It’s Fresh Cider Time in Northern Michigan

Cold, crisp, sweet, and spicy cider, freshly pressed from apples just off the tree – is there anything else that evokes fall quite so vividly? Apple growing regions all over America are currently picking and pressing. Apple farms are holding apple festivals and frying up cider donuts, the perfect accompaniment to a cold cup of cider.

In a story in the Traverse City Record-Eagle, Richard Friske of Friske Orchards says, “Apples just off the trees have a flavor and a zestyness.” That’s right. Cider can be, and is, pressed all year long from storage apples but the life, the “zestyness,” is absent. Friske presses 50,000 gallons of cider each year. “”Our blend changes from week to week depending on what we have a lot of. You have to have the right blend of apples otherwise it gets too sweet,” said Mr. Friske. Get yourself to an apple orchard this month and pick up a jug!