The apples growing in the University of Georgia’s Heritage Apple Orchard have long histories in Southern kitchens. Some of the 139 varieties sat on tables as sweet dessert apples, while others were staple ingredients for everything from savory main courses to the all-American apple pie.
Some also found their way into bottles.
The common apple, Malus domestica, is not native to North America. When Europeans carried the species over the Atlantic, they also brought a centuries-old cider culture that took root. The new arrivals discovered the North American soil and climate produced apple varieties that rivaled and often surpassed their Old World counterparts, both for eating and for cider.
Prohibition and broader cultural and economic changes took a big bite out of the U.S. cider industry, which faded to the point that even the word “cider” became synonymous with the sweet, non-alcoholic beverage served up at commercial orchards each fall.
Recently, however, cider has made a comeback.
“Cider is booming as a business in the United States,” said Stephen Mihm, professor of history in the Franklin College of Arts & Sciences and one of the founders of the Heritage Apple Orchard. “But trying to make ciders out of supermarket, mass-produced varieties of apples will not yield particularly flavorful ciders or ones that cater to contemporary tastes for something fine.”
Most modern “ciders” have a production process more similar to beer brewing than traditional cider making. Their alcohol content and fizzy profile come from added sugar and carbonation, rather than simple fermentation of the fruit itself. Fine cider is more akin to wine than the sweet beverages one finds in the beer cooler.
“You don’t make wine generally out of Concord grapes; you make it out of specific varieties like pinot noir,” Mihm said. “These are grapes that have to be grown in a very specific place. Cider is the exact same way. These types of old Georgia apples were once used for cider, both sweet and alcoholic, and they should be used again.”
“I really like this Yellow June, which I also have in my home orchard,” said Josh Fuder, UGA Extension agent for Cherokee County and another of the prime movers behind the Heritage Orchard. “The problem with summer apples is it’s not a crisp apple, not a firm apple. It’s not an apple that keeps well off the tree. However I made about seven varietal batches of cider from my trees last year, just playing around, and it made a superb single-variety cider.
“Hopefully, as we have more demand for cider apples, that could fill a very nice niche.”
In this video, Mihm and Ray Covington, superintendent of the Georgia Mountain Research and Education Center that houses the Heritage Orchard, talk about their hope that the orchard helps spark a revival of Georgia cider culture.
