Eve's Cidery's Two Year Pommeau: This 2024 bottling of pommeau was aged in barrels for 2 years before blending and bottling. Rich, smooth, and balanced - a delightful slow sipper. 

Tasting notes: Aromatics of rich, fresh apple, orchard floor, hay, cloves, caramel, vanilla, and woody barrel. Sweet - though the tannins and acidity cut through the sweetness pretty quickly. Rich apple notes are well balanced with sharpness and warmth from the brandy, and oaky goodness from the barrel. Notes of baked apple, apple skin, wood, hay, twig, candied orange peel, and cinnamon coated donuts. Acidity lingers long through the finish.

An indispensable sipper for cozy fall nights or for sharing around a summer campfire. A good way to wow your friends with something exceptional that they probably have not had before.

The Story of the Two Year Pommeau from Eve's Cidery: 
In 2018, we laid down in barrel spirits distilled from our own bittersweet apples by Collin McConville, at Apple Country Spirits in Williamson, NY. Half of the spirits were aged at 160 proof and the other half were blended with cryoconcentrated juice extracted during our ice cider making process before aging. After two years, these two barrels were blended along with some cider lees from the 2019 vintage.

The painting on the label of this cider was made by Janet Byer Sherman. Once a dancer with Martha Graham, Janet paints kinetic landscapes that evoke layers of memory, meaning and emotion. In a sense, the pommeau does the same…the landscape it evokes is surely the orchard here in Van Etten, but also perhaps the orchards of Normandy and their bittersweet apples that inspire us. One of my favorite flavors in pommeau, is the apple on the orchard floor, ripe beyond recognition, a memory of a harvest now past, sinking into the damp autumn leaves.

From Eve's: The first pommeau we ever made was in 2017 (a 3 year aged pommeau). Since then we have been laying away spirits in oak barrels to keep a pommeau program going. Since 2014, we’ve been working with Collin McConville at Apple Country Spirits (and now at Finger Lakes Distilling) to custom distill our cider into brandy. Sometimes we ferment batches specifically to distill, sometimes they are mistakes or cider otherwise not good enough to bottle. We hope in the future to expand this effort and distill surplus apples in on-year production cycles. Pommeau is a blend of apple spirits and apple juice. Practically speaking, we are often making a complex blend that includes aged spirits, a fraction of cryo-concentrated juice, and some fully or partially fermented cider. We aim for around 20% alcohol, balanced acidity, appley-ness, a bit of earth/damp leaves, and nutty oxidized flavors.

Also now a tradition, we grace the label with one of Ezra’s mom’s beautiful paintings. Janet Byer Sherman loved the natural beauty of the area and captured the light, color and form in evocative abstract oil paintings. Of all the ciders we made, Janet probably liked the pommeau the best and she was tickled that we asked her if we could use her paintings for the labels. Janet passed early this year, but we think of her often and it’s nice to be able to continue to share her unique way of seeing the world with all of you.

About Eve's Cidery: One of our long-time favorite American cider makers. Eve's is located in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate, New York - one of the premier apple growing and cider making regions in the U.S. Started in 2001 by Autumn Stoscheck, James Cummins, and Ezra Sherman - making Eve's Cidery part of the early wave of cideries helping revive American fine cider. They have thoughtfully developed their own organic cider orchards, intentionally selecting apple varieties to grow based on those that are excellent for cider making and that grow well in their terroir. Eve's makes cider using traditional methods - all native yeast fermentations, bottled either still or naturally sparkling (Méthode Champenoise/Traditional Method). We carry a wide range of their ciders, and get a shipment approximately once per year - grab these small batch ciders while you can!