Apple Outlaw Rabid Dry Cider

In my late teens through my early twenties, that most psychologically vulnerable time in a young man's life, I often found myself wondering at the most inappropriate times, "what would happen if I punched this person square in the face, right now?" It didn't matter who the person was at all. They were almost irrelevant. I could be sitting in a job interview, talking to a professor about an assignment, giving a tourist directions, having dinner with the chief of the village I lived in when I served in the Peace Corps. Whoever. Additionally, it was never accompanied by an actual impulse. Rather, it was more of a curiosity. No malice or intention involved what so ever. Just a simple option my brain presented to my mental decider like it might suggest french fries over onion rings, not leaving my shirt unbuttoned to my navel or how firm a handshake should be. I did often fear that the thought was a symptom of a diseased mind slowly slipping into feverish incivility and outright antisocial mania but everything seems to have panned out okay. So perhaps not. Anyway, in the end, I think it was the same thing that makes me fear heights: the potential to act on impulse. As self-aware beings, really, the only thing keeping us from suddenly smashing the mailman in the face without warning or provocation or jumping off of Table Rock, is the simple decision not to. That little gap between conception and actualization where reason takes ahold of potential and filters it, grabs it by it's collar and smacks some sense into it. Apple Outlaw's Rabid Dry Cider is in that lacuna where potential is an uncarved diamond. It is almost a brilliant cider.

One of the facets of Rabid Dry that makes it so full of potential is the fact that it's a pure cider. There is no added apple juice post-fermentation, an easy route to clearing up any blemishes that might culture during the fermentation process. You can mask your errors with the right back-sweetening like sanding after drywalling or using spellcheck. A pure cider is bold and requires a clear eye. It also means you have to follow the cider closely throughout the fermentation process and keep temperatures steady. The cider makers at Apple Outlaw appear to have that twenty-four carat eyesight and steady hand. One of the most attractive results of a pure cider, when done well, is nice dryness because the yeast has eaten most if not all of the sugars.

When poured into a glass, Rabid Dry is a pale clear golden yellow with a clue of red when held up to the light, like the skin of a Jonagold were it wrapped around a 100 watt lightbulb. I used the sun through my kitchen window. Once in the glass, it has good, almost perfect bubble, nipping the tip of the tongue and tickling the back of the throat gently but pointedly. The cider itself has an outstandingly relaxed, almost imperceptible sweetness with a clean back end. Nice Granny Smith apple tartness with a dry finish. True to it's label, it leaves no residual sweetness. Despite being a conventional 6% ABV, it gently warms the belly with fuzzy, nectar-drunk, late-afternoon butterflies. Indolent and content flutters. It's a brief and nice feeling.

In flavor and aroma, Rabid Dry is a bit straightforward, and for those with complex noses and erudite tastebuds, it might seem a little boring but I prefer my cider tidy. I don't need the hint of must, late-August fig and dried leaves kind of intricacy that flop-wit cider snobs pine for. I don't need a cider experience. It's not a frickin walk through an autumn apple orchard from the 1800s. It should just have bubbles, nice flavor, dry finish and no residual sickly sweetness that clings to the back of your throat. Perhaps that's a bit of a long list to use the word "just", like someone going into a cafe and saying, "I'll just have a blended, double whip, half-caf, cold-pressed, soy, caramel, chai latte with a double shot and a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg. Can you make that decaf? I've got a punch card." None-the-less, that's my kind of cider.

And Rabid Dry is largely my kind of cider. Honestly, it's one of the smoothest, cleanest ciders I have had the pleasure of drinking and it would be great if the cidery would open a taphouse or something so I could taste it fresh from the barrel. I'd happily drive out to the Applegate where they are located to check out their farm and sample their cider direct. I got my bottle for $7 at the Ashland Co-op and I've seen it at other stores around the Rogue Valley for about the same. It's a reasonable price to pay for a finely crafted, organic cider. Even if it's made from dessert apples.

And herein lies my one main issue with Rabid Dry, and also its place of potential. If they could get such solid classic cider taste and overall drinking goodness out of culinary and dessert apples such as Gravenstein, McIntosh and Ginger Gold apples, imagine what they could do with some legitimate cider apples. According to their website, we may just be in for a taste in the future. The orchard at their farm contains over 1,000 trees ranging from Red Delicious and Granny Smith to some unknown heirlooms, but recently, they have added some cider varietals, namely, Wickson and Belle de Boskoop. With those cider apples gradually maturing, Apple Outlaw has a bright future ahead of itself and appear to be pushing on to reach their full potential. And they won't even have to punch their pastor square in the face during communion or throw themselves off of Table Rock to do it. Can I get a hell yeah for consequence-free actualization of potential?!?

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Apple Outlaw used to be called Apple Bandit when I first tried it as you can see in the picture at left. No word on the name change though I prefer the old name to the new. It sounds a little more roguish and a little less alliterative; alliteration being made somewhat cliche through over use. No matter. Check out Apple Outlaw's website for more information: http://www.appleoutlaw.com/

P.S. I should probably note that I never acted on the thought or impulse or whatever that I mentioned above. I never blindly clobbered someone, so that's good.

Four Daughters Winery Loon Juice

The opening sequence of "Penguins of Madagascar: The Movie" features an impressively improbable rescue mission for a wayward penguin egg executed by three of the four Penguins from the richly cast and moderately entertaining "Madagascar" trilogy. The penguins chase the egg down a hill, over the edge of a cliff and finally, onto the deck of an abandoned oil tanker where they manage to save it from the hungry jaws of a trio of leopard seals, launching themselves from the deck by way of a mounted harpoon gun. Riveting stuff to be sure, though there's work to be done in terms of sheer adrenaline-pumping danger and pyrotechnics if DreamWorks wants to join the ranks of the Bond movies or the "Mission Impossible" series. Despite the improbability of the scene, and really, the whole movie in general, it's a nice opening hook. Similarly, Four Daughters Winery's first foray into cider making, Loon Juice, has some nice highlights, especially on the front end. It starts out a bit honey sweet, becomes enjoyably tart, like a crabapple cider, and has a slightly bitter, dry-ish finish that settles out viscid. While a granny smith has a cold, clean, existential tartness, a crabapple's sourness is warmer, softer, fuller, stickier. It doesn't pinch and twist your cheek, and quickly disappear.

The cider is lightly gold, like wheat in late August on the heels of a hot summer or straw left out under the sun too long, and has a vague sparkle that exists briefly at first taste but fades rapidly and is replaced by a sticky mouth feel that gums up the rear roof of you mouth and back of your tongue like a forced apology or a mouthful of Jolly Ranchers. Like those penguins, who reached their peak with their sublime performance in the second "Madagascar" movie, Loon Juice is at its best early on when fresh and cold, before it has coated the back of your throat.

To be fair and honest, a friend brought me this cider all the way from Minnesota and there's no telling what kind of harrowing traveling experience it had rolling around the trunk of his car all of these almost 2,000 summer miles in intermittent air conditioning and wild temperature fluctuations. I do know that there was a camping excursion into 102 degree heat in Madras on the way home, so that might have altered some of the cider's qualities and properties. I mean, pasteurization and an aluminum can can only protect so much.

Even after all of that, on taste alone, it would be hard to tell that Loon Juice isn't made with at least some cider apples. It's the dessert-apple cider closest to a true cider that I've tasted, largely because of that tartness, and possibly because it is a single-varietal cider made with only honeycrisp apples, an apple developed at the University of Minnesota to be sweet, firm, tart, and thus, ideal for eating. Evidently, it's cells are abnormally large and rupture when bitten, thus filling the mouth with juice like Gushers. Furthermore, Four Daughters presses the locally grown apples themselves unlike most commercial operations where apple juice concentrate, frequently made in China and high in sugar, is the base of choice. The apples they use are grown about 25 miles outside of Spring Valley, Minnesota where the winery is located, in the deep south of the state and the resulting cider has a mere seven grams of sugar per serving while sitting at 6% alcohol - they reduce the alcohol by back-sweetening down from 8%.

Four Daughters appears to have gotten into cider on a bit of a whim around a year ago when their head winemaker started recognizing some shared properties between winemaking and cider pressing. Similar to his philosophy on winemaking, he sought to minimize the ingredient list and stay true to the fruit. An honorable goal and pretty successfully executed though it would've been nice if they could've tracked down some cider apples. Perhaps there aren't any available in Minnesota where they are based, though with an 11,000 square foot cidery being built on the property, they might want to start looking for some cider apple farmers or plant some of their own.

In the end, much like the penguins of "Madagascar", this cider is good but best enjoyed in a supporting role, perhaps even just a cameo appearance.

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For more information on Four Daughters Winery you can visit the website, though it has nothing on Loon Juice: http://www.fourdaughtersvineyard.com/

Follow Loon Juice on Twitter: https://twitter.com/loonjuicecider