Apples and Autumn

[September 2018]

There are many things associated with fall. Back to school. Cooler temperatures. The leaves changing color. Corn mazes. Bonfires. Hayrides. Pumpkin patches. Apple picking. And going to cider mills for fresh cold cider and hot apple cider donuts, which is just what a group of students/young adults from church met up to do on the first really fall-ish Saturday of September.

Chickens

I’ve been to cider mills before, while road tripping through New England in summer. [We got hot donuts anyway, because is there a wrong time for fresh apple cider donuts? The correct answer is no.] In New England, you’ll be driving along a two-lane state highway when you see a dented metal sign for a cider mill, so you turn off onto an even smaller road, and finally pull into a gravelly dirt parking lot in front of a wooden storefront adjacent to a dark wooden barn. Inside the barn, you get a tour consisting of an educational video made in the 1990s that can be summarized as “Look at these apples! Apples are healthy! When you press apples you get apple cider. Doesn’t that look delicious?” and a live cider making demonstration. If you haven’t seen it before, the apples are cut and mashed into a slushy, pulpy slurry. The apple slurry is then layered on cloths in a series of wooden frames. When there are enough layers, the whole stack is pressed, and the liquid that comes out is cider. The remaining solids are called pomace (thanks, Wikipedia), and are used as cattle feed. After the tour, you go into the store, which sells items like cookbooks, cinnamon-scented candles, lingonberry preserves, and cider and donuts.

Besides the sale of cider and donuts, the cider mill we visited in Michigan had almost no similarities to my previous cider mill experiences. Compared to the mills I’d been to before, this one was a zoo. Or more accurately, a farm. I mean this literally. When we got there, the parking lot was packed. There was a line stretching fifty feet outside of the main building. Past that were the farm animals. There were goats, chickens, ducks, some other birds, a cow, tractor rides, hay bales, and a wading pool of corn kernels. There were also children everywhere.

Farm animals and children

After close to an hour’s wait, we got our cider and donuts. Were they worth it? Yes and no. No, because an hour is a long time to wait. But yes because donuts, and as long as you know what to expect, I guess it’s okay. They handle the line well, but if you’re spending most of your time in line, it starts to feel more like going to the store and less like going to a cider mill. In the balance between a slick commercial operation and family-owned specialty shop that hasn’t been renovated since 1973, the cider mill we visited falls a little too far on the commercial side for my taste, but if I had a car I’d go back. At a less crowded time. Like a rainy Tuesday morning.