#1 Pilot - Cider Making

Hello to any unfortunate soul who has stumbled upon this thing I am calling a blog. I apologize ahead of time that my proper English isn't very good. Please no grammar Nazis!  My name is Brandon and I love hard cider. It's really an addiction. I've been drinking cider for about 5-6 years now. My first experience with hard cider was actually with a fake cider. Redd's Apple Ale. Upon first sip, I absolutely fell in love with it. Not being a beer drinker this quickly became my go to when all my friends were drinking beer. I quickly progressed to Angry Orchards and Bold Rock. Soon after Richmond had it's first urban cidery open up. Blue Bee Cidery. They got their apples from Charlottesville and made their cider in Richmond. They created semi-dry cider and it was an eye opener. It was my first experience with craft cider and I couldn't believe cider could taste this way. It quickly became my drink of choice. I have had many ciders since and would drink them because I loved the way they tasted, however, I never paid much attention to the fine details of tasting notes and aromas. I just enjoyed a good tasting cider. I could drink with family and friends and enjoy what I was drinking.

A few months ago, my wife and I were on a cider/wine trip between Richmond and Charlottesville. Our last stop on our way home was Courthouse Creek Cider, a relatively new cider. It was our first time visiting them and we went in for a tasting. The woman that poured for us went into great details of each cider. She was very genuine and discussed each cider with a lot of passion. Come to find out the woman was the owners wife. She and her husband had moved to Virginia from California to open up their own cidery. As she is discussing their move and starting their business, it hit me like a ton of bricks ran my ass over. I should make my own cider! I could turn this into a business! I could open up my own cidery! It was a revelation. I was so excited, I started immediately. I did my homework, bought the necessary equipment, yeast, and juice. I am currently finishing my first batch of hard cider. I'll get into that more in later posts.

So where does this leave me now? I realized that if I was going to be a good cider maker, regardless if I was going to create my own business or not, that I needed to develop my palate. I felt like in order to describe what I had created, I needed to pull out flavor and aroma notes from my cider. My palate and sense of smell are severely underdeveloped. I know I need practice and time to develop them and I need a way to describe these flavors. With that said, this is the purpose of my blog. To share my experience as a cider maker and to review ciders in an effort to develop my palate. I feel that my blog will help me practice and document my cider experience.