CRAFTING CIDER

PHOTOS COURTESY OF APPLE OUTLAW

CIDER CONNECTION

New tastes for historically signifi cant beverage drive fl avor innovations at Applegate cidery

Plenty of craft ciders are brewed in Oregon. “Tree-to-bottle” ciders are in a class of their own.

 e Apple Outlaw brand has grown far beyond the capacity of Blair Smith’s seven-acre orchard in the Applegate. But Smith’s higher-end  ompson Creek line keeps the connection to his land alive.

“It focuses on and highlights the organic, estate-grown fruit,” says Smith.

In his single-varietal ciders, Smith showcases McIntosh, Gravenstein and Wickson apples. Packaged like wines in 750-milliliter bottles, these ciders also have distinct † avor and aroma pro‡ les that conjure rose petals and other † orals; raspberries, grapes and pears; and cinnamon, cardamom and clove, to name a few.  ompson Creek’s barrel-aged dry and “heritage” blends also can be tasted, sipped and paired with foods in much the same way as wines.

“We do a lot of barrel aging with the  ompson Creek,” says Smith.

Produced in just 10 percent of the quantity of Smith’s Apple Outlaw,  ompson Creek boasts an exclusive

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Blair Smith tends apple trees in his orchard, which produces Thompson Creek Cider.

cider club with about 100 members. A few spots are available; see details at appleoutlaw.com/cider-club

“We try to keep it small, so we can make it super special,” says Smith.

Special † avors — seasonal, small-batch and “one-o’ ” — have helped to drive Apple Outlaw’s rapid growth since the label’s 2013 debut. Selling fresh-pressed apple juice and whole fruit at farmers markets for his ‡ rst decade in business, Smith devised adding value to his products by founding his Applegate cidery in 2014.

Hoping that Apple Outlaw would be “wanted in every state,” Smith and wife Marcey Kelley chose a raccoon as their mascot in homage to real masked bandits that forage around their property. Planning for cider, the couple had planted their orchard in speci‡ c apple varieties, and Smith had been experimenting with home brewing before working on his ‡ rst commercial batches with Wandering Aengus Ciderworks in Salem.

Cider was on the rise around the country, coinciding with growing demand for gluten-free foods and beverages. Viewed as a hot trend in some circles, cider in fact was experiencing an American resurgence after languishing in obscurity for about a century.

“It’s fascinating seeing it make a comeback,” says Chris Dennett, co-owner of Beerworks in Medford and Jacksonville.

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Cider’s heyday was the American Colonial era, when it was so popular that children commonly drank it diluted.  e ‡ rst apple trees planted in the New World were intended to yield fruit for an alcoholic beverage safer than water for the Pilgrims to drink. Indeed, Johnny Appleseed wasn’t traveling the country planting apples so the Colonists could eat fruit, but rather make cider, notes Dennett.

 e Temperance Movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s spurred Americans to raze apple orchards, which hadn’t recovered by the advent of Prohibition, from 1920 to 1933. German settlers to the United States already had ushered in mammoth breweries, shifting the American palate to beer.

@appleoutlaw Reclaiming some of its status, perhaps in concert with craft beer’s popularity, cider has a designated tap at Dennett’s Elements restaurant in Medford. Over the summer, he says, Elements poured Apple Outlaw’s semisweet Siskiyou Gold.

 e original † avor is augmented by Apple Outlaw’s ginger- and pineapple-infused ciders, as well as the un‡ ltered, dry style dubbed Je’ erson Dry. Summer’s seasonal † avor is Oregon Blackberry; fall and winter brings Coastal Cranberry.

“People always want something new; they want something fun; they want something exciting,” says Smith. “It keeps it fun for us, too.”

Playing around with watermelon, raspberry, lavender and even cucumberjalapeno, Apple Outlaw doesn’t bottle its “one-o’ ” † avors, but rather kegs them for dispensing at special events and weekly farmers markets in Medford and Grants Pass.

“ e growers market has been a really great way to engage with people,” says Smith. “ at’s where we’ve seen the biggest growth — is in Southern Oregon.”

Sold around the Paci‡ c Northwest through Portland and Washington distributors, Apple Outlaw also can be purchased in Northern California. It’s stocked in Safeway and Albertsons stores, locally, as well as Trader Joe’s and myriad independent grocers and retailers.

“Harry & David has been a big supporter,” says Smith. “It really all comes down to that local aspect.”

“Local always sells well,” agrees Dennett, whose Beerworks locations each have an entire cooler dedicated to ciders.

Apple Outlaw’s 500-milliliter bottle has a suggested retail price of $5.99.  e same size in the  ompson Creek line has a suggested retail price of $8.99. Look for Apple Outlaw on tap at restaurants and bars throughout the region. 

CRÈ de la CRIME ME Ashland author makes town a backdrop to mystery series

In a ‡ ctitious version of Ashland Plaza, the delightful Torte bakeshop on the corner is the family business of protagonist Juliet, who seems to stumble upon murder as often as she whips up an artisanal delicacy.

Eleven books into her bakeshop mysteries, author Ellie Alexander considers Ashland, itself, an essential character for her stories that juxtapose cozy cups of mocha lattes with coldblooded murder.

Ellie Alexander is the pen name of Ashland resident Kate Dyer-Seeley, who moved to town four years ago, though she started the bakeshop mysteries in 2012.

“My dad was an English teacher and a huge Shakespeare bu’ , so we would come to Ashland every summer,” says Dyer-Seeley, who grew up in Vancouver, Wash.

“I thought it was like a quintessential English village, perfect for setting a mystery series. One of the gifts of Ashland is the in† ux of tourists from all over the world descending on this little Shakespearean town,” she says. “For a mystery writer, that’s gold. I can weave in new suspects with each book.”

 e bakeshop mysteries, which glory in punny titles, is one of four book series that DyerSeeley has written.

She also has an ongoing mystery series about a brewpub set in Leavenworth, Wash. Combined, Dyer-Seeley has published 23 books. She’s currently working on the 14th book in the bakeshop series.

Ellie Alexander

“For me, writing more than one series is better for my creative energy,” she says. “I will write a fast, horrible ‡ rst draft in about six weeks.  en I don’t look at it for three or four months.  e gift of multiple series is that I go into another world and then come back to that ‡ rst draft and dive deep into editing and layering.”

Dyer-Seeley writes 2,000 words each weekday. Additionally, she manages a busy social media pro‡ le, including videos from the Torte Test Kitchen and walking tours of her story settings. Readers often ask her if Ashland is as magical and charming as it seems in her books, and she is happy to say she believes it is. Anyone familiar with Ashland will recognize landmarks, streets and events she lovingly details. continued on page 14