Fox Hill Farm grows heirloom cider apples with an emphasis on American fruit that produces memorable juice. Here’s a sampling of the fruit we grow to make our cider:
Arkansas Black
Arkansas Black is a very tart, crisp apple and a good keeper. It is pleasantly sweet and almost as if it were an apple already prepared to go in a dessert–as if it were a tart apple with sugar added, and perhaps a bit of vanilla near the outside and faint but definite almond undertones nearer the core.
Ashmeads Kernel
Ashmead’s Kernel is lumpy, mis-shapen, and rather small. Yet appearances can be deceiving, Ashmeads Kernel has remained popular for well over two centuries and with good reason: it has a distinctive flavor which is quite different from most other varieties. Ashmead’s Kernel is a highly-valued apple for juicing and hard cider.
Chestnut Crab
Chestnut crab is one of the larger fruiting crab tree selections known for its sweet nutty flavor. Chestnut Crab is the secret ingredient to many “Blue Ribbons” given at state fairs for the best cider.
Dabinett
Dabinett apples yield a vintage-quality, aromatic juice high in fruity tannins and low in acid. It is widely used for single-varietal ciders or premium blends. It is an intensely astringent and bitter-sweet apple, making it unpalatable and entirely unsuitable for fresh eating but makes a memorable premium cider.
Otterson
The Otterson apple is a striking, deep red-fleshed crabapple variety highly prized by cidermakers and orchardists for its intensely colored, antioxidant-rich juice. It is classified as a bittersharp cider apple. When squeezed, it yields a highly astringent, tart juice that is excellent for adding acidity and a beautiful rosé blush to hard cider blends.
Golden Russet
The origins of Golden Russet are not clear but it arose in upstate New York in the 19th century, possibly derived from an English russet variety. For a time, Golden Russet was grown on a commercial basis but then fell out of fashion. It has enjoyed a resurgence of interest because the strong-flavored juice is ideal for cider and hard cider production.
Harrison
Harrison is a well-regarded hard-cider apple. It was known throughout the eastern states in the early 19th century but subsequently fell into disuse.
In the late 20th century, there was much renewed interest in American cider production and apple enthusiast Tom Burford managed to track down a couple of old trees of this variety. Many new trees have since been propagated and it has become a popular variety among hard cider enthusiasts.
Parmar
Parmar is quite an attractive yellow apple popular for making a thick, dark yellow juice. It was also popular for making apple brandy. It was said that if a grower had several Parmar trees in his yard, the neighbors knew he was most certainly making illegal brandy!
Pitmaston Pineapple
Pitmaston Pineapple’s most notable feature is the unusual and prominent pineapple-like flavor. The flavor of apples can be most simply defined on a scale from very acidic to very sweet, but many varieties exhibit other flavor overtones on top of this basic axis, and Pitmaston Pineapple is the best example of a small group of apples where a musky pineapple-like flavor comes to the fore.
Roxbury Russet
Roxbury Russet is generally recognized to be the oldest apple variety which originated in North America, and its history can be traced back to the colonial era. It is very probably a seedling of an apple variety brought over by early settlers from Europe.
Although it has some tartness it is like all russets a fundamentally sweet apple. Visually the extent of russeting can vary considerably, in some seasons and on some trees, it can be extensive, whilst in other situations there may be very little.
Whitney Crab
Whitney Crab is a greenish-yellow skin apple with red blush and stripes. It has a subacid flavor with a slight astringency, and the flesh is juicy and yellow. The fruit is attractive, yellow, striped with lively red, subacid, good for dessert and very good for cider. The tree is a thrifty, upright grower, comes into bearing young and is very productive.
Winesap
An attractive red winter apple, symmetrical, uniform, medium to large size. Winesap is excellent in quality for cider. Skin tough, smooth, pale yellow or greenish nearly overspread with bright light red with carmine stripes. Flesh nearly white, firm, rather fine, moderately crisp, tender, juicy, distinctly sweet, good to very good.
