Showing posts with label Okanagan Valley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Okanagan Valley. Show all posts

Monday, March 13, 2023

Old Growth Orchard Ciders from British Columbia's Lonetree Cider

This month I received three ciders through the BevFluence® New Perspectives on Cider, Perry, and Brandy campaign that's from an interesting source. These are Canadian ciders, and more specifically, old-growth orchard ciders, from Lonetree Cider.

Lonetree Cider is located in British Columbia and was introduced to us through Cider Canada / Cidre Canada. They use solely B.C. grown fruit from family orchards within the Kelowna region of the Okanagan Valley. In fact, their grower cooperative is composed of 500 family orchardists who may have had to uproot the orchard in favor of more lucrative vineyards if not for Lonetree. and these ciders help subsist these orchards. The cidery also chose to emphasize the Old Growth aspect of these orchards as the label signifies that many of these trees are over 80 years old.

Authentic Dry Apple Cider
This dry cider is made from a blend of old-world cider apples, such as Belle de Boskoop and Bramley, then fermented with table apples; MacIntosh, Spartan, and Golden Delicious. I was planning on sipping with a shot of Campari, as is my usual custom with dry ciders, but the cider was so flavorful I didn't want to waste the savory contents. 

Apple Ginger Cider
This cider is made from apples and real ginger and this Ginger Cider is intense. Intensely ginger. Which translates to "let's use as an ingredient for a cocktail". One of my favorite cocktails calls for equal parts ginger beer and grapefruit juice with a healthy dose of pitorro rum. Tonight I used the Ginger Cider and the earthy Three Rum Estate Rhum Agricole from Louisiana. This makes a funky and refreshing cocktail. An old-growth, cane-to-glass cocktail.

Apple Rhubarb Cider
Apples and rhubarb. Now, being from the Mid-Atlantic, I'm really not sure what rhubarb tastes like. What I can say, is this cider provides a tasteful combination of apples and red berries with tartness and acidity to lift the sugars. And it does pair nicely with Buc-ees Cherry Maple beef jerky. 

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Winerist - A Global Wine Travel Portal

We've always enjoyed visiting wineries when we traveled - whether the wineries were destinations in themselves, or when we wanted to find a winery in a unique location. WineCompass was basically the result of these travels. Over the years other wine related travel sites have emerged, many with more robust features, and understanding the limitations of our site, we readily use these alternatives to augment our travel planning. One of these is Winerist, a relatively new platform focusing on world travel that connects wine tourists with local experts, special accommodations, wineries, and tour guides. For each region, they publish a short wine making history; a map; suggested itineraries and tours; and guides on where to taste, stay, and eat. Plus many attractive photos that are an incentive along to start making travel plans.

The site currently provides information for 30 wine regions, with France (8 regions), Italy (4 regions), Chile (4 regions), Spain (2 regions), and South Africa (2 regions) having multiple regions represented. In North America, Winerist includes travel information for Napa and the Okanagan Valley - perfect timing for the bloggers attending the 2013 Wine Bloggers Conference.  And they've also included other popular regions such as  Mendoza, Barossa Valley, Dubrovnik-Dalmatia, Douro Valley, Tokaj, and Santorini. For the last two, I will be providing a short overview of the region's wine history and wineries in the coming months.

Besides self interest, I encourage you to check out Winerist; there's plenty of cool information like Bike & Wine in the Casablanca Valley or Cooking & Tasting in Santorini. Plus with the social aspect, you can contribute your own wine travel experiences. Cheers.