Cider Review Waupoos Premium Cider and Melick’s Semi Dry Traditional

This summer I traveled with Alex to the Thousand Islands for a mini-vacation. We had a wonderful time and really enjoyed our AirBnB and hosts. They were kind enough to share a Canadian cider that I’d never heard of with me, and it’s been waiting all the months since. This week, I was finally ready to crack up that memory of Summer and see what Waupoos Premium Cider is all about. 

The company that makes Waupoos Cider is County Cider out of Ontario, Canada. The company has been producing cider since the mid 1990s, and for the cider scene that’s significant cred! The focus as the company describes it is on growing apples and producing quality cider with only local fruit. 

Visit the company online here: https://www.countycider.com/

Here’s my post from my other cider experience on that trip. I got to taste through the Kaneb’s Orchard Cider lineup: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2019/07/cider-review-kaneb-orchards-hard-cider.html

Here’s what Country Cider says about Waupoos Premium Cider.

WAUPOOS PREMIUM

Our top selling draft product for over 20 years. Exemplifies the crisp, fresh fruit qualities of our orchard-ripened apples with subtle undertones of bittersweet cider apples, giving an overall impression of freshness with the complexity of tannins and acidity. Seriously quaffable. 

A sessionable cider. 

Tasting Notes Off-dry, with zesty acidity and tangy apple fruit flavours; crisp lingering finish with underlying tannic qualities. Wonderful fresh apple aromas tantalizing the nose with the taste to come.

Think of chicken wings and wood fired pizza. 

6.5%ABV

Appearance: pale straw, brilliant, few bubbles

This cider looks like many ciders I’ve seen with it’s brilliant shine and pale shade of straw. I don’t see many bubbles but that doesn’t mean the cider isn’t strongly sparkling

Aromas: overripe apples, cherries, melon and powdered sugar

This cider smells of overripe apples, cherries, powdered sugar, and melon. My co-taster emphasized that he smelled lots of melon.  I also get hints of soft worn leather. It actually reminds me very much of a cider I’ve tasted years back; this is very reminiscent of Doc's Draft. This is a pleasant set of aromas. As it warms, there's a green apple rock candy note that comes out.  There are enough good smells that the bottle with it’s narrow limits them too much!

Sweetness/dryness: semi-sweet

This cider tastes semi-sweet to me. The sweetness reminds me of pears, green apples, and rock candy. The sweetness fades fast after each sip though, and that’s intriguing.

Flavors and drinking experience: pear, grain, gentle funk

Waupoos Premium Cider offers up a nicely immediate bright taste, but the acidity fades quickly. My overall impression of the acidity is of that interesting appearances and disappearance. It isn’t a fully sweet cider, but I’m habituated to a higher level of acidity such that sweetness stands out at this level. The mid-palate of this cider reminds me of pears and perry; the body is especially perry like.

I get an aftertaste of grain and peanuts from this cider. Though I can taste those gently funky notes for a while, the fullness and sweetness from the cider do not extend overlong. The cider shares just a little bit of English funk in its leatheriness. I like the very ripe fruit notes. What is different between the Waupoos cider and the English ciders it reminds me of in some ways, is that this cider does not leverage tannins. 

I'm really curious about one of County Cider Company’s other ciders: Tortured Path.  Pairs well with strong flavors.  Had it with casual Mexican lunch and it was good.

And now for Melick’s Semi Dry Traditional!

Melick’s is one of the only New Jersey cideries that I know of. This wouldn’t surprise many people until look at the fact that in the 1900s, New Jersey probably producted more hard cider than any state in the country. Melick’s is a farm-based producer that makes cider and wine. The company is based in Oldwick. 

You can learn more online about Melick’s Cider: https://www.melickstownfarm.com/HardCider

I reviewed the George’s Tart Cherry earlier this year: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2019/07/cider-reviews-portland-cider-cos.html

Here’s how the company introduces the Semi Dry Traditional

Our new Semi-Dry hard cider uses champagne yeast to produce a crisp, refreshing, hard cider, that is light on the palette with no added cane sugar. Enjoy chilled with your favorite meal! 6% by Volume 500 ML

Appearance: very bubbly, cool straw, brilliant

This cider bubbles enthusiastically! Melick’s Semi-Dry Traditional is alive with bubbles; they even formed a mousse for a moment before fizzing away. I’ll call the color cool straw and the transparency brilliant. 

Aromas: aquatic, green apple, grain 

The Traditional smells like green apples white flowers, and grain. I can also detect something aquatic and mild going on that reminds me of cucumbers. 

Dryness/sweetness: semi-dry

As promised, this cider is semi-dry! What sweetness I detect is very green apple and fresh fruit.

Flavors and drinking experience: tart, yeasty, fresh apples, bubbly

This cider brings plenty of tartness to my tastebuds! The Semi Dry Traditional smelled good, but tastes even better. The cider is balanced with plenty of ripe apple character but even more notes that strike me as the result of a good clean fermentation. My co-taster also noticed some pleasantly austere flavors that made them think of yeast artifacts and even like a refreshing lager.  My largest is impression is simultaneously of green apples and toasted grain. 

This cider has a medium body made lighter with lots and lots of bubbles. We had this with popcorn and a scary movie, but that’s how I’ve been pairing lots of my ciders this month. I think the Semi Dry Traditional could go with a plethora of foods because it’s well-balanced and approachable. Next time, I’d pair it with fish tacos or a vegetarian chili. 

Her Father's Cider Bar and 3 Windswept Orchard Ciders: Ida Red, Crimson Crisp and Golden Russet

I spent Memorial Day weekend in Toronto celebrating a birthday; This meant three amazing days, eating, walking, gawping at fish in the aquarium, and generally exploring this cool new city. No exploration is complete without checking out a new cider scene, and I was stoked to see what Toronto has to offer cider-wise. 

After a shockingly intense thunderstorm, we headed off to Her Father’s Cider Bar for dinner and cider. I’d heard about this particular spot for more than a year. When we arrived, I was instantly charmed by seeing how the world-class cider selection is stored and displayed. Looking at the menu only increased my excitement. The cider menu didn’t fit in a paragraph, or a column, or even a page. It was a book and a chalkboard. I knew we’d come to the best place in all of Toronto, and that was before we tried the chickpea fries!

You can see some lovely photos and check out the extensive menus online: https://www.herfathers.ca

I love how the ciders are divided into styles in the menu of bottled and canned ciders. That gives the drinker enough information to really hone in on a style they like and still try something unfamiliar. Plus the flags make identifying cidery location very simple too. Check out this cider by the glass page. It's positively swoon-worthy.

My cider co-pilot Woody had an adventurous flight of ciders with different additives and fermentation technique experiments, and I tried the Single Varietal Flight from Windswept Orchards. I love apple blends, but I am always curious to try a single varietal from an apple I've not tasted singly before and this flight had two: Ida Red and Crimson Crisp. And the one apple I did know from other single varietals is the Golden Russet which has contributed some fantastic ciders.

Windswept Orchard Ciders is a relatively young Ontario cidery: started in 2016. From what I read on the website; Windswept uses foraged fruits from abandoned orchards and has invested in the future with a young orchard on the farm.

Visit the cidery website to learn more and to peek at all the gorgeous labels: https://windsweptcider.com/

Ida Red

Here’s Windswept Orchard Cider’s official description:

Ida Red apples are known for their sweet aromas and zippy tart finish. Light, crisp and delicate, great on it's own as an aperitif. Crafted with 100% Ida Red apples from a single orchard overlooking the shores of Georgian Bay near Thornbury, Ontario. Bottle conditioned, contains lees. 7.4% 500ml 101 cases produced.

I found the Ida Red a bubbly dry, delicate cider. I loved it’s pear-apple aromas and clean fermentation. It brough an airy  light body and lots of bubbles to the experience. This is definitely one I’d like to seek out again. 

Next up was the Crimson Crisp: a GLINTCAP Silver Medalist

Here’s the official description for Crimson Crisp: 

A modern varietal with heirloom appeal, Crimson Crisp apples are rich, tart and full of flavour. Lush, vinous and textural. Crafted with 100% Crimson Crisp apples sourced from a single orchard and grown on the slope of the Niagara escarpment on Georgian Bay. Bottle conditioned, contains lees. 7.4% ABV 500ml 101 cases produced.

For me the Crimson Crisp smelled just like homemade apple sauce; it reminded me of ciders with a lot of Northern Spy. I like the super vivid apple aromas that make me think of the texture of ripe apples as much as the taste. When drinking, I found this cider a bit more yeasty and fermented. Something about it connoted cold though it’s serving temperature was the same as its compatriots.

I want to finish up with the Golden Russet, starting with its official description:

Rich, lively honey apple finish. Coveted amongst cidermakers, Golden Russet apples are known for their perfect balance of sweetness, acidity and tannin. Crafted from 100% Golden Russet apples grown in a single orchard overlooking the shores of Georgian Bay near Meaford, Ontario. Bottle conditioned, contains lees. 7.4% ABV 500ml 155 cases produced

Oh boy! This cider smells mature and farmy! The Golden Russet is the funky one of the flight! It was smart to put it last on the list, as it’s a build up to this wild and barny cider. The aromas remind me not only of barn wood but also a dry sherry. The tastes are very different from the cider’s smells. The Golden Russet tastes like pear and like a soft overripe apple. I love this one.

The food was absolutely as good as the cider, and I wouldn't trade the whole experience for anything. Toronto was a great place to visit and a fun place for cider.