So many cideries begin as a result of some courageous soul, who’s chugging alongside in a extra “conventional” profession, decides to surrender the desk jockey routine and pursue their ardour for cider. The founding of Texas Keeper Cider begins in such a way, with co-owner and cidermaker Nick Doughty bailing on his plans to go to legislation college and as a substitute touring to New Zealand and enrolling in a college there to review winemaking.
It’s a fortunate factor that Doughty had the fortitude to make this life selection, as a result of the Texas cider neighborhood and the trade are higher for it. Texas Keeper’s fruit-driven ciders are knowledgeable by Doughty’s winemaking expertise and profound sense of curiosity and creativity with regards to apples and different fermentable fruits. You’ll be able to see proof of this in Texas Keeper’s ciders, like Grafter Rosé, a co-ferment of Rome Magnificence, Cameo, Honeycrisp and Fuji apples and Texas-grown Mourvedre and Cinsault grapes.
We have been capable of meet up with Doughty to study extra in regards to the founding and flourishing of Texas Keeper for this Cidermaker Q&A:
Cider Tradition: How did cider first come into your life?
Nick Doughty: I grew up in Austin, Texas however my dad is English, and my aunt lives in Somerset. At any time when we’d go to after I was a child, we’d go to cideries. Wilkins is a legendary old-style cidery that stays in my reminiscence, with an previous barn on a hillside. The proprietor grows all of the apples and makes ciders. Lindsay [Doughty’s life and business partner] and I truly received to return there in 2017! In 2004, she and I truly moved to New Zealand and received work vacation visas and labored a season within the apple orchards. We went again once more for a part of 2010; it was nice work!
Texas Keeper co-owners (L to R): Brandon Wilde, Lindsey Peebles and Nick Doughty
How did these experiences lead you to opening Texas Keeper?
At the moment, I used to be a movie editor and did extra educational work. However I actually cherished working onerous within the orchards, doing a tough day’s work. I got here again right here to grad college, and received a level in public coverage, however then determined to not go to legislation college. As an alternative, I enrolled in Lincoln College in New Zealand and moved again down there to study winemaking. Lindsay and I lived in New Zealand on and off for a number of years over a decade-long interval. A part of my research there included tending to a row of grapes that we’d use to make wine with. My winery accomplice and I began crushing apples and making cider on the aspect only for enjoyable. Lindsay and I began fascinated by opening one thing in Austin, and commenced engaged on a marketing strategy. After I got here again to the States, I received employed because the assistant cidermaker of Austin Eastciders, the place I labored for a number of years earlier than I slid out to start out Texas Keeper. We received the primary apples for Texas Keeper in 2013, and launched our first cider in 2014.
Why did you flip to cider as a substitute of pursuing winemaking?
Enjoying round making cider in grad college confirmed me how a lot creativity you possibly can deliver to the method. On the time, the American wine scene didn’t actually exist if you happen to have been exterior of sure areas within the Northeast and West Coast, however cider was burgeoning in all places.
Plus, good cider is wine, and that’s how we’ve at all times handled it. We don’t personal any apple bushes, however we work with a number of small farmers centered on getting high quality fruit and treating it like wine. To us, meaning fermenting low-and-slow, letting the apples converse for themselves, and doing lots of the cidermaking via the mixing course of. We’ve actually leaned in to the orchard-to-bottle model: every thing we do is completed in 750-ml bottles, and some issues in draft, however no cans. We solely maintain our Gold Rush and Texas Keeper #1 cider round year-round, however every thing else we make simply as soon as, or we’ll make new vintages of it.
How did you discover the growers that you simply’re at present sourcing from?
We reached out to the Ag extension workplace who helped join us with some Texas apple growers. We additionally bumped into one in all our growers on a Google Group who had all of the cool previous American apples we have been on the lookout for. We use some previous American heirloom culinary varieties, like Rome Magnificence or Rhode Island Greening, and a few bittersweets and bittersharps, too.
Does specializing in native fruit ever restrict what you are able to do?
And yeah, we’re actually depending on what’s out there. Lots of these apples are biennial croppers, and we’re at all times reacting to what the season offers us. However to us, probably the most enjoyable factor is to make the perfect cider you possibly can with what you’ve received every season. As an illustration, Grafter Rosé in 2015 was our first apple/grape hybrid. It happened as a result of the clone of Rome Magnificence we have been utilizing had some pigment bleed via, however the shade wasn’t steady. So we thought, let’s mess around with grapes and do some co-fermenting, and the subsequent 12 months we co-fermented the apples with Cinsault from the Texas Excessive Plains. We additionally do a pores and skin contact cider the place we take Sangiovese skins and layer completed cider on tops of them and do a post-ferment maceration, which leads to a reasonably attention-grabbing rosé-style cider/wine. The hybrids are enjoyable, for positive.
You’ve been making cider now for a stable decade. Has your strategy modified or developed in any respect?
I’ve grow to be extra comfy with ciders getting a bit of funky. To start with, we solely made clear, very fruit-forward cider, after which began to do extra wild fermentations and barrel-aging. I feel it’s a results of rising extra assured. As a cidermaker, you begin enjoying round and see what’s going to occur, and over time, achieve extra comfortability letting extra probability occur in your cidermaking.
Inform us a bit of bit about your taproom!
Oddly, we began out doing simply 100% wholesale, after which opened our taproom two years later, in March of 2016. Most individuals don’t do it that approach!
However our cidery/taproom is simply exterior of Austin, on the south aspect of city. It’s on 19 acres of land stuffed with previous dwell oak bushes, wildflower prairie land, a number of veggie gardens, and plenty of open house. It’s an previous stone ranch home, and components of the constructing date from the Eighteen Eighties and a few are from the Nineteen Forties. We renovated and transformed it into the taproom, with a kitchen that focuses on cheese and charcuterie, and a bar space the place you possibly can have ciders on faucet and flights. We additionally carry different folks’s wine and a few ciders, from Texas and everywhere. It has extra of a vineyard tasting-room vibe, however you can even discover folks and households having fun with the picnic tables, and we have now bands out right here, and launch occasions on the weekends.
Texas Keeper’s Tasting Room patio
Any future plans you possibly can share with us?
We’re transferring into extra fortified ciders, like making our pommeau, Dovetail, which takes round 4 years in American oak. We’ve additionally been taking some fruit from Texas, fortifying it and getting old it in ex-Calvados barrels. We make Cerise, a bitter cherry cider aged in sherry casks and cognac barrels. These tasks are actually enjoyable — there’s a lot you are able to do with it with fermentation, barrels, and getting old!
For more information on Texas Keeper Cider, go to its web site, and comply with alongside on Instagram and Fb.
Discover Texas Keeper’s tasting room at 12521 Twin Creeks Rd. in Manchaca, Texas; cellphone: (512) 910-3409.
- Images: Texas Keeper Cider
