Some of you may have heard that we purchased Chatham Cider Works in January from its original owners, Maureen and Jim. This month, we finally have our first ciders, produced at Starrlight Mead, on tap and in bottles ready for your enjoyment.
Maureen and Jim approached us back in November and said they were moving out of the area and asked if we were interested in purchasing Chatham Cider Works (CCW). Our first reaction was an emphatic NO! We already owned one business we were trying to keep up with, what on earth did we need another business for? And then we got thinking…
We love making mead and coming up with new flavors, but adding cider to our portfolio of products was an easy addition which allowed us to experiment with even more new flavors! The license is the same. (A winery license allows us to ferment anything that doesn’t contain grains – honey, apples, grapes.) The process is almost the same as making our session meads, meads that are lower in alcohol, carbonated and on tap, so we had the right equipment. And it gave Ben something new to learn – using different yeasts and possibly nutrients/additives and barrel aging.
Rum barrel from Fair Game Beverage with Hwy 64 and a whisky barrel from Mystic Distillery with mead in it.
We decided that yes, we would buy CCW and incorporate cider into what we are making!
After a few months of paperwork and label approvals, here we are releasing our first ciders at the meadery on June 10th. We are currently sticking with three of the flavors that CCW is best known for: Carolina Crisp, a dry cider; Pink Dogwood, cider sweetened with tart cherry juice; and Highway 64, a dry barrel aged cider.
We’re really excited to start offering a flight with ciders and our session meads too!