a bit. There was a lot going on just in the world of things. Why was that the right time to sell? Was it because the deal finally came through?

Because, as you mentioned, you had spoken to a number of different folks. You had the French company- Yeah … [00:48:00] at the sale. You built something buyers wanted. What did you learn about choosing the buyer? Because- Oh, wow … in the end, they, what they, I think they went into chapter 11 in 2024, the same company that- That’s, that’s-

bought Ace … that, that’s correct, yeah. Yeah. Vintage Wine Estates, VWE. Yeah. That’s a whole different kettle of fish, ball of wax you, you- You wanna try and tie in with somebody that shares your values and your culture. And I- you also want to grow. I wanted the brand to get bigger, and I felt that we would have to make another investment of several million dollars into faster canning equipment, probably a lot more filtration, and we even bought a pasteurization machine, which cost millions.

And I, i- i- you then you have to sign another lease. I didn’t own the building, but I’d have to sign another lease for five years. You’re talking about several million [00:49:00] dollars there in rent. Yeah. And then when you talk about that period, yes, we went through COVID, which was terrible. That could have… That knocked out the whole of our on-premise business.

Yeah. We lost Disneyland, Disney World. But remarkably, and this is us to be really lucky, th- the r- retail business, the off-premise business grew faster than the lost on-premise business, so we had one of our best years ever in 2021. So that was another reason. As you get bigger, everybody looks at your labels and any statement you’re making, and then they consult a lawyer, and those lawyers usually get for their clients easily, without too much trouble, that people settle for 30,000 or what have you.

And you get tired of opening these Federal Express letters. You tear the strip and then, “Dear Mr. House,” and you’re going, “Oh gosh,” it goes. So that was going on. As you get bigger, you have more people in your [00:50:00] organization, so you get, unfortunately, characters that say that they’ve had accidents and they’re claiming workers’ comp.

So you get all these complications. But the, one of the main things is getting back to this depression. I had a very bad depressive episode during, it was in ’16 to ’18, where I had to call my eldest son to come back and run the business, Jason, from New York. Otherwise, I could have probably lost it all. I thought that some of that was stress-related from the business, because it is stressful running a, a, a multimillion dollar business.

And I thought that’s also another reason to maybe cash in. The offer that was made initially, I turned down. It was for, I think it was for about 40 odd, $47 million. I said no because when the gentleman came round to try the ciders, he sipped on them and- We got the feeling that he really didn’t really get [00:51:00] into the ciders.

We loved the Ace Ciders. They were, they’re my babies. They were- Yeah, your babies, no doubt. I hear it. Yeah … yeah, I created them. We, I said no to him. Okay. And then we tried to go to the c- the other guy, ’cause he seemed to be a bit more knowledgeable, the Kopperberg guy, and he came from Belfast, the managing director, and he came in with the owner.

And they, their offer wasn’t quite attract- as attractive, and they had a big clawback, and I thought their ciders were too sweet. They wanted us to push Kopperberg in America, and- Mm-hmm … I’m going, “Oh, no, it’s not s- I don’t know if I wanna do that.” I turned that one down. And then I went to the local grocery store and was ordering from the deli some stuff.

I turned around, and there is the gentleman from Vintage Wine Estates standing there. And I said to him, “Hey, do you wanna still buy the Ace Cider Company?” And he said, “Yes.” And I said, “Can we get a bit more than the last offer?” He said, “No, the same offer.” But I think I could’ve written out the whole of the [00:52:00] business deal on a napkin right there and then.

And he made a lot of promises, like buying a place on the East Coast for us, which they did in Ohio, a winery, opening up more Ace on the whole pubs across the country. They had a, a, a, a sales force that was about 100 people to join our 20. They had the money. They understood the category, the cider thing.

Yeah. And how important i- … is it to find someone who understands the category before you sell it to them? I ju- I think wine and beer, you know, it’s not- You would think it would match, but it doesn’t sound like he was fully- He, he- … or the company itself was fully astute in the category. No, they wanted our distribution, because we had nearly 200 distributors across the country.

Mm-hmm. And we were in every state. The last one was New Hampshire. I think that’s what they wanted. Then they wanted a lock into RD- RTDs into, into those distributorships. [00:53:00] But th- they were stretched, and they’re not alone in this. Uh, most corporations have a different mindset completely to entrepreneurial businesses.

Yes. And they came in and thought they could do it better. And you can’t, because it’s 24/7, and you’re thinking about it all the time. And they’re not gonna put that energy into it. That’s right. So it’s actually- It’s a mistake. There’s not many companies that, small companies that do better selling to big corporations.

Yeah, there’s a lot of letting go, especially when, as you said, the ciders are part of your family. You brought them up and you saw them flourish, and to go. They didn’t listen to a word I said as a consultant. They just ignored it all and they wanted my sons, I think, to take over the company, but again, wine people, ’cause of the margins- Yeah

and spirits people, and to some extent beer people, all treat cider as a, the poor [00:54:00] country cousin, I think, which is unfortunate, ’cause it’s, in many ways, as I said earlier, a much better drink than the, the other ones. Yeah. It’s a interesting category, the drinks category. Yeah. I’m curious, how has the American cider consumer changed over the years, from ’93 now to 2026?

‘Cause you still have your finger on the pulse. The awareness of cider has increased immensely. There’s very few people that don’t know what cider is. When we started, they thought it was apple juice. And they thought it was something up in your neck of the woods. You came in October and they gave you a pencil or something with an apple on the end of it, and you drank the local cider.

So that word, we had to try and get, what did we say? Hard cider or it ain’t apple juice. Mm-hmm. We had to try and convince people it was fermented. That, that’s a done deal. I think most people know that cider is an alcoholic drink. Isn’t it, like, 5 billion now or something? For the cider market? The total.

In the US? So there’s… [00:55:00] Yeah. Yeah. I think- It’s up there. It’s in the billion, yeah. Yeah. When we started, it- I’m not s- sure who’s seeing all that, but somebody is. That’s probably at full retail price. That’s… Yeah. It’s not wholesale or manufacturer’s price, ’cause we had about 5% of the market when we were doing 20, 25 million.

And then Angry Orchard, of course, was huge. Jim Koch. And he- That’s your company, yeah. And he basically was the one that helped lift the market by saying that, by spending the money decimating Woodchuck, which was v- he did very quickly, amazingly. He, he said, what is it? “A high tide floats all boats.” And that’s when the Budweisers, the Millers all started spending money on advertising.

So that’s where your awareness has come from, all that TV advertising and tastings. And then you’ve got, you’ve got a couple of people that two about… We, we, I think we were number two or three in the country. The Ace Pineapple was the number one fruit cider in America. Can you [00:56:00] believe that from a small family-owned business?

All success al- always begins at a blank page, and then- Yeah … you take it from there. You know, I’m gonna ask you about the fruit cider category because Ace was way ahead on the curve- Mm. Yeah … fruit cider. And obviously it helped build the American cider market because it got it well-known. But did it come with a downside?

S- do you think it kinda confused the category a little bit? And probably you’re the wrong person to ask that because y- y- y- No … you being the founder of Ace. Mm-hmm. But that educational piece, I come from a background where, you know, I believe they, they were throwing raisins into cider back in the Revolutionary War era.

Yeah. It’s not that I haven’t made fruit myself, right? And it- Yeah … has longstanding. But w- what are your thoughts on that? Because even though we’ve educated people, I do see that there’s a long stretch there still to come. If we hadn’t done it, somebody else would’ve done it. I gotta be honest here that everybody says they’ve [00:57:00] got an original idea, but when I thought about Ace Pineapple, it’s, I was in Hawaii and I, we’d been there for my honeymoon a week and I so loved the place.

I said, “I gotta keep on coming back here, so I gotta think about a Hawaiian cider.” And I thought lilikoi, no. Then pine apple and I went, oh, that’s it, pineapple. But there was a pineapple winery there. They were making pineapple wine. And the same thing applies to the States. When we started, there was a, a competitor called Wyder’s from Canada.

Mm-hmm. Ian Wyder. Yeah. He had a very perfumey pear cider, and his pear did really well. So that was, that kind of gave the… His was Canadian and that gave me the, the, the impetus to do Ace Pear, which was a winner. I don’t know if you actually have an original idea. I think they feed off some other thoughts, right?

I don’t know. When I look back on it, I’m really very [00:58:00] pleased or proud of what we achieved, Ria. I think we did a good job. I think we did pretty well and I say time will only tell whether selling it, it was the right thing or not, but at the moment I would say it was, because of the s- various issues in the e- the economy, the stock market and stuff like that, has done very well.

It could’ve been a, a business for my grandchildren. It could’ve continued. We were profitable and debt-free from 2015 onwards, which you can’t really say for a lot of cideries. With that long view then, and what you’re saying is, leads me to a question. W- where do you see the cider market now in the US?

You could wipe your hands of it, so to speak, and now continue to work on your legacy. Is there something that you may be seeing about cider, either that, oh, I should’ve stayed in it, or maybe I got out at the right time? That [00:59:00] we’re not seeing Cider’s, c- cider is actually growing. You know that, right? Mm-hmm.

Compared to craft beer is on the slide and so is wine, big time. Mm-hmm. But cider, and maybe it is some of the smaller cideries that are producing this growth, it’s a slow, steady progress. Even if you’re getting three, two or 3% lifts every year, you’re growing. And cider, I think, is underappreciated, and it’s got a long way to go.

Yeah. There’s a lot to be gleaning from this conversation with you, Geoffrey. It’s just a wealth of information, and I imagine we could probably go on for three more hours talking. I’m absolutely f- fascinated with this topic. And I do hear this a little bit in this conversation with you, a little bit of sadness about selling Ace and what it could’ve done for your family.

But at the same time, from my vantage point, and I’m sure a lot of listeners out there, you made an incredible mark. And what you did and continue to show the world is something that we need a lot more of. Thank [01:00:00] you. Very nice of you. And you gotta remember that I’m still the joker. Yes, and I love that. I, sometimes I wonder why you called the book The Cider King, but I kinda see you as the cider ace.

Yeah, no, maybe it should’ve been… Again, that’s such a, it’s not a very modest title. And we don’t have any kings in the America, but, you know- No, not at the moment … it’s a play on it. Yeah. And, and that’s really fun. But yeah, I d- I don’t know. It came up and it could’ve been The Joker, it could’ve been The Ace Man.

May- maybe with, say if it goes to docuseries I’ll have to change the title or something, but yeah, I think it’s a good book. It gets 4.9 stars out of five. If my brother-in-law had given me a higher mark, I would’ve got five. Oh, geez. And what’s the best way for people to get the book, too? What’s a good way to do that?

They go to ciderking.net is probably the best way, and it’s on Amazon. It’s $19 or so for the paperback. You can get it electronically. It has to be good for [01:01:00] most cider people, I would’ve thought, if you… ‘Cause it’s got history of cider. It should be re- required reading for anybody- Uh-huh … taking a cider-making course.

Starting in this industry, I would say don’t hesitate to read this, because there’s a lot of lessons in there- Mm-hmm … that are of super value. And I do wanna recommend going directly to the ciderking.net because you’re supporting an independent writer. Ria, thank you very much indeed. I really appreciate it.

You’re gonna make me cry. If you start crying, I’ll start crying too, so we’ll end it there. Lot of effort. Yeah. Really, the, the bottom line to it is, I gotta tell you this, is what I said to a lot of people coming to my Ace & The Old Pump, “Don’t ask me to do it again.” I may, so speak soon. All right. Bye bye. Bye bye.

Before we close out, I have to give Jeffrey House an A+ because throughout the entire [01:02:00] process of putting this episode together, he was doing exactly what he talked about in our conversation. He communicated, he followed up, he sent photos, articles, and a wealth of information about Ace. And of course, he sent me a copy of The Cider King.

Now, that might sound obvious, but if you want somebody to talk about your book, they need the book. If you want somebody to talk about your cider, they need to taste the cider. And Jeffrey understood that from the get-go. And after more than 500 interviews, I could tell you, I wish I could clone that kind of follow-through.

He gets an A+, or maybe I should say he’s an ace. Thank you, Jeffrey. And don’t forget, the next Totally Cider tour is heading to France this April for blossom time. Get your name in on the wait list by sending an email this way to info@ciderchat.com. You’ll find information about the tour, links for today’s conversation, and the transcript for this [01:03:00] episode in the show notes at ciderchat.com.

And with that, I leave you here. This is Ria Windcaller signing off for now. Looking forward to seeing you in Ciderville.

We like cider. We like pommes

Orchards and having fun. There is a reason There is a reason why we do it like this Oh, yes, there is There is a reason why we do it like this Oh, yes, there is There is a reason why we drink it like this Oh, yes, there is, there is a reason. We like walking through the orchards, dancing in the streets.

Smelling all the blossoms, kicking up our feet

We like cider. We [01:04:00] like pommes We like Orchards having some fun. There is a reason. There is a reason why we do it like this. Oh, yes there is. There is a reason why we do it like this. Oh, yes there is. There is a reason why we drink it like this. Oh, yes there is. There is a reason. We like walking through the orchards, dancing in the streets.

Smelling all the blossoms, kicking up our feet. Oh, yeah. We like cider. Oh, yes we do. We like pommes Oh, yes we do. We love orchards, having some fun. There is a reason. There is a reason why we do it like this. Ba, da, da, dum. There is a reason why we do it like this. Ba, da, da, dum. There is a reason why we drink it like this.

Ba, da, da, dum. Ba, da, da, dum. We like [01:05:00] walking down the orchards, dancing in the streets. Smelling all the blossoms, kicking up our feet. Oh, yeah We like cider. Ba-da-da-dum. We like pommes. Oh, yes, we do. We like orchards, having some fun

Yeehaw!