FEATURED PRODUCERS
ELEANOR LEGER | EDEN CIDERS • VT
Co-owner & cider maker producing ice ciders, aperitifs and naturally sparkling ciders from locally grown heirloom and cider apple varieties. Eden works with the same growers year after year in long term partnership and grows over 35 varieties of apples biodynamically in their own Eden Orchards. After she spent 25 years working in management consulting and business, Eleanor shifted her attention to cider making. In 2007, with her husband, Albert, she purchased an abandoned dairy farm in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, where they planted heirloom apple trees on a remote hillside. A year later, she launched Eden Specialty Ciders and began selling craft ice ciders – ciders made from the juice of frozen apples. “Ice cider seemed like the purest expression of Vermont terroir, and we wanted to do something that reflected our land and climate,” says Léger. Léger has earned a reputation for making complex ice ciders with elegant sweetness and crunchy, juicy acidity. But that hasn’t stopped her from pursuing other experiments. Eden offers a range of ciders that includes dry varieties, both sparkling and still.
LITTLE POMONA: Susanna Forbes
If you’ve been to ANXO recently you may have tried Root & Branch or purchased their delicious Table Perry and Ciders. Susanna Forbes, co-founder of Little Pomona, is a force in the cider and beer making world. As a cider journalist and judge that also produces, there’s very little in the United Kingdom’s ciderverse that goes on without Susanna. Little Pomona does visits by appointment only, so plan that trip across the pond and swing by Herefordshire to see all of what Little Pomona has in store for cider lovers.
AUTUMN STOSCHECK | EVE’S CIDERY
When she was 21, Autumn founded Eve’s Cidery with her waitressing savings as a way to prune apple trees for a living. Now she is a pruner, plumber, label designer, accountant, tractor operator and tank cleaner among other jobs. As a child, Autumn grew up immersed in painting, drawing and making art. As a young adult, she became enamored with the hard yet meaningful work of sustainable farming.
For Autumn, growing apples and making them into cider is the intersection of creativity and labor. And it’s these two ideals that motivate her work: To make beautiful cider and to farm in harmony with nature.
“A bottle of cider is a way to communicate: a place, a time, a deeper meaning. It’s an expression too, of the people who make it – who tend the trees and look after the yeasts. They are guardians of some still mysterious process that transforms fruit from the tree into pleasure for the table.”