I GREW UP working weekends on my grandfather’s eastern Pennsylvania farm, where there were a couple of ancient apple trees. As a teenager, I would press 5 gallons of cider from the fruit of those trees in the fall to ferment into hard cider. I wasn’t old enough to buy beer and it was the only way I could get my hands on alcohol without stealing it.
These days, I get my hard cider from producers considerably more adept than my teenage self. We’re in the midst of an American farmstead cider renaissance, so my options are many and varied.
