Cider Review: Seminary Hill Cider's SHOC Estate Reserve and some experimentation

I’m writing a bit early this week, because I’ll be traveling soon. I’m so excited to be headed for New Orleans for the first time since the 1990s! I like to take a Winter trip when I can, and I’ve longed to go back to New Orleans for a very long time. It should be a walking-heavy blend of food, spooky stuff, great food, and lots of relaxing in *fingers crossed* better weather than the end of February in upstate New York. 

This is my third entry about Seminary Hill Cider out of Callicoon, New York. This small independent cidery has been making beautiful ciders and doing tastings and events at a gorgeous environmentally focused cidery in the Catskills. Check out my earlier review and roundup to learn more about this boutique destination cidery.

Round up, in which I share short thoughts on the 2021 Beechwoods, Nicksen,  2020 Semi-Sweet Cackling Hen, Tom’s Beard, and Spy Who Came in From the Cold: https://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2023/10/cider-review-seminary-hill-cider-roundup.html

Delaware Dry (my #8 favorite cider of 2023): https://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2023/12/cider-review-seminary-hill-ciders.html

I recommend going to the Seminar Hill Cidery website to learn more about this Catskills Cidery and all of the ciders and events there: https://www.seminaryhill.co/

Appearance: brilliant, bubbly, intense nectarine

What a lovely cider. I appreciate the bubbles dancing from the bottom of my glass and ringing the liquid. The SHOC Estate Reserve delivers an intense color that reminds me of nectarine flesh. 

Aromas: peaches, ripe apples, pineapple, golden flower petals

This cider smells deliciously like peaches, pineapples, and ripe apples. Secondarily, I get a whiff of clean spring green and something connotes golden petals.

Sweetness/Dryness: Off Dry

This is a beautifully balanced off dry cider. It has enough sweetness to keep fruit to the forefront of the experience, but it’s remarkably restrained.

Flavors and drinking experience: Off dry, zingy, peachy, structured, creamy, perfumed finish

The SHOC Estate Reserve maintains its off-dry balance with off-the-charts acid, substantial tannins, and plentiful fruit notes. It comes across first as zingy and peachy. The cider develops in its midpalate into a full creamy body that remains structured by the tannins. As a potentially strange metaphor, I would say this cider lifts weights! 

I also note lots of vinous flavors and a bit of inviting earthiness. What I think I love most is how concentrated flavor remains from start to finish.  The small active bubbles and perfumed finish complete an utterly delightful beverage. This is one I’d be proud to place at the important meals of my life, but I’m also thrilled that I got to enjoy it with a simple supper the day before my trip. Good cider is for special occasions, but it’s also for everyday life. 

One last little preview of what’s to come. I’ve been doing this blog for more than ten years now, and I’ve developed a regular posting schedule and a bit of a template for posts. In the next few months, I will experiment with how Along Came a Cider shares. I’ll be posting twice a month rather than weekly. That’s so I can possibly share some original recipes using cider, write more posts about cider out in the world, my experiences at cider events, and try out some other things. I want to keep myself on my toes; suggestions are welcome.

Cider Review: Seminary Hill Cider's Delaware Dry

It’s wet, chilly, and blustery outside. I am so glad to be home and warm. Not only that, I have a plate of delicious pizza and a cider that I’m very excited to review. Tonight, I’m sharing my thoughts on Seminary Hill Cider's Delaware Dry. I can feel the number of times I’ve ensconced myself and whatever writing machine I’m using for exactly this sort of evening. What a familiar sort of contentment. I love the nights when I know that I’ll be opening a very tasty cider indeed. 

Seminary Hill Cider comes to us from the Catskills region of New York. The cidery was founded in 2012, but I only got to experience the place and the cider for the first time earlier this year. 

Round up of several Seminary Hill ciders including, 2021 Beechwoods, Nicksen,  2020 Semi-Sweet Cackling Hen, Tom’s Beard,  Spy Who Came in From the Cold: https://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2023/10/cider-review-seminary-hill-cider-roundup.html

Here’s how to find the cidery, restaurant, and hotel online: https://www.seminaryhill.co/

Tonight I’m sharing about the Delaware Dry. Here’s all the info about this cider available from Seminary Hill’s website. 

2020 Delaware Dry

Silver Medal GLINTCAP

Alcohol 8.2%

pH 3.76

Titratable Acidity (TA) 7.47 g/L

Bottling Date 6.22.21

Bone dry, floral, spice, mild bitterness, medium body, good acid

Blend: Chisel Jersey 42%, Baldwin 26% Golden Russet 20% Northern Spy 12%

Appearance: brilliant, intense popcorn yellow, few visible bubbles

This cider brings absolute ferocity of color. It reminds me of popcorn kernels tonight, but the warm toned yellow can be found all over autumn.

Aromas: Lemon peel, candied orange, minerals

The Delaware Dry smells amazing and delectable. I get notes of lemon peel, candied orange, and minerals. 

Dryness/sweetness: Dry

This is absolutely a dry cider. It needs no sweetness to be absolutely flavorful and completely itself. 

Flavors and drinking experience: Dry, bubbly, tannic, high acid, vivid, citrus and minerals

Whoa. The Delaware Dry tastes so vivid and minerally, it’s almost savory. Specifically I get notes of slate. This dry cider has a clean edge of bitterness, but the bubbly high acid carry it. I find it totally delicious. I’m so grateful for the clean fermentation. The fruitiness is present but restrained; I’m reminded of beautifully ripe grapefruit.

I had this tonight with pineapple pizza, but I remember enjoying with the ripest of late-season tomatoes and perfect sourdough bread. Both are incredible. I'd also serve it with a creamy chowder. There are so many good options for such a delightful food-friendly cider. 

Cider Review: Seminary Hill Cider Roundup

I had the opportunity to partner with Seminary Hill Cider last week and visit the Callicoon, New York cidery. They hosted the tall one and me for two nights at The Boarding House, shared a beautiful pairing meal (with vegetarian options), and showed us a complete behind-the-scenes tour of the growing orchard, production facility, and tasting room. And it wasn’t going to be the full experience without tasting a few more of the ciders. Luckily, we had far more sunshine than we expected and really got to see the Catskills at their autumnal finest. If you're curious, check out my Instagram to see the visual storytelling.

For full disclosure, I was hosted beautifully and treated to a wonderful time by Stuart, Chef Jack and the kind folks at Seminary Hill in exchange for some social media coverage of the experience. Nothing about the blog was part of the arrangement. I’m choosing to share a few notes on a select few of the ciders we tasted, because they were most certainly the cider highlight of my week. For this roundup, I choose to include five ciders that left big impressions. Other ciders might appear later in individual reviews, but here’s a fun smattering of what can be found at the Seminar Hill Cidery Tasting Room.

First, here’s the website that includes info on the ciders, Restaurant, Boarding House and Tasting room: https://www.seminaryhill.co/

For each of these, I’ll include the official description and a quick summayr of what the Tall one and I thought. 

2021 Beechwoods

Alcohol 7.7% - pH 3.86 - Titratable Acidity (TA) 3.5 g/L g/L - Bottling Date 7/21/22

Still, Dry, Unfiltered

A relatively low-acid, soft, round, tannic cider. Perhaps the dry cider equivalent of comfort food.

Bronze and lightly cloudy.

Nose: Apricot, Jasmine

Palate: velvety with mild acid, apricot, peach, and Minneola. Finish: Medium bitterness and generous astringency.

Blend:Chisel Jersey 44%, Dabinett 35%, Wickson17%, Porter's Perfection 4%

Bronze Medal GLINTCAP

To us, the Beechwoods smelled immediately like ripe apples, golden raisins, and when we tasted the primary impression was one of deep soft ripeness. This cider needs to be still, all the better for it to express the smooth worn wood, softened leather, with good tannic bitterness.  I appreciated the dried apricot notes along with papery tannins.

Nicksen 

Alcohol 7% - Titratable Acidity (TA) 5.23 g/L - Bottling Date 12/6/22

Blend: Dabinett 37%, Harry master’s Jersey 29%, Baldwin 13%, Wickson 5%, Puget Spice 5%, Zaubergau Reinette 4%, GoldRush 4%, Yarlington Mill 3%.

RS 1.5% TA 5.2 g/L

Brilliant Gold Petillant

Nose: Fresh. Apple, spice, deeply floral, toffee, mineral water

Palate: Sweet fresh apple and spice hit you first. Then the spice becomes more herbal and woodsy (is there a hint of wintergreen?) and the astringency kicks in. Full of flavor, but moderate on acid. Very easy drinking.

This cider makes me think of dust in the sunlight from the first sniff through tasting. Alex found it redolent of dried leaves and dark chocolate; I don’t disagree. The cider feels sweet, perhaps even a bit sweeter than its residual sugar because the acid isn’t angular and powerful. The cider tastes dark rather than bright, with a fruity red bell pepper finish. 

2020 Semi-Sweet Cackling Hen 

Alcohol 7% - Titratable Acidity (TA) 6.3 g/L g/L - Bottling Date 10.5.21

A lightly carbonated semi-sweet cider. A layered experience with lots of fruit. Concord grape, cherry, wood resin.

Residual Sugar 1.4%

Blend: Yarlington Mill 32%, Ellis Bitter 29%, Northern Spy 19%, Tremlett’s Bitter 12%, Newtown Pippin 6%, Chisel Jersey 2%

Zing! This cider rings like a struck cymbal. Though it’s still got some sweetness, the impression is more that of an austere acid bomb. The cider is sophisticated and restrained with notes of lemon and Bing Cherry. We noticed the official descriptions use of the word resin; that captures something important.

Tom’s Beard

Alcohol 7.5% - Titratable Acidity (TA) 8.4 g/L - Bottling Date 1/6/23

A Semi-Dry New World cider with tropical fruit notes and bright acidity. Great with food but also wonderful on its own.

Silver Medal GLINTCAP

Blend: Golden Russet 62%, Newtown Pippin 20%, Wickson 13%, Northern Spy 5%

Nose: Citrus, passion fruit, mango

Palate: Bright acidity, citrus, passion fruit, citrus pith.

RS 1.6% Malic acid 8.4g/L

For folks who want a bit of funk in their cider, start here! It has a smoky phenolic smell but the flavors are dazzlingly intense with tropical fruit. Yes that acid makes it very much a New World/East Coast cider. It’s very juicy and apple-y with a golden ribbon of pineapple as well. I imagine this one's a crowd pleaser. It’s sweet, big, rich, and thick.

Spy Who Came in From the Cold

I don’t have all of the information on this one, but this is a lightly petillant dessert cider.

I was immediately impressed by it’s delightful high acid. This one oozes golden raisins but is sharped up with a strong flavor of Crab apples. What a wonderful treat to find a petillant dessert cider that’s not too thick in mouthfeel. The overall impression is a sweet cider that’s blooming and exciting but not too boozy. Secondarily I get notes of  red currant, shortbread, and the tiniest hint of funk. Single varietal Northern Spy.

I think I’d like to go back to Seminary Hill on my own for a self-directed writer’s retreat, maybe to catch the beauty of another season in this gorgeous spot. It's quiet and peaceful. The farm and landscape certainly offer inspiration aplenty; I kept thinking of Grimm’s fairy tales when I peeked across the well- cared-for-orchards into the forest beyond. 

Cider Review: Wayside Cider's Hunt the Fox

 

I don’t know what has changed, but my mind has turned to nesting. Maybe it's the darker golden evening light, the soft morning spider webs, or the impending school year. Something has made my homing instincts come out in full force. And to take advantage of this, I opened up a 750ml bottle of cider to share last night. This felt like a change from my frequent enjoyment of canned ciders. Perhaps this was just a moment of homebody feelings, but I sense cozy times with cider ahead.

That’s part of why I chose Wayside Cider's Hunt the Fox. The other reason is that folks from the company shared this for review with me months ago! 

I have one previous review of anything by Wayside Cider. Here’s the link to my review of the Underhill: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2021/03/cider-review-wayside-ciders-underhill.html

I recommend visiting Wayside Cider online here to learn more about the ciders and tap room:  http://www.waysidecider.com/.

Here’s how Wayside Cider describes Hunt the Fox.

A still, unfiltered, cider featuring a blend of Chisel Jersey, Golden Russett, and Dabinett amongst others from the Finger Lakes that was fermented using a Lithuanian Farmhouse yeast. With notes of citrus, spice and a long tannic finish, this is more akin to a wine than our typical ciders. 8.5% ABV.\

Appearance: intense color, warm harvest gold, transparent

This cider is lovely in the bottle and in a glass. The intense color reminds me of a bright harvest gold. (I may have Fall on the brain.) It’s transparent through most pours, but it gets a bit hazy near the end of the bottle.

Aromas: funky, lemon, orange peel, toasted bread crumbs

This cider smells citrusy and funky. I anticipate some Spanish-style cider vibes. The citrus notes remind me of lemon and orange peel. There are also plentiful notes of toasted bread crumbs and yeast.

Sweetness/Dryness: Dry

This is a bone dry cider. The Hunt the Fox has lots going on, but none of it is sweet.

Flavors and drinking experiences: almost petillant, tannic, funky, warming

I was surprised first by the mouthfeel of this cider. It’s barely still: almost petillant. I like sparkle in any amount. Then the cider’s extremely high astringence showed up. This is the main event. Hunt the Fox is very tannic; it almost seems like a barrel-aged cider with no barrel. 

Hunt the Fox is an austere and structured experience rather than a fruity one. It’s not a carefree cider to be quaffed quickly. Wayside Cider has created a thoughtful slow cider that fans of the style will want to ruminate over. I appreciate it’s almost petillance and the low in the mouth fullness. The cider is warming.  It reminded me of a large bell, tolling slowly.

I opened Wayside Cider’s Hunt the Fox with every intention of watching a scary movie, but it ended up being a cozy night of conversation instead. I wouldn’t change that for anything. As for pairing this cider, I’d go for a mushroom dish, perhaps risotto. Lean into a rich mouthfeel and lots of umami. I think this cider looks forward to Fall too.

Cider Review: Wayside Cider's The Underhill

We’ve almost arrived at the most fickle and longed for season of the year. Yes, I know die hard Autumn fans, and for a very long time it was my undisputed favorite as well. I think I took Spring for granted growing up in rural Kentucky. It was lovely, blossoming and green every year. Now that I live in upstate New York, spring can be six weeks of wonder or it can be a bonus blizzard in April three days before temperatures hit the 70s. I anticipate Spring for weeks, enjoying all the little previews that last for 20 minutes or a couple of days. Even the muddy messy gritty parts of Spring feel precious. And they are almost here.

To celebrate the impending arrival of this capricious season, I opened up a cider from a company I don’t see very often. This is my very first review of a Wayside Cider! Folks from the cidery were kind enough to share a couple of bottles with me for review, and this is the first of them: Wayside Cider’s The Underhill!

Reading about Wayside online paints a rollicking and very land-focused identity. The cidery is based out of the Catskills in New York; it has operated since 2014. Irene Hussey and Alex Wilson founded this small cidery out of a garage (the first home for many a cidery). The company focuses on using American apples often heirloom varietals or foraged fruit. I first encountered Wayside Cider at the Gathering of the Farm Cideries in Albany, but someday (post pandemic) I hope to make it to the tasting room!

You can check out everything that’s going on for Wayside Cider on the website:  http://www.waysidecider.com/. 

Here’s the official description for The Underhill.

"The Underhill Sparkling Cider is a blend of cider apples from the Fingerlakes. With floral and herbal notes of meyer lemon, tarragon, and a distinct minerality. Serve Chilled. Made & bottled by Wayside Cider in Delhi, New York. Bottle Conditioned Naturally Sparkling and Unfiltered. Alcohol 7.5% by volume.”  

The first thing that I noticed about The Underhill is the incredible design. The label and the bottle shape just help me to expect something elegant and modern yet rustic. Good design is such a treat.

Appearance: intense, lemon curd, cloudy 

This cider poured very differently from the first bit of the bottle to the last. It started transparent but ended up quite cloudy. That’s how unfiltered sparkling ciders usually go. The color reminded me of lemon curd with it’s shade of mellow rich yellow and delectable intensity.

Aromas: Mango, pineapple, minerals, sourness and nuts

I love being surprised by a cider at any stage, and these aromas did surprise me. The cider’s description led me to expect something more austere, but my first impressions of the Underhill were its tropical fruit notes like mango and pineapple. I did get some minerality and sourness, but the fruit was more prominent. I also found a surprising nutty note.

Dryness/sweetness: Dry

This is a dry cider with a massively different profile. This is a dry cider that will wake you up! Keep reading to find out more.

Flavors and drinking experience: very tannic, apricot, medium acidity, astringent

Okay, I promised to explain the unusual profile on this cider. Yes, it’s dry, but it’s tannins are just ferocious! The Underhill has only medium acidity, but between that, the dryness and its very tannic bite, the cider feels and tastes austere. It’s demanding but also rewarding. 

The cider is tight and angular, but not totally without fruit notes. I can taste apricot and pear but fruit isn’t the dominant element. I just keep being shocked by the astringence. The other flavor note that surprises me is note that reminds me of almonds and cherry blossoms at the same time.

Somehow the overall impression is one of wildness. I served it chilled but the cider somehow conveyed greater coldness than just its actual temperature.

Then I paired it with spicy ginger cookies. Zing! Wow! Ginger brings out some previously hidden citrus in the cider. I love it this way. What a fun pairing.