Orleans - Cider Aperitifs

Orleans, Vermont

 

Before Deirdre Heekin had even started La Garagista winery, tending wine grapes on the hillsides of a Barnard, Vermont, farm, she had become enchanted by the world of infusions and macerations, like amaro and rosolio. Deirdre had just come out with her book Libation: A Bitter Alchemy, a collection of essays on wine and spirits when she and Eleanor me one snowy evening in a hotel tavern. This interest seemed a way to make something beautiful in the hills of Vermont and an agricultural expression that could also represent a sense of place.

Eleanor Leger’s family history in northern Vermont led to Eden ciders. This place of deeply cold and snowy winters made it possible to dream of creating an ice cider. When Deirdre and Eleanor met, Eden already had a couple of seasons under its belt, and they were beginning to refine the very particular process of letting cider freeze outdoors during the heart of the winter and then bringing that frozen juice into their cellar and drawing off the concentrated and condensed amber liquid to ferment into magical ice ciders.

But like all efforts, sometimes plans change and life doesn’t go exactly as planned. One of the Eden tanks of cider decided it wanted to be something else in that It fermented completely dry. When Eleanor met Deirdre and listened to her read about the world of elixirs infused with different herbs, flowers and fruits collected from the countryside, this was a lightning strike for Eleanor. As they say, “the rest is history."

Cider Aperitifs available:
Orleans Herbal (750 ml)
Orleans Bitter (750 ml)
Orleans Wood (750 ml)

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