Crushing it in the craft cider business
When Paul Donaldson was stealing apples from abandoned orchards in the middle of the night in 2011, he didn’t imagine his petty theft would lead to eight years of creating award-winning craft cider.
That late-night raid, however, led to a beverage that began a pretty incredible journey for Donaldson and his wife Rachel.
‘‘We crushed [those apples] up with a sledgehammer and let it ferment in an old barrel,’’ he recalled of that first creation.
That night, and that process, later became the inspiration for his first cider, Pleasantly Corrupted, in 2013. ‘‘It was a bit corrupt, but it still tasted good.’’
At the time, selling his cider was simply a way to ‘‘recoup expenses’’, but Donaldson’s first batch was well received. So he kept going, naming his business Scoundrels and Rogues.
‘‘I’m in it for the feedback,’’ he said. ‘‘If nobody liked it, we wouldn’t have continued.’’
The company makes five different ciders. Each has a different note, a different story, and often a different alcohol percentage.
But it’s a passion project more than anything. It began as a backyard hobby and continues to be a popular business with a ‘‘sort of cult following’’.
Donaldson primarily uses apples specific to cider-making, both from his own North Canterbury orchard and through local suppliers. They’re called heritage apples (sometimes referred to as cooking apples). They’re classed as ‘‘bitter-sharp or bitter-sweet’’ and aren’t great for eating, but Donaldson said they’re perfect for cider when blended with a small mix of traditional eating apples.
‘‘They have the same level of sugar as normal apples, so to make cider from those gives more flavour and richer concentration in flavour.’’
Donaldson now gets his apples crushed by a processor in Rangiora, who also supplies him a few different ‘‘eating’’ varieties, based on the season. They’re still a small company, though.
Donaldson only produces once a year – a total of around 6000 litres. It’s enough, he says, to service Christchurch and a few surrounding areas. That’s just the way he likes it.
‘‘I don’t think I’d ever want to make something so largely produced that I couldn’t control the quality,’’ he said, adding that many mass-produced ciders often follow a recipe and use apple concentrate – enabling them to standardise the taste as well as the alcohol content.
‘‘To get mass appeal you have to make a slightly less individualistic product.’’
For Donaldson, the fact that each year brings him a slightly different flavour or character to the vintage is part of the charm of traditionally-created cider.
It’s why, in a way, Donaldson has branded Scoundrels and Rogues a craft company. To him, craft means small batch, unique and ‘‘interestingly made’’.
A lot of the magic of cider comes with its process. It’s a labour of love, and he’s a traditionalist when it comes to crushing real apples and allowing the cider to form naturally.
‘‘My process is getting whole apples that are harvested from a certain year, and crushing those into a juice,’’ Donaldson says, before explaining that he then puts the fresh juice into barrels to sit for a year and allows them to have a ‘‘wild fermentation’’.
Simply put, a wild fermentation means Donaldson doesn’t add yeast to the fruit, and lets the juice ferment on it own for a year or so. It adds to the unpredictability of the cider, said Donaldson. ‘‘If you let it go wild you get a bit more complexity, and it can be a bit different each year.’’
Each vintage has its own unique stamp in terms of flavour and strength. The alcohol content of each vintage largely depends on the vintage, what happened with the crops during the year and how it fermented in the barrel.
‘‘It might be 7.5 per cent one year, and it might be 8.4 one year,’’ he said, adding it’s a process that can bring about accidental cider brilliance. ‘‘I made one that was accidentally way higher in alcohol,’’ he said ‘‘I thought it was delicious, but I sent it off to get an alcohol test. It came back at about 10.5 per cent.’’
Some accidental creations can become branding gold, however.
‘‘I split that off and called it the Evil Genius cider.’’
Donaldson has entered every vintage produced into the NZ Cider Awards and, until 2019, each entry won a medal. He’s missed out on a few medals in the past couple of years, but said his strike rate was still ‘‘around 90 per cent’’. It’s a result he’s proud of – as someone who began his cider-making sojourn with a sledgehammer and a few stolen apples.