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Cider Digest #1400
Subject: Cider Digest #1400, 1 August 2007
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1400 1 August 2007
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re:understanding your business (mark@thealchemystudio.com)
NPR - Out of the Pear Orchard and Into the Glass ("shawn carney")
The Lab (Josh Klatt)
RE: understanding your business ("McGonegal, Charles P")
Re: Cider Digest #1398, 24 July 2007 (john bunker)
Re: When will it end? Not yet! (Dick Dunn)
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Subject: Re:understanding your business
From: mark@thealchemystudio.com
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 09:33:47 -0400
Well said, Dick.
I'm a home cidermaker. All I care about is whether I (and my more
adventurous friends) can tolerate, and possibly enjoy, the cider I make.
I am also an artist. Artist. Artisan. Same deal.
If your goal is to be an artist/artisan understand that fully 90% of
the people who see (or taste) your work are going to be uninterested,
or mildly interested at best. They'll make a polite comment (or even
SOUND really enthused) but move on without buying. No amount of
education (or manifesto-writing) will change their minds. It's
frustrating, but it's going to happen...a lot.
I have a friend who is new to cider making and reads this list (Hey
J!). He tells me that 15 years ago, when I was home brewing, that he
wishes he had tried the beer I was making, but he was still stuck in
the corporate beer rut. Now he has probably tasted 1000 more
microbrews than mine, and he makes killer beer himself. But it took a
LONG time for him to get here.
Your work is not to convince the 90% why they should buy your product.
It's to find the 10% who will, and will do so repeatedly, and
cultivate them. Eventually some of the other 90% will wonder what all
the fuss is about, and finally a few of them will catch on.
Mark
------------------------------
Subject: NPR - Out of the Pear Orchard and Into the Glass
From: "shawn carney" <scarney88@hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 20:38:22 -0600
Here is an great segment concerning perry in the US which just aired on All
Things Considered -yesterday 7/26. Hopfully the link will still be active
(they don't seem to keep them around long).
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12206988
Shawn
------------------------------
Subject: The Lab
From: Josh Klatt <josh@klattcider.com>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 10:40:56 -0400
What role can a Lab (the kind with guys in white coats, not the kind
that chases frisbees) play in your cider making? What do you need
them to test for? At what stages during the process? I have the
basic testers (TA, SG) but what other important stuff can these guys
tell me about my cider?
Josh
josh@klattcider.com
------------------------------
Subject: RE: understanding your business
From: "McGonegal, Charles P" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 08:50:49 -0500
>From CD 1399, Dick Dunn writing:
>>
If your customers want "cool-aid" either you don't know who your
customers are or you don't know what business you're in (flip sides of
the same problem).
<<
Going into the cider business not knowing what your market is turns out
to be startingly easy. I'm not a 'focus group it to death' kind of
person. I see Dick's point in the folly of perpetually chasing the peak
of consumer expectation. But holding your ground with a single product
that is appreciated by too narrow a slice of the market is just as fatal
to a business as chasing the mode of the curve. And it's very hard to
tell how deep the market 'pool' is until you take the plunge!
I do not consider broadening my portfolio of cider products - each
carefully choosen and crafted - to be chasing a market I'll never catch.
Consider my draft cider line - in competition parlance, a common cider,
two specialty:fruit flavored ciders and a specialty:other flavored
(spiced) cider. All four have received similar medals in several
competitions over several years - and I also think they're about the
same quality level. The common cider takes 1/6 of the pie. And even at
1/6 of the pool, that common cider still sells twice as well
(gallon-wise) as the dry, sharp methode-champenoise cider that I started
my business with.
I led my cider adventure with that dry cider champagne because I thought
I did it best, and it appealed to my cider-esthetic. It continues to be
the favored of the industry people who try it - distributor reps, other
wine/cidermakers, etc. But it's a hard sell to consumers.
So I make flavored ciders and backsweetened perry. And about 1/10th of
my annual production volume goes toward so-called 'real' cider (apples,
full stop) from 'traditional' varieties. And before any of you start
pointing fingers at me - yes, I do think that I have sold out my
artistic sensibilities. But now I've got a cash flow to build better
capability and indulge in those 'artisitic' cider experiments.
And also from Dick D.:
>>
And finally this leads to the conclusion that quality standards for
cider are very important. If you're going to compete on more than
price, if you're going to get out of the swamp of hard whatever-ade,
malternatives, and alco-pops, you've got to do it on clear quality
criteria. One of the most obvious for cider is "we make it with apple
juice" (full stop).
<<
Standards of Quality are not the same as Standards of Identity.
Developing both are important tasks for the cider community.
Charles McGonegal
AEppelTreow Winery
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1398, 24 July 2007
From: john bunker <jbunker@gwi.net>
Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 10:21:51 -0400
Here are some suggestions for improved take on whip grafting in northern
districts. If the scionwood is in good shape, all the grafts should take
and the trees should grow to 2-3 feet or more during the first summer.
Collect scionwood later in the winter and graft soon-in March if possible.
Triple bag the wood in plastic bags and store in the root cellar or fridge
until ready to use. Keep the rootstock in a warm space where it will begin
to sprout even before grafting.
Do your grafting in a very warm room. If possible, keep the temperature up
near 80 degrees. Enjoy the heat. Wear a T-shirt. It is important to keep
the grafting knife extremely sharp and very clean during the grafting
process. It does not matter how high on the rootstock you set your graft. I
generally graft 2-3" above the roots, but higher is ok. After grafting,
store newly grafted trees tied in bundles by variety in buckets of damp
sawdust. Store for about 2 weeks at 80 degrees or as warm as possible.
This will callous the grafts. Keep sawdust damp as needed. The grafts
should take off and begin to grow at this point. Now move the buckets of
trees into a cooler environment to harden them off, though not below
freezing.
Plant in April when the ground is ready to plant peas. Before planting,
remove all new green growth from the rootstock below your graft. Irrigate
as needed during the first season. Periodically remove any growth from below
the graft. By this method, you should be able to get a really good tree
after two seasons in the ground or even one.
John Bunker
------------------------------
Subject: Re: When will it end? Not yet!
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 08:39:17 -0600
In the last Cider Digest, Gary Awdey <gawdey@att.net> (in lengthy but good
comments) noted about the San Diego "competition":
> Does this competition live up to the general standards of the BJCP? It
> doesn't appear that it does but I'm not really in a position to know.
...
> ... Imperfect as it
> is, the 2004 revision of the BJCP cider style guidelines did at least
> two important things. First, it separated cider into two categories,
> standard and specialty. Standard cider and perry is what Steve referred
> to when he contrasted it to fruit punch. Specialty cider and perry is
> the stuff with everything else (the sugar, molasses, other fruits,
> spices, etc.).
And yet in the San Diego competition, of the three ciders entered as
Standard (Fox Barrel, Wyder's, Strongbow), two don't fit the guidelines!
I don't have numbers on Wyder's, but it's fairly well known that Strongbow
is made with less than half juice (the rest made up with sugar+water).
To my thinking, the BJCP approach is at least partly to blame for this
travesty. The BJCP "style guidelines" are just that--guidelines. They
have no teeth. There's no "letter of the law" to consider, and anybody
along the way--entrants, competition organizers, judges--is free to ignore
the spirit/sense of the guidelines.
When we wrote the guidelines, we really intended what Gary says: to
create one category for cider/perry made from juice, not sugared up or
severely doctored, not flavored with other stuff, etc. We wanted real
cider to be able to compete on its own, to get a fair shake away from
the fruit-punch and other gimmicky drinks.
But we saw with GLOWS 2005, and it's confirmed with the San Diego comp,
that feel-good guidelines won't assure this happens. As long as it's
to the advantage of the producer (or worse, the distributor!) to enter
a "cider" in the wrong category, that's just what will happen. Better
judge training and general education can help the problem somewhat, but
won't fix it. It's a serious structural problem in BJCP's approach.
And, by extension from Shawn's earlier comments: Why would you enter a
competition if you know you can lose to a product that doesn't even belong
in the category you entered?
Other competitions, from cat shows to barbecue sauce, have rules as well
as "guideline" style descriptions. Why shouldn't cider competitions?
(Thanks to Diane and Varilyn for examples.)
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
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End of Cider Digest #1400
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