This mystery dryness
“I keep trying to find reasons not to like this apple and it continues to surprise me. This is an all-American apple discovered on U.S. soil, and a distinctive bittersharp to be called our own.”
Cider maker and Franklin General Store proprietor Bill Mayo has discovered a hardy, 60 year old bittersharp cider apple tree — a chance seedling that emerged from his orchard of primarily dessert apples. The new Franklin apple tested well against cider apple varieties like the Kingston Black, Dabinett, and Northern Spy, according to Terence Bradshaw of the University of Vermont.
As reported in Growing Produce:
“Out of 44 different varieties or samples, it ranked fifth for highest total polyphenols. That’s behind the traditional cider apples, ‘Dabinett,’ ‘Foxwhelp,’ and ‘Nehou,’” Bradshaw says. “It’s ahead of another sample of ‘Dabinett’ — the next 10 below it are traditional hard cider apples from Europe.”
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Within the hard cider circle, the variety ‘Kingston Black’ is known as a premiere but difficult to grow bittersharp — having the right mix of acids, tannins, and sugars.
When the ‘Franklin’ cider apple was compared to the ‘Kingston Black’ in Bradshaw’s lab, the ‘Franklin’ apple was slightly lower than the ‘Kingston Black’ in acidity, four spots higher than the ‘Kingston Black’ in sugars, and five spots higher in tannins.
“If you consider ‘Kingston Black’ somewhat in the rare category of bittersharp then it falls in that category and there really aren’t a lot of apples that fall in that category,” Bradshaw says.
Chance Seedling Nets New Bittersharp Apple in Growing Produce, 30 March 2016
The tree is being propagated by Stark Bro’s Nurseries & Orchards Co. of Missouri for a 2017 release. No word on whether Mr. Mayo is producing hard cider alongside his sweet cider, which has “this mystery dryness that makes you want to drink more and more,” according to the maker, but the hope is that he might have a few bottles of the fermented stuff stashed away at his storefront in Vermont.
Update: And patented. via Cider Cellars™
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