Nothing screams fall quite like a crisp apple cider. At Burgerville, we are serving up our Harvest Cider Iced Tea, the perfect blend of Smith Teamaker iced tea and sweet apple cider from our local partner, Ryan’s Cider.
To kick off fall, we took a visit to Ryan’s Cider, located in Hood River, Oregon. The business began when the Ryan family began pressing apples from their orchard and selling the juice at local farmers markets. Today, their facility along the Columbia River is still home to just one ingredient: apples. Everyday, trucks bring in dozens of varieties of apples from orchards across the Pacific Northwest.
No Waste, Only Taste
The apples that arrive are often too big or too small for the grocery store but are still great quality and ideal for juicing. The perfectly imperfect apples are hand-sorted before being turned into apple mash and then pressed into juice.
While the best apples become fresh apple juice and cider, Ryan’s doesn’t let anything go to waste. Some juice is fermented into apple cider vinegar or turned into a natural sweetener. Any rejected apples and even the apple pomace, which is the fibrous byproduct of the juicing process, are sent to local farms to feed their animals.
Making Apple Cider
With only one simple ingredient, you may be wondering how the complex cider flavor comes to be. Ryan’s carefully blends juice from different varieties to balance sweetness and acidity. Each batch of cider ends up unique with anywhere between 5 and 10 apple varieties mixed together for that perfect fall flavor. They never add water or additives to their cider, so what you find in the bottle is straight from the press. It’s no wonder this cider shines in our Harvest Cider Iced Tea!
Local Fall Flavor
This fall, take a sip of our Harvest Cider Iced Tea and savor the flavors of Pacific Northwest apples, freshly juiced by local Ryan’s Cider.
