Thompson’s Cider Mill Launches Artisanal Hard Ciders

From Thompson's Cider Mill

YORKTOWN, NY — Westchester’s own Thompson’s Cider Mill formally launched its artisanal Hard Ciders this week at a special kick-off tasting at RiverMarket Bar and Kitchen in Tarrytown, the first restaurant to offer the hard ciders on tap and in bottles. The launch, which took place on June 13, coincides with Hudson Valley Cider Week.

At the gathering, Thompson’s Hard Ciders were paired with farm-to-table fare prepared by RiverMarket. The dry and semi-dry ciders are crafted in Westchester from heirloom and specialty apples from the Cider Mill’s own orchard as well as other Hudson Valley orchards with whom Thompson has long-time relationships. The fresh juice is pressed and fermented in small batches at the Cider Mill founded 42 years ago in southwest Yorktown near Croton-on-Hudson.

“In Great Britain and northern France, cider is readily available. Virtually every pub in England and Ireland offers it on tap as standard fare. We have worked to come up with crisp dry and semi-dry ciders that are reflective of their abiding traditions, but with an artisanal New York/Hudson Valley flare,” said Cider Mill founder Geoff Thompson. “The terroir of Westchester and the Hudson Valley offers the ideal combination of climate, soil and sun to produce some of the world’s best apples. We work with more than 30 varieties in crafting ciders that are light and bright on the palate as well as food-friendly.”

Fifteen years ago, Thompson began experimenting with making apple wine which he still produces in limited quantities. “I developed knowledge and skill, but not enough to be able to attain a consistent, high-quality finished product,” he says. “When I started, virtually no one knew what I was talking about. But over the last five or six years, as craft brewing grew in popularity, hard cider caught on. When my long-time fresh cider customers began asking me why I didn’t offer hard cider, I realized that the time had come to get serious about what I had started all those years before.”

The key to moving forward came when he aligned with Dan O’Brien, a trained cider maker. A food scientist, he had worked with PepsiCo before exiting the corporate world to work in the California wine industry for four and a half years. He then moved with his family back to New York and began trying his hand with home cider making.

O’Brien’s Yorktown Heights home was only 10 minutes from Thompson’s Mill, and he had recognized the quality of the fresh cider Thompson produced. He began filling 5-gallon glass carboys of the raw juice to ferment to hard cider at home. And as tends to happen at the Cider Mill, which is open weekends from September to Christmas, the two got chatting about their mutual interest in hard cider. So, it wasn’t surprising that when Thompson decided to make a formal move into hard cider production, O’Brien was the first person he called.

“We hit it off and Dan was interested in putting the cider making skills he had honed in both the U.S. and England to work, and off we went,” said Thompson. O’Brien, Thompson and Thompson’s wife, Liz, started by tasting nearly 100 hard ciders from across the U.S., Canada and Europe. “The ciders covered the gamut from semi-dry to very sweet, to spicy and everything in between,” he said. “There were some good ones, but in the end, we unanimously concluded that we liked dry and semi-dry and that the ciders we liked best were those that Dan had made at home with our juice. With that, our direction was set.”

With the necessary federal and state permits in hand, Thompson and O’Brien began a limited production last spring and by fall an initial run had been bottled. “That gave us enough sparkling dry hard cider to let people try it, and we could gauge their reaction,” Thompson says. “The problem was, that even though it was only available at our Mill, it was such a hit that in about six weeks we burned through the 180 or so cases we had made. The good news was that we knew we were onto something and with last fall’s bumper crop of apples, we were able to significantly increase production for this year and we added a semi-dry (1% sugar.)”

Thompson said the plan is to increase production at a sustainable pace. “We have a number of high-quality restaurants that have agreed to feature our ciders, and in the coming weeks we will begin to expand our distribution while not getting too far ahead of ourselves. We have additional cider that is ready to be bottled depending on demand. We’ll provide updates on the Cider Mill website and via Facebook.”

RiverMarket was chosen for the formal unveiling because of Thompson’s long-time friendship with owner Glenn Vogt, a respected wine expert. “Glenn has been a strong supporter and has encouraged me to move forward with this venture from the early days,” Thompson says. “And RiverMarket’s manager and long-time chief bartender, Emilio Ugarte, has been super-enthusiastic and supportive. They said they would love to host the launch, and we were honored to take them up on their offer.”

He concluded: “On the one hand this is something new, but on the other it is like welcoming a long-lost friend into the house. With Dan O’Brien as cider maker par excellence, with the encouragement and support of Liz, my family and so many long-time restaurateurs, friends and cider aficionados, I truly believe that this could be the start of something sensibly big.”

About Thompson’s Cider Mill

Thompson’s Cider Mill is situated on land that has been an apple orchard since the 1870s. Geoff Thompson founded his cider mill in 1976 with the goal of restoring a 100-year-old orchard and preserving a piece of Westchester’s rich agricultural past.

While working as a newspaper reporter and a part-time assistant at the Teatown Lake Reservation Environmental Education Center, Thompson participated in a program of making fresh apple cider. It was while demonstrating several antique apple cider presses that Teatown had acquired for the special event that the course of his life changed. While he had grown up in the Hudson Valley, a famed apple growing region, until that day, Thompson had never tasted pure unfiltered natural apple cider. It was at that moment at Teatown that his long-term interest in apples and cider took hold.

Today, Thompson’s Cider Mill is a boutique business attracting a devoted clientele who recognize and appreciate a wide range of apples, including many heirloom and unusual varieties, genuine old-fashioned fresh cider and now, small batch hard ciders. As it has been from the start, Geoff’s commitment remains to adhere to tradition and excellence in presenting the finest quality in fruit and ciders.

For more information about Thompson’s, visit thompsonscidermill.com

PHOTO: Dan O’Brien, Geoff Thompson and Glenn Vogt/ courtesy Thompson's Cider Mill