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Cider Digest #1388
Subject: Cider Digest #1388, 7 June 2007
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1388 7 June 2007
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: Cider Digest #1387, 2 June 2007 (Bill Rhyne)
Aroma description question: apple-drops, pear-drops (Michael Arighi)
Aroma description question: apple-drops, pear-drops (Andrew Lea)
RE: Aroma description question: apple-drops, pear-drops ("McGonegal, Charl...)
Foggy Ridge Cider and apple varieties (Benjamin Watson)
Re: Cider Digest #1387, 2 June 2007 (john bunker)
AOCs, AVAs, and ACAs ("shawn carney")
how long for a regional style? (Dick Dunn)
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Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1387, 2 June 2007
From: Bill Rhyne <bill_rhyne@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 17:41:35 -0700 (PDT)
RE: Charles M.'s comment "Can we find regional preferences for
certain cultivars? What were the cultivars, and what were the regions?
This is a relatively young nation."
This comment and the one made earlier by Charles regarding sorting things
out by customer preferences, such as sweet,sour, acidic, etc. is what I
teach in my marketing courses as taking a "market orientation approach"
to find out what people actually like to taste or consume. The more
interaction with the customer where you can see their immediate reaction to
your cider will give you some of that information. When I teach marketing,
I sometimes use the tea analogy. In England, they put milk in the tea and in
Atlanta, Geogia, they may put sugar and lemon in the tea, where in New York,
they may drink the tea straight with no alteration. Somewhere in beverage
discussions with others, it was mentioned that the Northeast part of the
USA tends to prefer tart/sour/acidic flavors where the Southeast in the
USA prefers sweet flavors. Why?
Here is one postulation. If you are what you eat, then you develop
preferences for those things familiar. If you live in an area that is cooler
and cloudy so less sunshine, the fruit may not be as sweet as fruit found in
Florida or California, where there is plenty of sun to ripen fruit, convert
the starches to sugar, and to be consumed at full ripeness. So before the
rise of the car and the interstate system and frequent flyer miles, people
did not travel as much as they do now in the USA so their preferences were
more regional, due to what was available to them to consume. (I grew up in
Kansas so I don't want to talk about what was available there, when compared
to California or Hawaii, other places that I have lived.) I know that when
I went to South Carolina for meetings in my past life, the tea was always
served sweet and if you didn't want sweet, you needed to request it. So,
my guess is that people will like sweet or semi-sweet wines in the South,
until their knowledge or experience builds up and they start to experiment.
One of the experiences with Rhyne Cyder tastings was that people were so
surprised at how "dry" it tasted. They were comparing the experience
to drinking apple juice, which still has all of the natural sweetness,
or commercial ciders, which are sweetened. We did not go for "bone dry"
taste because customers said that it tasted like champagne, not apples,
and they expected and wanted the apple characteristic. We were able to
achieve that by retaining some natural sweetness. So, again, customers
have preferences based on their background experiences and knowledge, and
that will affect the acceptance of your cider. These preferences could be
regionally based but in the USA, people move around so much that geography
may not matter as much as some other demographic feature.
Looking back to the ciders made in the 19th century USA is interesting
from a cultural and historical perspective and for continuity, but the
farmers were probably constrained and were trying to work with what was
in front of them. They did not have the choices that today's farmers and
producers have.
Anyway, just a few ideas. As you can see, I am enjoying the discussion.
Aloha,
Bill Rhyne
------------------------------
Subject: Aroma description question: apple-drops, pear-drops
From: Michael Arighi <calzinman@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2007 22:26:46 -0700
Charles McGonegal wrote on 5/31/07: "Aroma description question:
apple-drops, pear-drops"
Would the "pear drops" aroma not be ethyl acetate, which is almost
universally described in the material I've seen as smelling of "pear drops"?
If so, I'd like the chemists to weigh in. Isn't that an inherently
rather unstable compound, heading "downhill" to acetic acid?
Or is there some other ester here that gives the distinctive aroma? I
sure know it's distinctive. We made some perry one year and added about
10# of pears (probably Bartlett?) experimentally to about 200# of
Gravenstein apples and the overwhelming scent, after fermentation, was
pear. We've not made that mistake again. I like perry, but I like cider,
too, and I'd rather not have everything taste of pears.
Michael Arighi
Oakland CA
------------------------------
Subject: Aroma description question: apple-drops, pear-drops
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2007 14:38:12 +0100
Charles wrote:
> I see these terms in resources ranging from Morgan & Richards (Book of
> Apples) to J. Rutter's system on Andrew Lea's website.
>
> But just what the heck are they? My impression is that the words refer
> to the hard, sour candies - although I've never encountered a pear
> version.
Yes they do. In the UK 'pear drop' hard-boiled sweets are a childhood
favourite that have been around for several generations.
>Do they refer to the intense, one-dimensional flavors in those
> candies?
Yes, because in a QDA (Quantitative Descriptive Analysis) system
something immediately recognisable (at least to UK folk!) is a great
benefit.
> what's the pear compound?
Typically we would regard it as iso-amyl acetate, or as displaying a
similar character. The actual impact compound of *fresh* pear is (from
memory) ethyl dodecenoate (so, not that close apart from being an
ester!). Remember these candies were invented a century ago when the
range of available synthetic food flavours was very limited.
>> And for the apple version, is that the ethyl methyl dioxolane
>> acetate (aka applinal) character that Andrew has written of a few times?
>>
In those candies, an apple aroma is most likely to be from something
like hexyl acetate. In practice cocktails of quite simple esters would
be used for both apple and pear candy flavours.
Now, I don't think I ever called anything 'applinal'! I'm not quite sure
which dioxolane you mean. The one I've referred to before is 2-methyl
4-pentyl 1,3-dioxane. I've just put up another page on my website about
this compound and some other cider aroma components. It's at
http://www.cider.org.uk/aroma.html (or via the menu frame at 'more
about cider aroma')
Andrew
- --
Wittenham Hill Cider Page
http://www.cider.org.uk
------------------------------
Subject: RE: Aroma description question: apple-drops, pear-drops
From: "McGonegal, Charles P" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 07:35:10 -0500
Thanks for the reality check, Andrew - and the pear notes.
Sorry for any misquote on the dioxane compound. The naming of even
moderately complex molecules is not the science my organic chem.
professors claimed it was :-) (And I work for a company that still
calls things olefins and paraffins, rather than alkenes and alkanes)
In CDs #1024, 1321 and 1346 (spread over several years) you refer to 1,3
octanediol, and its acetaldehyde condensate. I tracked that back
through my preferred chemical vendor and a couple of flavor house online
databases to a compound that has a list of synonyms literally a foot and
a half long. (Which is why CAS numbers are so handy. 6413-10-1) I
thought that the 'apple ketal' synomym was kind of telling. I left the
exact numbers and -enes, -ols, -yls and -ates off in my last post. I'm
sure it has a host of subtle isomers. (Like this one I just found -
2-ethyl pentyl-1,3-dioxolane(4359-47-1) for woody green notes)
I was doing a little nosing about in case I want to put together a set
of standards.
Also, thanks for the technical references you host on your website. A
wonderful resource.
Charles
------------------------------
Subject: Foggy Ridge Cider and apple varieties
From: Benjamin Watson <bwatson@worldpath.net>
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 10:16:55 -0400
I want to correct a mistake I made a couple weeks ago in our discussion
of apple varieties on the Digest.
I mistakenly referred to Diane Flynt's new cidery as "Foggy Mountain
Cider" -- must have been listening to bluegrass music at the time.
The actual name of the business is Foggy Ridge Cider, and the website
is www.foggyridgecider.com, if anyone wants to check it out. The new
site is up now and looks good. Diane is making three types of cider
right now -- all look interesting, and I'll be anxious to try them at
Cider Day this November (and probably before then).
On the "origin of cultivars" thread, I'm reading other people's
comments with interest. My take is that it's definitely worth compiling
more information on North American apple varieties -- not only their
origin and history, but their cider qualities (from both a quantitative
and taste perspective).
I also tend to agree with the general (and almost self-evident) comment
that the same apple variety grows differently in different climates and
"terroirs".
I wonder whether it would be relevant or useful to try and survey
orchardists and sample fruit from different regions to determine where
each particular apple does "best" rather than where it can be grown --
and from a taste and cider quality perspective. In other words, Steve
Wood maintains (and I think he's correct) that McIntosh grows to its
full potential in the Upper Connecticut River valley of NH and VT
(let's include the Champlain Valley and southern Quebec in that area
too). That's not too surprising, since the "center of origin" for
McIntosh is around Lake Champlain in Canada. But other varieties might
reach their full flavor/sugar/acid potential in places other than their
place of origin.
I have a feeling that this could be a collaborative effort among all of
us Digesters, maybe with the participation of a university like
Michigan State, Cornell, or UNH, and with the support/expertise of
organizations like Slow Food and NAFEX.
Ben Watson
Francestown, NH
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1387, 2 June 2007
From: john bunker <jbunker@gwi.net>
Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 10:20:52 -0400
Subject: Re: Origin of Cultivars
I have done extensive research into the varieties of apples grown in Maine
over the past 200+ years. I know of no reference to any variety being grown
here specifically for cider. As you know, most of the early New England
orchards were seedlings. And, much of those apples were used for cider
production. While in Maine these seedling trees are sometimes called
"natural fruit", more often they are referred to as "cider apples" by the
old timers. Perhaps they acquired that name because they were easy to come
by, free for the taking and no good for much else. However, I think not
entirely. After all, every farm in my town had an orchard, and all but a
handful of the population lived on farms. There would have been plenty of
grafted apples for cider in the orchard. As I hear more old stories I
think that these wild apples were actually sought after because many of them
possessed the qualities that made good fermented cider. There are still
older folk in my town who remember as children having 4 or 5 barrels in the
basement every winter.
On the other hand there is no doubt that specific dessert and culinary
varieties were favored in one area or another in Maine. Some of these are
of Maine origin such as Black Oxford, Starkey, Dudley Winter, etc. Many
other Maine regional staples originated out of state, primarily but not
exclusively in New England. (We have a lot of old Yellow Bellflower, King
of Tompkins County, Pewaukee, Wealthy and Wolf River trees, not to mention
Duchess, Red Astrichan, et al.)
John Bunker
Palermo ME
------------------------------
Subject: AOCs, AVAs, and ACAs
From: "shawn carney" <scarney88@hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 15:29:14 -0600
Taken from Orgin of cultavers topic Digest 1387
Charles wrote:
"Use of tools like AVAs (American Viticultural Areas) has benefits and
problems. But still, they exist - and are proliferating. If some
cidermakers would like to try to develop notional 'ACA's, a resource of
historical data would be helpful. Even so, the AVAs don't delve into
cultivar like the AOCs do."
- - - - - -
I think it might be a mistake to support the idea of exclusive areas instead
of simply supporting quality cider. I don't think AVAs did all that much
good (if any). Just going off raw numbers it's easy to overlook that maybe
AVAs didn t proliferate. A few years ago they started handing out AVAs to
anyone who wanted one, maybe they were trying to fix a mistake.
Using a make-believe state here is an example of just one problem with AVAs.
Let's give the state a fitting name - the state of "Tomfoolery".
Tomfoolery is no Garden of Eden but has sites more or less evenly
distributed where grapes grow well, at least well enough to make good wine.
After time a few of the existing winery owners / grape growers banded
together to have some arbitrary boundary around their land declared as an
AVA. They knew this would make things difficult for existing wineries that
didn't get included but they felt this would give themselves a marketing
edge and real credibility. Later other people came with dreams of owning a
vineyard and chose a site in the AVA this choice was based on all the wrong
reasons. But after all it would be crazy to not take advantage of the
marketing aspect of being in the AVA. There may have been a better vineyard
site a few miles away but it wasn t in the AVA. Tomfoolery's wine
development board loved the AVA because it was easy to market and gave
Tomfoolery a feeling of importance. Instead of supporting quality wines
in general the development board only supported wineries in the arbitrary
boundary of the AVA- good wine bad wine it's all AVA wine! The development
board made some nice maps and brochures that attracted people from
Tomfoolery's capital city of "Ridiculous". Ridiculous's tourists went on
the wine tours and drank some good wine and some bad wine, people thought
to themselves "this must be the best wine Tomfoolery has to offer since it
came from the AVA" and didn't visit many of the wineries outside the AVA.
Many people remembered the bad wine and said pew... Tomfoolery can't produce
decent wine I'm going back to my Yellow Kangaroo and Bonnie Dew'n. Now
everyone is a loser, even the good wineries in the AVA as well as the
wineries outside the AVA that existed before the AVA was formed. You can't
put a boundary around quality wine and you're only screwing people and more
than likely yourself if you try.
So how do you fix your mistake? By leveling out the playing field and
giving out an AVA to everyone. It makes the whole system almost
meaningless, reduces the number of people not in an AVA (less people to
complain) and the best part - you don't have to admit that you screwed up.
AVAs distracted producers and consumers from what is really important,
quality wine.
Do you really want to do the same to cider? I SAY YES!- just kidding
Shawn
------------------------------
Subject: how long for a regional style?
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 15:10:24 -0600
(Prologue: I hope we've fairly well decoupled the "origin of cultivars"
discussion and project from "regional styles" and ACA [gack] pondering.)
I had gotten to thinking what, and how long, it takes to develop a regional
style. After my last comment (2 digests ago) and some others, there is
maybe a hint that it's got to be a hoary tradition before it's meaningful.
That's not really the case, but how long does it take and how do you decide
if there is a true regional style?
One analogy is the craft brewing business in the US. It got started, in
the sense of new small breweries starting up with new thinking, in the
late 70's or early 80's. There were older regional styles prior to this
renaissance, mainly on the east coast of the US. But eventually some
west coast trends developed, and there are now identifiable styles--for
example, American Pale Ale. This took some 15+ years to evolve--depends
on how you figure it--but now if you use the term with beer geeks,
they'll know what you mean.
Keep in mind, when considering that "15+ years", that brewers can work
year-round varying their recipes, and that ales are quick. So a brewer
might have had four or five tries in a year to work on a recipe, try it
on customers, taste what other brewers were doing and incorporate ideas
into the next batch, and repeat with refinements, smaller changes, each
time.
With cider we're pretty much limited to one round of experimenting per
year. We can do several blends from one harvest--parallel experiments
if you will--but so can a brewer. It's the number of cycles from
blend/ferment through tasting and feedback to the next blend that's
limited...so I don't see how we're going to develop distinctive styles
as fast as brewers could. We're also limited by availability of fruit
varieties. Where a brewer can say "Gosh, I think this needs more 50°L
crystal malt and a touch of Northern Brewer in the kettle", and go order
up the ingredients, I can't say "Gee, I think 20% Dabinett would push the
tannins in the right direction" and order the fruit from my supplier.
Applying what Drew said last digest, the results of our experimentation
may be for the next generation or two. I'm really wary of rushing the
idea of new styles ("inventing" them, as it were) because I think we'll
make too many mistakes and even create stuff that doesn't exist. This
just isn't the place for quick-fix marketing.
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1388
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