Angry Orchard Crisp Apple

Just like Dick Cheney was once a baby, Facebook was once just a place for friends, beards were once just beards and the Rolling Stones were once a rock band, Angry Orchard's "cider" was once just innocent apples on the limb. Somewhere along the line something went horribly wrong for these poor little fruits and they found themselves pressed into this saccharine slurry euphemistically identified as "cider". Sure cider and Angry Orchard's Crisp Apple share some characteristics, even some basic ingredients, but calling it cider would be like calling Burger King a restaurant or tank tops clothing.

To be fair, Crisp Apple doesn't taste bad really. It just doesn't taste good either, or at all like cider. It tastes like a slightly tart, lightly molasses-glazed, freshly cut slice of a Braeburn, an apple I have a strong affinity for on its own, but not the flavor I'm looking for. Actually, the "cider" would probably make a nice base for a smoothie. Maybe the folks at Angry Orchard should get in touch with Orange Julius or Jamba Juice. Angry Julius? Seriously though, it tastes just like apple juice. It even looks just like apple juice. I emptied one of my son's juice boxes into the sink this morning and it was pretty much identical in color and aroma, though the juice box had been sitting out all night in the heat so perhaps it had fermented a little, giving it the same vague wine-alcohol tinged scent. It would have been so much easier to learn to drink had Angry Orchard been around when I first started dabbling in alcohol. I mean, the pain, struggles and embarrassment I could've saved myself is immeasurable. Perhaps that connection to youth is what draws people to Angry Orchard. A hearkening back to the days when beer tasted gross, liquor was something hidden in your parents' cabinet and wine was for dinners, weddings and communion. The cloying sweetness reminding people of their glory days, those innocent years that shine lambently in their memories.

Thank you Pints and Panels

There's nothing complex about Crisp Apple. It is a straightforward instrument, almost uncouth in its boringness of flavor - caramelized sugar apple. And the "cider" is almost still. I mean, these are some lazy bubbles. I've seen depressed clowns blow more vigorous bubbles at a bar mitzvah. On the plus side, it's less sticky than I recall or expected. So that's good. I fully prepared myself for a mouthfeel like sipping on a bottle of Karo. Instead, it's relatively clean on the palate, and finishes mildly dryly despite the savage amount of sugar in it - 29 grams - and despite clearly being heavily back-sweetened. And all of that sugar does have the added benefit of providing an early onset hangover, so that's nice. You can start dealing with it almost as soon as you finish your last glass.

I suppose that's what happens when you make a "cider" designed to turn a profit for shareholders as quick as possible. You go sweet and let the consumer sort themselves out after the party's over. It can't just be the apples though that are providing all of the sugar. From everything I've read and all of the research I've done, it seems that Angry Orchard's "cider" maker, David Sipes, is exceptionally evasive when it comes to the actual apples that go into his "ciders". He describes in great detail the places he looks for and purchase apples and what he looks for in apples, however, he doesn't seem to ever actually name a single varietal that he uses. Not in any of the three interviews with him I read or on the Angry Orchard website. Just the regions of Italy, France and the Pacific Northwest that he gets them from. He says they use French bittersweets and Italian culinaries but that's as specific as he gets, even when asked specifically what apples he uses (Beervana interview). To produce the amount of cider that they sell year round, the "cidery" is most certainly using concentrate. The secrecy seems a bit hinky if you ask me. I'm for transparency in all things but fantasy football, poker and bathroom doors. Really, I could understand if they were using some exotic cider apple that was in limited supply or if they were in danger of people ripping the recipe off but seriously, no one is going to do that. The "cider" is just not that good. The impression is that he's trying to hide something. Does he use an apple concentrate from a sketchy third party for his base? Does he not know the varietals he uses? Is it really just a mix of brown sugar and natural flavors mixed to approximate the flavor of an apple?

Angry Orchard started national distribution in 2012 and by 2014 their sales captured 50% of the market, a number that would indicate that Sipes and company are on solid footing and have no need to obscure the details of their product. Their consumers are likely the same people who guzzle Pepsi by the gallon, celebrate birthdays at Buffalo Wild Wings and wipe their sauce-soaked faces on their sleeves. The "cidery", backed by the folks at Samuel Adams (the Boston Beer Company, a company whose stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange) and their boatloads of cash, is unlikely to see much of its market share diminished by revealing what goes into their "cider". Most people who would care don't drink it anyway. It's not like craft cideries are going to start competing with them for apples or cry foul and accuse them of apple abuse even if maybe they should.

In the end, metal heads would never call Bullet for My Valentine or Five Finger Death Punch metal. The literati would never call the Harry Potter series literature. And no self-respecting cider drinker should call Angry Orchard's Crisp Apple a cider. By most standards, it is not. Too much sugar. Not enough of everything else that makes cider good. Really, it's more of an apple drink. Make the cans and bottles a little louder and you could place it directly next to the tallboys of Four Loko, and six packs of Mike's Hard Lemonade and Zima... Actually, if memory serves, Zimas are a a lot dryer than Angry Orchard.

Anyway, if you are a connoisseur of fine, fast acting and supremely punishing hangovers, you love candied apples but wish they were sweeter, or you are new to drinking alcohol, I highly recommend you run, don't walk, down to the local Circle K and grab yourself a couple cans of Angry Orchard's Crisp Apple. You will not be disappointed.

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For more information on Angry Orchard, though not much more, visit them at: http://angryorchard.com/

Wandering Aengus Wanderlust

Wandering Aengus' Wanderlust is probably my favorite cider right now. Smooth and invigorating in flavor, it is brilliantly quaffable and mostly better than almost every other cider I have had the pleasure and/or displeasure of drinking. I don't know if you can call a cider invigorating with a straight face but I'm doing it anyway. The stuff is enlivening. It has that tonic-like effect on the senses that brings them more sharply into focus. It does, however, have one minor flaw that mars it's otherwise deliciously pristine taste: it isn't spritely enough.

It is my opinion that flaws fall into one of three categories. You have ruinous flaws such as pretty much anyone choosing to invade Russia or Vietnam ever or the repeated gong splashing at the beginning of every goddamn song on James Brown's otherwise brilliant album, "Hell". You have enhancing flaws like inclusions in diamonds or Keanu Reeves' acting in the original "Point Break" and the first of the "Matrix Trilogy". And you have confounding flaws such as how "How I Met Your Mother" was a successful and highly watched TV show without paying off on the title's promise until season fucking nine and the "The Big Lebowski's" bad dub scene. 72 minutes into one of the Coen brothers' five or six top shelf films, there's one of the worst dubs ever. In most movies, you could simply ignore it as an error or the director making due in a pinch, but it's a Coen brothers movie, and they are known for their meticulous attention to detail among a great number of other things. It's a riddle of a flaw. One that demands a purpose. It can't simply be an oversight.

Wanderlust, similarly outstanding, is also possessed of a minor flaw that begs a purpose. A flaw that is a puzzler. It lacks bullish effervescence. It isn't a still cider by any means, in fact it's quite probably of average carbonation, but it doesn't have little nymph bubbles nipping your tongue almost to the point that it makes your eyes water. My preferred level of sparkle. Almost like champagne bubbles. It's a forgivable flaw, if a flaw at all, because the rest of the cider's attributes are so outrageously sublime. And it does fizz up nicely when poured into a glass, providing some light tearing. And it is pale yellow like a Meyer lemon peel thinly shaved and held up against a 60 watt lightbulb, which is nice. I think the tasting wheel would call that, "straw". It's also crystalline as the air on a cold, clear mountain morning at dawn - my glass is fogged up from condensation in the photo - and given to a tart, floral aroma, though nose is far from my strength.

In terms of actual flavor and mouth feel, the cider is lightly fruity, starts sweet, becomes tart, and then dries out nicely at the end, leaving almost no residue behind in it's footprint, but a gentle pinch on the tip of the tongue and the lower, rear pockets of the mouth. Truly, it is one of the most refreshing ciders I've had. Perfect balance of acids, sugars and tannins. Nice complexity of flavor smooth enough for a Rainier-sipping rube to enjoy and deep enough for a wine-sniffing grape sycophant to read into exceedingly and at unnecessary length. It's a classic true cider that would've given George Washington's teeth a taste of home that would've made them long for their mother tree if the myth had been true (alas, his dentures were ivory).

The bottle comes as a true pint, 16.9 fluid ounces, with 6.8% alcohol, and runs a bit pricey at almost $8 each at Market of Choice here in Ashland, though I got a deal on it having arranged to purchase a whole case directly from the cidery in Salem. In fact, I went back a second time this summer and was granted the opportunity to put together a mixed case off their shelves. I chose a little of everything: Bloom, Wickson, Dry Oaked, Wanderlust and Ashmead's Kernel. The cidery is open only for a short window from 4pm to 8pm on Fridays. I happened to be in the area visiting family and getting out of the tinderbox of Southern Oregon, a place where the air currently resembles the smoking room at LaGuardia at sunset in the early 90s.

Wanderlust is made with Oregon-harvested organic Ribston Pippins, a very literary apple having appeared in the writings of Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens. In addition, the cider-makers use Hudson's Golden Gem, an Oregon native, Calville Blanc, an apple dating to the 17th century and unusually high in vitamin C, Golden Russet, an American variant of an English russet, Winesap and a mix of 12 heirloom apple varieties. Every single ounce of apple in this cider is from organic cider apples. Just good stuff. A quick side note for those of you who are unaware of what russeting is, it refers to the skin which is generally slightly rough, usually with a greenish-brown to yellowish-brown color, kind of like a Bosc pear.

Wandering Aengus takes its name from the William Butler Yeats poem, "The Song of Wandering Aengus", a poem about the endless search for the impossible and unattainable, something perfect and pristine in this world. Perhaps the cider makers of Wandering Aengus envision themselves on such a mission. I certainly hope so, because they are getting quite close with Wanderlust, minor flaw and all.

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Learn more about Wandering Aengus at: http://www.wanderingaengus.com/wordpress/