Whitewood Cider has finally hit the shelves

June 3, 2013

Where does the time go? Last I remember it was February.

Well we did it. We made into the bottle and on the shelves and soon enough into the keg.

We put out our first 2 of 4 blends for 2013 and the response has been terrific. We are very pleased and overwhelmed by the amount of local support Puget Sound has already shown us.

You can currently locate the following 2 blends at:

Gravity Beer Market on our own turf here in Olympia, Washington... In Federal Way at the must stop beer shop 99 Bottles. In Seattle we can be found in Georgetown at Full Throttle Bottle amongst one of the country's best cider selection, and at the legendary Bottleworks in the Wallingford neighborhood, and soon enough on Capitol Hill at Capitol Cider which I'm predicting will become one of the premier cider bars and cider destinations in the world.

We'll be adding to the list on occasion so check back often.

On to our first 2 blends:

South Sounder

South Sounder is as native to South Puget Sound as it gets. This unique cider experiment is made from 100% locally sourced and community furnished apples from our friends and farms in and around Olympia and the South Sound. With flavors of apricot, green grape, and a bitter spiciness provided by Oly's antique heirloom apple selection, the South Sounder blend finishes clean with a ripe meyer lemon acidity set against a slight fig sweetness.

Old Fangled

100% heirloom variety blend fermented from Washington grown Jonathan, McIntosh, Gravenstein, and Winesap apples. Is clean, crisp, and fresh with juicy navel orange to clementine flavors. Ample amounts of heirloom apple acidity are balanced with a light sweetness and a bit of champagne-like tannic character finishing with a hint of black pepper spice.

Check in on Untappd.

Whitewood Cider featured on Serious Eats: Drinks Blog

February 26, 2013

Although not entirely a surprise considering I gave an interview, I still found myself taken back and more than excited this morning to wake up to the new Serious Eats: Drinks post 4 Up-and-Coming Cider Makers To Watch in 2013.

Whitewood Cider Co. found itself amongst great company listed in the article alongside 3 other terrific new cidermakers across the country. Sietsema Orchards from Ada Michigan, Blue Bee Cider in Richmond Virginia, and Tilted Shed Ciderworks of Forestville, California. I've had the pleasure to meet or get to know all these folks and it's a great honor for us.

Thanks to Chris Lehault for putting together yet another great cider read. Keep visiting Serious Eats to catch more of his work or keep tabs of him on Twitter or Facebook.

Updates: Our cider is fermenting. Almost finished pressing.

November 15, 2012

For those of you following along you are probably expecting a bit of an update. And rightly so. We've been hard at work pressing apples each weekend and have got a few tanks filled up. Here is your official Whitewood Cider Fall Pressing Update.

As you can see by the photos below we've been hard at work since October. Most of you may know I'm still enjoying the delights my day job at Espresso Parts, which means most of this has been done over the weekends. It's been a chore, and a learning experience, but I wouldn't do it any differently at this point. I also need to see that it would have been very difficult to make things go down like they have without the help of my brother Ryan. Thanks man!

Crushin' and Pressin'. This is the future 300 gallons of our local Olympia apple blend.

In this picture should be Yarlington Mill, Dabinett, Brown's Apple, and Harry Masters Jersey.

Pictured: 2) 300 gallon tanks of cider... At Whitewood Cider Co.

The tank on the left is 300 gallons of Yarlington Mill, Dabinett, and Brown's Apple cider apple varieties. It'll be our cider variety base blend #1 and if all goes well will likely be a pretty fantastic cider as is, no blending required. However we may do some slight blend tweaking between now and late Spring when it is finished. It all depends on what the cider tells us it wants.

The tank on the right is 300 gallons of our local Olympia blend made from apples within a 20 mile radius of Olympia. Give or take. Some of these apples came from a ranch in Yelm. I've got my fingers crossed that this is going to be a great cider without much tinkering. However should it need a bit of minimal adjustments it might just get it, but it will be minimal. I'd like to keep this as pure Olympia as I can. I'll be posting more about where these apples came from is future posts. Stay tuned.

Not Pictured:

240 gallons of pure Gravenstein cider from the Yakima Valley. I'm curious about this cider. In my experience Gravensteins make a terrific cider nearly on their own as a single varietal. So we may release a single varietal Gravenstein cider. However this could end up the base for an American heirloom apple blend using the ciders that follow.

We have a couple remaining smaller batches cooking too. 1) 80 Gallion tank with Macintosh and Jonathan heirloom apple varieties. 2) 80 gallon tank with Jonathans and a smattering of English cider varieties we picked up early.