From left: Ivan Gordon, Ron Dixon, and Silas Gordon, co-owners of North Country Hard Cider. Dixon holds the certificate of recognition from NH’s Sustainable Craft Beverage Program for the company’s sustainability practices. (North Country Hard Cider)
Years ago, Silas Gordon and his brother Ivan were living with their mother in central Maine in a house—where Silas was born—that didn’t have running water, electricity, or trashcans. Their mother, who took repurposing, reusing, and recycling to a level many city folks probably aspire to, taught her sons a sustainable approach to life. This is clear in the way the Gordon brothers, along with their best friend Ron Dixon, produce their wide variety of hard ciders—like Wulf Kitty and Honey Badger—that they sell in Maine, NH, and Massachusetts through their company, North Country Hard Cider in Dover.
Silas credits much of the company’s practices and success to his mom. “She had a use for just about anything growing up,” he says, explaining that things like newspapers or cardboard would be dropped off at a local animal shelter for use in the kennels. “There are people that throw Ziploc bags out; our mom has been washing Ziploc bags and reusing them for the last 40 years. She’s very serious about trying to do more with less or do better with what you already have to this day.”
North Country Hard Cider was recently recognized as the first cidery in the state for its sustainability practices—which include major investments in green energy technology and local sourcing of apples—by the state’s Sustainable Craft Brewers Program. The program expands on the work of NH’s Pollution Prevention Program. The goal is to recognize craft beverage producers that are preventing pollution and implementing sustainable practices.
Silas says he and his brother have always been “apple-crazy people” who grew up picking apples. “It was pretty much our favorite thing to eat,” he says, adding that another influence from living with their mom—who was a chemist—was that they lived in a house where no additives or preservatives were allowed. “When you’re raised that way, you kind of end up being that way no matter how hard you fight it as a little kid.”
When the Gordon brothers and Dixon started drinking cider, they tried different types and found none that smelled or tasted like apples. Eventually, Silas says, they decided to create their own, using, in Silas’s words, “a mom approved scenario.”
“Apples should be the only ingredient in cider and it’s not,” he says, explaining that most hard cider contains sulfites and sorbates as well as caramel color and apple essence. “There’s a lot of sugar and corn syrup or whatever, and most of the stuff is filtered, which affects the way it tastes.”
While the process North Country Hard Cider uses is slower, harder, and more expensive, Silas says, “It allows you to make a really good product.”
North Country Hard Cider, which opened its first tasting room in Rollinsford in 2014 and will mark the first anniversary of its Dover location at the end of this month, purchases nearly all its fruit from local orchards whose agricultural methods they trust, including its own family farm. This reduces carbon dioxide emissions from interstate transportation, Silas says, and supports local farmers and the economy. “We’re bringing fresh raw cider in and we’re pinching our house yeast onto that, and the fresh raw cider also has wild yeast in it,” he says. The sweetness in all North Country Hard Cider’s products comes from the residual sugar in the apples. “When you put processed sugar in a product it just tastes like sugar and doesn’t have that tartness you get from the residual sugar in the apples.”
For more information, visit northcountryhardcider.com.
Current Issue - April 2024