Hoar Cross Cider

What a great start to our commercial season! Sales of the large 35cl bottles as well as the small 5cl “stocking filler” bottles were eagerly purchased, allowing some to commence their Christmas shopping early. Indeed the new contemporary glasses “engraved” with Spirit of Staffordshire ® were purchased to complement this vintage English Cider Brandy.

Excellent sales performance from Chris, boosted by the smart new corporate uniforms, supplied by Nick Smith of Box and Beyond Ltd, Uttoxeter. Comfortable, smart, warm and windproof jackets, with detailed embroidery of our company logo.

The next sales opportunity is at the Stone Street Market on Sunday 20th November 2022. See you there, before stock runs out!!

We are pleased and relieved with the harvest we have for 2022, following the extremely dry conditions this summer. We had been watering the trees just to keep them alive, so any harvest was a bonus!

And then this is what we inflict on our friends! …….harvesting over 3 days……….. It did not take Kim (and Tilly!) long to get her eye in and only select the clean and unblemished apples. Kim was a great help, with nearly 900kg of fruit picked. Well done.!

Our apple juice yield this year is only in the low 60% range. This is testament to the small and dry apples. It was the Pig Snout apples which really “saved the day” and for some reason, their yield was productive in quantity and in juice extracted.

Regardless of quantity, the apple juice was sweet and full of flavour. So fingers crossed for good cider and then great Cider Brandy. This will be ready for Autumn 2024.