Evenlode Orchard Cider
EVENLODE ORCHARD CIDER
We started making our own Evenlode Orchard cider at Daylesford back in 2009. It's a Medium Dry Cider and it's the most authentic drink you can try when you visit us at Daylesford – the apples have local provenance and grow with minimum input from us in an orchard that's 30 years old.
We get about three tonnes of culinary apples for our cider from our own orchards on the Daylesford estate but the majority come from a neighbouring orchard three miles down the road who we have a longstanding partnership with. There are about 400 trees there across 10 acres yielding a mix of high-quality bittersweet and bitter-sharp apples.
THE PROCESS
We wait for the fruit to fall naturally in late October/November and harvest about six tonnes over a period of 3-4 weeks. When the fruit falls from the tree it’s perfectly ripe and that’s when it will have the highest natural sugar content, so you get the best flavour and alcohol content. Once the fruit is harvested, we take it back to the farm, wash it and put it through the combined scratter and press. The dry apple pulp from the presser is a brilliant component of our compost and feeds into the circular economy of the garden, allowing us to put nutrients back into the soil.
The cider from this year’s harvest will be bottled and available in our farmshops from August next year.
