For some of us, cider has been relegated to a summer beverage, best had when the temperature has risen and we’re in need of something fun and refreshing. Or maybe we consider a hard cider during the fall because, you know, harvest season. But listen, winter cider is a thing, with craft cider houses releasing seasonally appropriate batches of their hooch when seasonal affective disorder is hitting hard. We found eight seasonal ciders to get you through the rest of winter.
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Blake's Hard Cider Archimedes: Blake's is a Great Lakes based cider house that uses local apples from their own property (they have more than 45,000 apple trees on their property, where they've been growing apples for 69 years). They use a combination of vanilla and elderberry in this winter seasonal, which is available through March.
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Millstone focuses on barrel-aged ciders, using apples that were plucked from within 150 miles of the cidery. Red Eye was released late last year, after being aged in fresh Willet Bourbon barrels for 10 months.
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JK's Cuvee Winterruption is an organic cider spiced with cinnamon, vanilla and maple syrup. JK also grows its own apples. It seems to be a thing.
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Starcut Ciders was created by Short's Brewing, and this Erraticus 8 just hit the streets. It was fermented with Northern Michigan apples and aged on lemon zest.
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ACE Apple Honey is made with so much wildflower honey, it could almost be considered a mead. And yet, it finishes pretty dry. Released in January.
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Ciderboys did pretty well in our big blind tasting of hard ciders with their First Press. Mad Bark is one of their winter offerings, actually broke the top 10 of that tasting. It's available until the end of February, and it's infused with cinnamon. Think apple pie.
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Square Mile Cider Co. gets spicy with their new Ginger Pear Apple, which was just released, and has bit from the ginger and a bit of tartness from the pear.
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Portland Cider has a proper winter cider with Winter Spice, which is infused with cinnamon, cardamom and cayenne pepper. But they also just released this Pineapple cider, which is sweetened with fresh pineapple juice. If you're looking for a super dry cider, move on. If you want a taste of summer in the midst of winter, here you go.
Portland Cider