Richmond's Buskey Cider recently became one of the few cideries in the country to offer cider in soft serve form. (Photo courtesy Buskey Cider)
Located in craft beverage hub Scott's Addition, Buskey Cider recently hopped onto the frozen drink bandwagon with soft serve cider. The swirled and spiked offering isn't any run-of-the-mill cool drink, however, with Buskey the first location in Virginia to use a Below Zero Soft Serve Alcohol unit.
Buskey Cider owner Will Correll says he and his wife, Elle, first saw the Below Zero machine online and thought it would be a perfect fit for the cidery. After debuting last year, the magical machine has recently been adopted by beverage producers, mostly breweries, across the country.
“Conventional wisdom is that you can't freeze alcohol, so something like this wouldn't work, which is why people use slushie machines,” Correll says. “Like with frosé [wine slushies], you're getting diluted down alcohol with sugar and other stuff in it, which is fine, those are fun, but there's a proprietary gel base that the [Below Zero machine] has that allows the soft serve to happen. So, we were like, ‘Wow that is exciting.’ It’s fun, it’s unique — something people haven’t seen.”
Buskey officially launched its soft serve cider last Friday, July 23, making it the second cidery in the country to use the Below Zero unit. The creation of former ice cream shop owner Will Rogers, the machine crystallizes alcoholic beverages in under 30 minutes.
Dairy-free, gluten-free and vegan, currently watermelon-rosemary soft serve is on tap, but Correll says the plan is to alternate each week between releasing a new cider and debuting a new soft serve flavor, so that there is always something different for customers to try.
“Likely at some point we’ll also incorporate customer feedback or competitions, like, what would be a fun cider ingredient or mix or what flavors would you like to see together?” he says.
Buskey opened in Scott’s Addition in April 2016, but Correll has been passionate about cider since his college days at Hampden-Sydney, where he made cider in his dorm room. Correll owns and runs the cidery with his wife.
“We’ve always been very serious about making ciders, but we also really want it to be approachable and to connect people to cider, and to Virginia agriculture, in a fun way,” he says.
To try the new soft serve option, customers must visit the taproom at 2910 W. Leigh St., but delivery is available to Hampton Roads, Northern Virginia and the greater Richmond region for Buskey's other offerings.
Since Buskey made its debut five years ago, Correll adds that not only has the cidery grown, so has Scott’s Addition.
“The neighborhood went from a well-kept secret to exploding as, pretty easily, in my opinion, the best craft beverage neighborhood in the country,” he says. “It’s not surprising that a machine like this would pop up in Scott’s Addition first [in Virginia], even though there’s a lot of other great producers. It’s a neighborhood where people expect innovation and fun options to pop up and [businesses] continue to evolve constantly.”
