Confession: when it comes to certain food items, I am a snob. A provincial snob. One example is sweet corn. We do not eat sweet corn until local corn comes in, all of it grown within ten miles of where we live. Some comes from fabled Plessis corn maven Alan Hunter, some comes from the local Amish. We buy lesser corn coming from who knows where, but that stuff is not for human consumption; we use it as food supplement for the critters we have in wildlife rehab care. Squirrels are not picky about corn. We are.
Another bit of snobbery is apple cider.
I like a drink or two late in the evening, and for much of a year that drink is a healthy glug of Svedka or Luksusowa vodka over ice, then topped off with orange juice. But for a magical period beginning in September and ending in late November to early December, instead I get to savor my vodka with Burrville cider.
The Burrvile cider mill is twenty-some miles south of us, but once they are in production the local mainland grocery story we depend upon stocks it. They make, hands-down, the best cider I have ever tasted. Northern kids are raised with a taste for cider, and an appreciation for the good stuff. I’ve been drinking cider for sixty or more years.
The Burrville cider folks have had practice. The mill was built in 1801 as a sawmill powered by a nearby stream, and somewhere in the early to mid 1800s they also started producing cider in season. They went to cider only around 1940, pressing beginning when the local apple harvest comes in, late August to early September, and continuing until weather conditions shuts them down.
I knew the end was getting near. It was December and the display kept getting smaller, so I'd try to stay at least two half-gallons ahead. Hoarding won't work, will go over fairly quickly. But last week the Burrville Cider sign was gone from the store window, and the cooler was now stocked with a lesser product. Crestfallen, I bought orange juice.
So here's the minor miracle: I polished off the last of the Burrville cider Solstice night, meaning it lasted until Solstice. Which is quite a bit later supply than in some years, when it dries up not long after Thanksgiving.
Not a miracle worth a holiday, but a holiday worthy of a small miracle; a sign that the good things can last longer than expected, and that the shift toward the new season and year can start on a positive note, with hopes with more good things to come.
Damn, those last couple vodka and ciders were good. Far finer than the year that led up to them.
Cheers!