Apples to Apples

They say things happen a little more slowly in the South. Perhaps that’s why, despite Virginia being home to a near-perfect climate for growing apples, the first modern hard cider producer didn’t come on the scene until 2007. It’s surely not because the fermented fruit juice — consumed for centuries and ranging from bone dry and nuanced to candy sweet — is something new. 

Cider was first imported from England by colonists as a way to quench their thirst when safe water was scarce. They quickly planted apple trees and began pressing their own, and cider became one of the most common beverages in Colonial America, consumed by everyone, including children. Apple varieties from Arkansas Black to Wickson have been thriving here since the state’s beginnings, and the first named variety of Southern apple, in 1716, was the Virginia White. 

Thomas Jefferson had the grounds of Monticello lined with apple trees, and the best cidermakers of the time were enslaved people at the estate, including highly skilled Jupiter Evans and Ursula and George Granger. Pippin apples were touted as being “cultivated chiefly in Virginia.” 

Post-Civil War Richmond hosted numerous gatherings of the American Pomological Society, dedicated to apple cultivation. Cider was even requested in wills to be the sole beverage served during funerals. According to Virginia cider pioneer Diane Flynt, “In the South and elsewhere, cider was described as the most important beverage, ‘a staple for all classes of American and a form of currency for goods and services.’” 

In recent years, Virginia’s hard cider industry has boomed to 50 producers, some of them breweries and wineries that have added cider to their repertoires. As the niche industry experiences exponential growth, cidermakers are working to preserve a tradition, appeal to broader audiences and find their footing — all while navigating the hypercompetitive, ever-changing, consumer-driven beverage landscape. 

Cider Country

Along Fairmont Avenue in Winchester, a weathered sign reads, “Apple Capital of the World.” Today, Virginia is the sixth largest producer of apples in the country, and the quiet Shenandoah Valley city has been at the forefront since the early 1900s. It’s home to one of the largest apple growers, exporters and juicers in the state, Glaize Apples. 

If you’re a cidermaker in Virginia, you know the Glaizes. They operate orchards between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains. While their dessert apples — like Fuji, Pink Lady and Golden Delicious — mostly go to grocery stores, their single varietals — such as Hewe’s Crab, Dabinett, Albemarle Pippin, Harrison and Rhode Island Greening — are pressed, pulped into juice and sourced for sale to cidermakers up and down the East Coast. The majority are right here in Virginia. 

“My brother, Philip, and I are fourth generation,” David Glaize says. “Dad always said, if growing apples was easy, everybody would do it.” The company was started by their great-grandfather, Fred L. Glaize, a Pennsylvania native lured to Virginia by the promise of pristine apples. 

While they didn’t set out to be in the booze business, the brothers saw an opportunity a decade ago. The duo began exploring the cider-making process and, after a bit of coaxing, convinced their father to plant a dozen-plus varieties of Virginia and European cider apples. When you own 700 acres of orchards and there’s a growing beverage sector in need of a bounty of apples, it’s time to juice — and make cider. 

Recognizing the rare position they’re in and that family farm businesses are disappearing across the country, the Glaize brothers have leaned into innovation to protect their legacy. In 2020, they introduced Old Town Cidery and followed it a few years later with the subsidiary Glaize and Brother Juice Co.

Dad always said, if growing apples was easy, everybody would do it.

—David Glaize, Glaize Apples

Inside a processing facility, a small crew, including Old Town’s cidermaker, Stephen Kelly, presses apples such as Ashmead’s Kernel and Black Twig into juice exclusively for cideries. Glaize also crushes custom blends, allowing cideries to pick everything from brix (sugar) levels to acids in a future cider. 

A forklift carries a crate of fruit — dented or bruised “rejects” from the Glaizes’ packing house or grocery store, or less common varieties such as Winter Banana or Empire — and tips them into a machine. In methodical rows, the apples move through a high-pressure washing system and travel up a belt before being pressed into pumice, a pulpy texture Glaize compares to a fine salsa, while the juice lines lead the good stuff into the tanks.

Apples are divided into three categories: cider apples, which are small and bittersweet; culinary apples, meant for cooking; and dessert apples, those with high sugars meant to be eaten raw. 

“The apples you buy at the grocery store, yeah, you can make hard cider, but apples that are going to elevate the product and give you a way better finished product. We grow a lot of those, too, like these little guys,” Glaize says, picking up a Hewe’s Crab. 

Native to Virginia, the almost comically small fruit is a favorite of Albemarle Ciderworks in North Garden. A cidermaker in Maine recently procured them, too, sparking hope for Glaize that the appeal of distinct, terroir-driven apples from Virginia extends beyond the state. 

“Virginia is rooted in agriculture, especially apples, so it’s like [cider] is a really cool product,” he says. “You can be so in touch with where you live and where it’s coming from if you dive a little deeper. ... You don’t even need to think about local. It just is, because it’s natural; this is what the state has to offer.” 

Born Again

Despite the strong start and current resurgence, Virginia’s apple — and cider — production have waxed and waned due to a perfect storm of culture and industry. 

“Cider was still very popular until the mid-to-late 1800s, when more European, German and Eastern European immigrants arrived, and they brought over lager,” says Paige Newman, a curator at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. 

While beer was partly to blame for cider’s fall from popularity, Newman also points to the introduction of commoditized beverages like whiskey, the birth of industrial farming and Prohibition. At the grocery store, unique apple varieties were upstaged by the shiny, aesthetically pleasing Red Delicious, which became the symbol of the ideal apple. Before long, entire varieties of apples were forgotten. 

“Apples couldn’t be saved from modernity,” Diane Flynt wrote in her book, “Wild, Tamed, Lost, Revived: The Surprising Story of Apples in the South.” By 1950, the South had lost 90% of its orchards, and other apple-growing pockets of the country, including the Northeast and Pacific Northwest, rose to prominence. Virginia had been stripped of its apple-growing identity. 

The godmother of the commonwealth’s current cider revival, Flynt found her gold rush in the apples of Appalachia. She planted her first trees in Dugspur in Southwest Virginia in 1997 and introduced Foggy Ridge Cider in 2004. 

A four-time James Beard Award winner for Outstanding Wine, Spirits or Beer Professional, Flynt had a clear vision for her cider: a raw, effectively untouched showcase of native fruits that were direct connections to the land. No adjuncts, no fuss. It was about getting apples into the bottle with as little manipulation as possible. 

“When I had Foggy Ridge Cider in the early 2000s, we were the only cidery south of Massachusetts,” Flynt says. “People came in the tasting room, and they said, ’What grapes is this made with?’ They had no idea what cider was.” 

She and her cidermaker, Jocelyn Kuzelka, resolved to teach their guests, speaking about apples like ministers preaching the word. “It’s a connection to people. It’s a connection to your region,” Flynt says. “Apples and people are so intimately connected. Every named apple has a person behind that apple who selected it and grafted it, got it out into the world. Talk about eating local.” 

Flynt’s approach to cider and respect for Virginia-grown fruit changed the culture and inspired others, and she became the first in a growing line of apple advocates and cidermakers around the commonwealth. 

“She helped us get our start, and that camaraderie was really great at the beginning,” says Anne Shelton, general manager of Albemarle Ciderworks. 

A tree nursery turned cidery helmed by the Shelton family, Albemarle opened in 2009 as the second cidery in the state, but the first with a tasting room. Head cidermaker Chuck Shelton is an apple purist devoted to heirlooms, especially rare Virginia apples prized for their tannins, acidity and flavor. Two of his cider varieties, Royal Pippin and Jupiter’s Legacy — the latter named in honor of Evans’ role in the cider-making process at Monticello — have been bottled every year since its beginning. 

In Richmond, Courtney Mailey — a like-minded traditionalist and the founder of the state’s first urban cidery, Blue Bee Cider — was also getting her start. Mailey attended “fruit school” at Albemarle, where she apprenticed for a year. Through that friendship, she met her future fruit growers, including the Glaizes. 

In 2012, Virginia Cider Week was established by the Virginia General Assembly to recognize this growing segment of Virginia’s economy. Back then there were only six participants, two of which, including Blue Bee, were still in the planning phases. 

“It was a much smaller endeavor than it is now,” says Shelton, a former president of the Virginia Cider Association. “There has been some great innovation and exponential growth. Events during Cider Week have been instrumental in introducing cider to people who have never had it before.” 

Commercial vs. Craft

The same year Virginia Cider Week was founded, a player with a different perspective entered the arena. Based out of Nellysford, Bold Rock introduced a cider it advertised as “accessible.” The sweet-leaning cider soon became ubiquitous at grocery stores and restaurants. With its large-scale distribution, Bold Rock became the gateway cider for modern consumers; it’s now the largest regional craft cidery in the United States. 

While Bold Rock’s success led to more consumers knowing about cider, its model didn’t necessarily translate across the industry. The flavor profiles, price points and finished product of craft cider tend to be extremely different from mass-market versions. 

“When we started making cider … it was tough to sell a $40 bottle of [cider made from] single-varietal apples,” Glaize says, adding, “The majority of cider customers here may be more accustomed to Bold Rock.” In response, they added a lighter, sweeter cider to their lineup. 

Bold Rock’s growth coincided with the rise of gluten-free diets, creating both an opportunity for the industry — cider is naturally gluten free — and some muddled comparisons among consumers. Cider was positioned as an alternative to beer, although beer is brewed using water, grain and hops, while cider (and wine) is born of fermented fruit. 

For Potter’s Craft Cider in Charlottesville, however, the comparison proved beneficial. Started in 2011 by a duo of homebrewers who traded hops for apples, Potter’s tiptoes between the craft and commercial worlds. Its portfolio is a collection of bottled, cider-focused options, including the signature Farmhouse Dry, alongside beer-inspired cans such as Grapefruit Hibiscus and Guava Galaxy. 

While the grocery store isn’t necessarily where you go to snag the highest-quality beverage, it is typically where shoppers go most often. Andy Hannas, cidermaker at Potter’s for over a decade, saw value in establishing the brand as an everyday option. 

Comparing Potter’s presence in the market to Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. beer, he says, “Pale Ale is my gold standard; it’s solid, consistent, good price, predictable, recognizable, familiar. When we’re thinking of things we want to introduce to the market or grow, it was like, ‘What will be people’s grocery store gold standard of cider?’ Once you start looking at distribution into the grocery store, Costco-type model, you have to appeal to a much broader audience.” 

That crowd-pleasing or reach-the-masses ethos appealed to Elle and Will Correll of Buskey Cider in Richmond. When they entered the industry in 2016, their methods raised a few eyebrows. 

Elle Correll says, “People were a little more like, ‘What do you mean, you buy your apples in bulk?’ That was something revolutionary and maybe even a little unusual at the time.” 

Working primarily with Silver Creek & Seamans’ Orchards in Tyro, Buskey will buy whatever apples the farmers have available and use them to create canned blends, including Tropical Tea, Jalapeño Lime and Berry Blast.

“It’s kind of fun to stick with our mission of helping the farmer and using apples,” Correll says. “We use table apples, dessert apples, Fuji, Gala, Pink Lady rather than depend on single varietals. We’re filling the need for selling these apples.” 

But that doesn’t mean the Scott’s Addition cidery is strictly about blends. At the 2024 Virginia Governor’s Cup competition, Buskey took home Best inn Show for their Ruby Red Crab Apple Cider, made from one of the state’s most coveted apples.

True to the Fruit

Following a visit to Stony Creek Farm in Edinburg, Mackenzie Smith and Taylor Benson are buzzing. The owners of Blue Bee Cider recently connected with the family-run organic farm and visited to taste heirlooms such as Grimes Golden, Wisley, and Hewe’s and Hyslop crab apples. They even discovered one that was new to them, the quite tart Cox’s Orange Pippin. 

Though they could buy only eight bushels of the latter, the idea of preserving and working with such a rare variety excites them. “We’re starting to venture and find cool apples and these other small orchards to work with,” says Benson, the cidermaker. 

The pair worked at Blue Bee for nearly a decade before purchasing the operation from Courtney Mailey in 2022. Like their predecessor, they aim to showcase apples purely, with little to no intervention. 

Smith says, “The places that don’t change their ethos, [who] stand their ground in what they do, are the ones that stand the test of time. ... If anything is certain, just being true to yourself is most of the battle. We feel like sharing our story is more important than trying to change the product for the consumer.” 

Smith and Benson haven’t produced cider in the two years since the ownership transition, but the pair are ready to reconnect with the fruit, the farmers and guests in their tasting room. In a reflection of the tight-knit industry, they found Stony Creek through a fellow cidermaker. 

“Stony Creek used to provide most of the apples for Courthouse Creek Cider,” Smith says. “We met with them because they had reached out to us.” 

Like the Glaizes, the owners of Courthouse Creek Cider in Goochland County grow all of their own fruit — just on a much smaller scale. About 30 minutes northwest of the city, former chef Eric Cioffi and his wife, Liza, operate the idyllic, destination-style farm cidery. On 4 acres, they grow a variety of American, English and French cider apples.

Another family-oriented operation, Bryant’s in Nelson County, operates taprooms at its cidery and in Carytown. Founder Jerry Thornton, a former brewer, sources apples from Bryant’s Estate, his family’s 400-acre farm, which began producing apples circa 1865. 

Since closing Foggy Ridge in 2018, Diane Flynt has shifted to growing apples. She supplies just a few producers, including Will and Cornelia Hodges, who hail from the wine world, of Troddenvale cidery in the limestone soil of Bath County. 

“Apples grow wild here. They’re highly adaptive, and it seemed like if I was to try and produce something that was of origin of Warm Springs, apples would make a lot of sense,” Will Hodges says. 

The Hodges are working to blur the lines between grape wine and cider. They embrace a quasi-pét-nat (naturally sparkling) method of making cider and have also produced co-ferments, which mix two fruits in the fermentation process and showcase their close connections.

“We knew there was a genuine story to be told of that aspect, and it wasn’t happening, so that became a big focus of ours,” he says. “We knew through the lens of wine that if we were going to elevate the level of cider being produced in Virginia, focusing on the farming and fruit was paramount.” 

Others take different approaches to a similar philosophy. At Crozet-based Patois Cider, founded in 2019, Patrick Collins and Danielle LeCompte forage wild fruit from abandoned orphan orchards. Nikki West, who owns Staunton’s Cider From Mars, is a former chemist who merges her scientific background and technical training with beverage making. And at Sage Bird Ciderworks in Harrisonburg, opened in 2020, Zach and Amberlee Carlson are homed in on dry, apple-forward products; they can be found as a guest tap at Blue Bee. 

Smaller batches mean little to no distribution, and more discussion. Familiar flavor-enhancing adjuncts such as pineapple might attract a newbie cider drinker, while a bottle of 100% Dolgo Crabapple may be a harder sell. But cidermakers have faith that people are catching on. 

“There is the consumer base that is starting to recognize terroir and geography of apples, and that will take time. It took hundreds of years for wine,” Glaize says. 

Spreading the Gospel

Despite their varied perspectives, cider producers agree on one overarching principle: Educating consumers is essential.

“I feel cider is still quite a small industry,” Albemarle’s Shelton says. “There is still a lot of education that needs to happen. A challenge we have is letting people know about the diverse range of cider.” 

Virginia Cider Week, planned for Nov. 15-24 this year, encourages imbibers to tap into local cider through tastings, pairings and special events. On Nov. 12, Flynt will host an event in Richmond at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden discussing Virginia’s complex history with apples and cider.

Will a Harrison cider from Virginia one day be thought of in the same vein as a Bordeaux from France? Virginia wineries and grape varietals such as Petit Manseng and Norton have risen to command a certain status, and the hope is that the commonwealth’s cideries and apples will follow suit. “People put in the work for wine, and they understand it implicitly with wine,” Smith says.

It’s also important to remember that in Virginia’s ripe and diversified cider landscape, there’s a cider out there for everyone. “There’s a world of flavor out there to explore, both in the apple and in the fermented beverage,” Flynt says. “That’s why, you know, you can enjoy cider that’s bone dry and crisp and tastes like a really dry Champagne, and you can enjoy cider that’s a dessert cider that’s like a sweet nectar that you would have with a fruit dessert and everything in between; its about exploring those flavors.”

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Taste of Virginia

Albermarle Ciderworks: Jupiter’s Legacy

Flagship cider, complex blend, tart apple finish 

Blue Bee Cider: Fanfare

Features wild foraged Virginia mulberries

Bryant’s Cider: Brite Good

A bare-bones, dry cider 

Buskey Cider: Heritage Blend

Ruby Red, Ashmead’s Kernel and Gold Rush apples

Courthouse Creek Cider: Black Twig

Black Twig apples, rich with light citrus

Potter’s Cider: Farmhouse Dry

Crisp, clean, bright acidity

Sage Bird Ciderworks: Hewe’s Crab

Tart and tannic, notes of caramel and lemon

Troddenvale: Family Ties

Co-ferment with Lightwell Survey Wines