Welcome back to Part 2 of Cider Time with Courtnasty!

As I mentioned in Part 1, Courtney finds beer to be too spicy and can’t drink it without being offended or some crap. So, we decided to be PC and drink cider! If you’ve never had cider, it’s like apple juice for grownups that make you feel warm in your no-no zone (or maybe it’s your “yes-yes” zone after a few of these).

We drank five pints of cider over the course of about an hour, which is responsible if you’re stupid, and I am. But we recorded it! You can listen to the whole thing at Courtney’s blog Words are for Writers and more specifically her podcast page. You can also subscribe to “this is my podcast” on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts these days, and follow Courtney on Instagram @courtneyraf3

 

Blake’s Cider WakeFire

This is our last entry from Blake’s Cider! The WakeFire was touted as a cider infused with Michigan cherries and orange peel.

 

So, basically what happens to my produce whenever I shop at Whole Foods and forget I bought a metric ton of fruit and let it go bad and ferment in the bag I bought it in.

Pouring this out, it had a great brassy, rose gold coloring. Like Kate’s old iPhone 6s before she smashed it upon a parking lot surface as all iPhones are fated to do. Absolutely clear and translucent, just like the hole in Kate’s old iPhone 6s that smashed upon the parking lot surface as all iPhones are fated to do.

Smelling it, I could smell the scent of burning plastic and petrol. Wait, that’s the smell of Kate’s old iPhone 6s that smashed upon the parking lot surface and set its own battery on fire, as all iPhones are fated to do.

Friends don’t let friends film vertically.

Smelling THE CIDER, it had the most citrusy smell of all the others. More of an orange pop as opposed to cherry scent. Reminded me of Keenan and Kel for some odd reason.

Who loves Orange Soda?

Swirling the cider in the glass there was actually lacing.

Courtney: Lacing? Like the repurposed blouse developed by Woolrich in the early 1940’s that I salvaged from a second-hand store during a photoshoot featuring wood-crafted watches?

You hipster beotch. But yes. Lacing is what they call it when you swish a beer side-to-side and it leaves almost a film along the inside of the glass, almost latching on for dear life. It’s a description of the viscosity.

Courtney: Isn’t viscosity an internet startup?

Probz.

Drinking this cider is just as easy as letting my life fall apart while watching cartoons and drinking Sunny D. Except this is way better than Sunny D. It absolutely has that citrus taste to it, less cherry, more sunshiney orange.

It’s either stare at this or the sun. Your choice.

Court: Oh, snap, guys. I’d buy the hell out of this. This gets a thumbs up.

And that’s when I created a monster.

Courtney drank the rest of them and wouldn’t let us enjoy what we had poured, the lush. From what I remember, it was good and would make a fun fruity Old Fashioned if we poured a bunch of bourbon in it.

I recommend pairing this with Courtney’s blog! Words are for Writers! Also campfires.

 

Starcut Ciders Octorock

At this point, we lost Kate and Courtney. They were talking about how they wanted to start a blog reviewing ranch dressing.

Kate: There is a difference in ranch the world over! High Qual, and the rest is bulls***!

Kate is like a ranch sommelier. She took a class. She got a degree. I’m still paying those loans.

This cider is from Starcut Ciders (a subsidiary of Short’s Brewing), and is called Octorock!  Not to be confused with the timeless villain featured in The Legend of Zelda.

Out of the bottle this cider is the most beer-looking of what we’ve seen so far. It kind of looks like PBR with very, very little head.

Kate: Dennis, stop saying “head”

Courtney: Yeah, Dennis. God, so thirsty.

I’ve officially lost them. I hope Courtney doesn’t edit their comments out of the podcast. That would be censorship.

Censorship may be necessary.

Schmelling this cider, it comes off as super, super sweet. Sweeter than Grandma on your 12th birthday after you win the talent show and she makes you a dozen cookies even though your mom said, “No sweets, he’s chubby.”

Y’all can relate, right?

And the taste?

Court: *Cough! Spit! Spatter!* Oh man! This tastes like cough syrup! Dominic, drink this!

Dominic: I mean, ok.

Kate: I mean, it’s not awful, but I’m all about that Rosé all day!

The taste is incredibly sweet, the sweetest cider we’ve had yet. It’s very much like apple juice with about 20 teaspoons of sugar added. It doesn’t quite stick to the sides of your mouth, nothing slick in the mouthfeel, but it does have a very beer-like carbonation about it.

I like it! You should drink it. I think it pairs well with-

Kate: booooooobs

I think we’ve careened off the tracks here. Let’s say this pairs with lewd comments and, I dunno, Fortnite.

 

Virtue Cider The Mitten

This. This is the one I’ve been waiting for. If you’ve paid any attention to craft brewing in the past few years you’ll have noticed that there’s a huge movement of bourbon barrel aged beers. Virtue Ciders brings us Mitten, a bourbon barrel aged CIDER!

From my understanding, a bourbon barrel aged beer is as the name suggests- beer that sits in barrels that once housed bourbon. This extracts woody flavors and the bite of the bourbon that infused into the wood, and then back into the beer. A really cool concept that was worked rather wonderfully for hearty beers.

Let’s see how this works for sweet, sweet ciders.

Popping bottles of this reveals… what would you have, but another pale golden ale-like cider! This one seemed very pale, almost watered down looking. Like, when you wake up from a dream that changes your very life and you chase after it with every fiber of your being until you realize that it was naught but a dream as it fades from possibility? Not quite like that.

We smelled this and while most everyone thought it just smelled like cider, I myself could pick up a bit of bourbon scent. Honestly, though, if I had not known it was aged in bourbon barrels, I wouldn’t have known to seek out that aroma.

Lord knows I’m always seeking out whiskey.

Tasting this, I-

Court: Ugh! Nope! I’m done! Dominic finish this for me!

Dominic: Again? I mean, ok.

Honestly, tasting this it taste like a nice, mellow, not overly sweet cider. The boozey note of the bourbon is light, if present at all. It tasted like it was made out of green apples and wood. It felt fun and prickly with it’s carbonation. If anything, I thought it would do even better with an extra shot of bourbon in it!

So does recess duty.

In the podcast I said this would pair with laser tag, but now I think it pairs with standing outside in crisp fall weather watching children play. In a less creepy way. Recess duty. RECESS!!

All in all, over the course of an hour we had five pints of cider with vastly different flavors and styles. This shows that, just like craft beer, there’s a cider for everyone. It doesn’t matter who you are if you look and do your research, you can absolutely find something that fits what your palate desires. Like a soul mate.

Soul Pint.

 

OMG I NEED TO FIND MY SOUL PINT.

 

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