“Very tasty cider at a relaxing and adorable location. Perfect place for a couple drinks, some catching up with friends, or enjoying a book under an apple tree with a great drink. The Shamrock cider and Taconic gold were delicious!”
— Mairi, local guide
“We had our best day ever last Saturday,” Little Apple Cidery owner/operator Ron Bixby reports, reflecting on their recent CIDERFEST and 10th anniversary celebration on October 11-12. “We had hundreds of people and 67 cars in the lot, the Aloha Tacos food truck, music from Roe Jan Bluegrass Band and Garrin Benfield, and lots of cider.” If you missed it, don’t despair! They hold their CIDERFEST weekend every fall and have many more weekends of music and fun, charcuterie and food trucks, and regular and hard cider before the season ends.
The anniversary celebration included barrel-rolling contests, a kids’ animal scavenger hunt, Great Cape Baking Co. donuts, and drawings with prizes. Looking back over the past decade, Bixby counts the most significant highlights to be building the tap room facility and working with a small but mighty team of great people.
A tiny seed and a mighty team
Long before there was even the seed of an idea, a team, or an orchard, Bixby and his wife, Alanne Baerson, were professionals working in New York City. “Alanne was an architect [she later became a clinical psychologist] and I was a transportation planner for Parsons Brinckerhoff [now WSP, a global engineering and professional services firm specializing in sustainable solutions]. I was used to planning and running huge projects, working on budgets, serving lots of clients, and working with lots of consultants,” he notes.
It was the mid-1970s, and the couple was renting a farmhouse with 80 acres on Manor Rock Road in Taconic, N.Y. They drove up by motorcycle most weekends. “During that stay, we got to know and love the area and started looking for a weekend place within our budget. In 1979, we found this place—which was twice our budget—but the magic was too great to ignore,” he recalls.
Bixby and Baerson purchased the heirloom apple orchard and farm in 1980 and began the long process of restoring it. “The orchard we took over was abandoned for 10 to 15 years, so we spent the first years just clearing it out,” Bixby explains. They focused on growing fruit until 2010, when he went to Cornell to earn his cidermaking certification. Three years later, New York State passed a new law, making it easier for farms wanting to produce beer, cider, wine, and distilled products to get a liquor license. “Let’s go into cider making,” he decided, and the new adventure began.
Ned Hoffman (from Hoffman Farms, down the road) led the team of builders who constructed the production space and tap room. For the first few years, Bixby and an assistant produced the cider. Hayley Shine joined the team in 2019, when Bixby was working with a consultant to upgrade his equipment (specifically, to put in large fermenters and a belt press for continuous pressing). “Randomly, at a conference on cider making, I sat next to Bill Newman, who was helping Ron and Steve Bluestone at Roe Jan Brewing Co. locate a beer/cider maker,” Shine explains. The opportunity to get to know the apple growing process appealed to her—enough that she decided to move to the Northeast and help Bixby launch the cider-making operation.
In those early days, Bixby was selling cider from a table. After COVID, the store room became an outdoor tap room. The “Orchard Bar” was immediately successful. Because it was then mandatory for businesses that served alcohol to also offer food, they added light fare and created an outdoor experience sitting under the apple trees. “We planted a second orchard of cider apple varieties at Thompson Finch Farm in Ancram and now grow more than 30 apple varieties, along with quince and Chinese chestnuts,” Bixby adds, noting that both orchards are certified organic by the Northeast Organic Farming Association of NY (NOFA-NY).
“Lisa Graedon found our family in 2021,” Bixby continues. Originally from Idaho, Graedon was a New York artist looking for a new profession. “When we left the city, I told my husband, ‘If I ever do anything other than art, cidermaking—specifically in an orchard—is what I want it to be,” she shares, adding, “Tim and I moved to Hudson at the end of 2022, and I saw a ‘help wanted’ sign Hayley had posted online.” That was the beginning of a deep connection. Graedon is now an integral part of the team. In addition to working with the apples and ciders, she designs all the labels, as well as posters and signs.
Growing and picking, pressing and fermenting…
There’s a lot more to growing apples than planting trees. For example, knowing that an atypically wet season produces watery apples with less taste, pollination isn’t as good if it’s cold the week everything is in bloom, and a late frost will freeze the buds. Last year was a bumper crop, but that meant this year the soil was depleted of nutrients and the trees needed a rest. “Every year you’re contending with something else,” says Bixby. “Whether you have a good crop or bad, it’s the same amount of work, other than picking (which is fun, not work).” Graedon adds, “There’s actually more pruning work to do when the trees are not producing fruit because that means they’re growing more wood.”
Bixby views Little Apple Cidery as unique. “There aren’t many orchards/farms that are grower-producers,” he says. The whole process of growing fruit and making cider is a year-round job, he admits. “In the off-season, we’re pruning 800 trees, with a goal of finishing by the end of March,” Graedon explains. “In April, we plant new trees, and we do orchard maintenance all year.”
Little Apple Cidery offers hard cider by the glass or flight, non-alcoholic sparkling cider, local beer, and a thoughtful selection of fine provisions; it also offers fresh cider during the harvest season. Most of the fruit is sourced from their own orchard, but they also buy fruit when needed—though they’re very particular about their varieties, Bixby emphasizes.
“Our ciders are all about the apples and the harvest. Each year is a new adventure starting with the quality, quantity, and variety of cider fruit available from our two NOFA-NY certified organic orchards,” he continues. All apples are hand-picked and then either used for fresh, pasteurized cider sold in jugs, or selected for batches, pressed, fermented, and racked in barrels or tanks for six months. “It has to rest, settle, and clarify,” Bixby points out. By May, they begin bottling the cider.
Meeting challenges and planning for the future
Asked to name one of the biggest challenges they face in the daily press, Bixby responds, “There are many, many… The cider press is not in use for a long time, and then suddenly it is used intensively.” The day of my visit, in fact, they are dealing with a smoking Kreuzmayr (an Austrian mill that grinds fruit) that has ground to a halt without warning. “Maybe the quince was too hard at the end of the season?” Graedon wonders. And so, with tools in hand, the three take to problem-solving.
“A lot of cidery websites list very lofty goals,” Bixby points out. “Ours is pretty simple. I think we’re really about building community. People from everywhere come—farmers and neighbors with ATVs, city folks and local home owners, and everything in between.” Graedon adds, “It’s a big gathering place where everyone feels comfortable.”
How big does Bixby see the operations growing in the future? “There’s a delicate balance between producing and marketing more cider and having enough resources to hire more people. We’re very conservative in terms of how quickly we grow. We don’t want to lose the charm of this place.” While cider is the focus, they are looking to develop a food program, beyond their current charcuterie/local cheeses and lite snack fare.
For now, the greatest joy comes from being known and loved by the Berkshire community. “It’s a beautiful thing to share this farm—inviting people to hike up the hill, sit by the pond, or relax in the orchard,” he smiles. From Mother’s Day weekend (when the trees start blooming) through Thanksgiving, they are open Saturdays and Sundays—and are now beginning to do Friday events as well. “The majority of our business is tap room guests, wholesale, and offsite events,” Graedon says, noting that they also do some private events (and are hoping to do more!).
Upcoming events include the NY Cider Fest at City Winery on November 15, the Basilica Farm & Flea Holiday Market in Hudson on November 28-30, and the annual wreath-making collaboration with VineGate Lavender Floral Farm on November 29. On January 17, you can help shoo away the evil spirits and carry on their annual Wassail, warm drink in hand. Celebrate the onset of winter with a blazing fire, a procession through the orchard that starts with “hoisting deer antlers, carrying torches, banging pots and pans, ringing bells and beating drums on the way to the sacred apple tree” where they toast its branches and pour cider on its roots. The ancient tradition promises to help “fend off disease and insects, drought, flood, the dreaded late frost and whatever else comes their way.”
