The brilliant colors of autumn this fall have been glorious, but with all the rain, wind, snow and frost, the landscape is quieter.
Field Maloney, owner of West County Cider in Shelburne Falls, was out in the orchard on Oct. 30 picking the last of the apples before the hard frost, which arrived thatnight. Maloney is of a school of thought that requires cider to be made from fully ripe apples.
Maloney is the son of Terry and Judith Maloney, who arrived in Franklin County from California back in 1972. They cleared land on their Colrain property for apple trees. As Californians, they enjoyed different California wines and sometimes made their own.
While there were no grapes that made good wine in this corner of Massachusetts, they knew about the New England tradition of making apple cider. For centuries, people made cider for themselves and “some old timers made hard cider,” Field Maloney said.
This area is perfect for making hard cider. Unlike the apple trees on the West Coast, which Maloney says require lots of irrigation, “The apple trees that grow on the hillsides here do more work, which makes them more flavorful. It builds character,” he added.
To that end, the Maloneys saw they could resurrect old traditions and apply some of their wine-making know-how to hard cider. They made cider for themselves and their friends for a number of years.
In this, Maloney said his family always tried to make the endeavor sustainable. He remembers years when his mother sold Catamount Carrots. They continued looking for a way to make the land self-supporting.
In 1984, they decided to make a cidery at their home on Catamount Hill. They planted apple trees; they were going to turn their hobby into a business.
“When we were making wine in our cellar, my father had a big microscope that he could use to watch and monitor the process of fermentation,” Maloney recalled. “Add yeast to fresh juice and the yeast gets a sugar-feeding frenzy, reproducing until a critical mass is reached. Sugars are transformed into alcohol, CO2. The alcohol is a preservative and prevents other biological competitors. Father was always learning about fermentation. ‘Smell will tell,’ he’d say. ‘A happy yeast is what you want.’”
At the cidery these days, Maloney noted, “We don’t add sugars into our fermentations — only the sugars in the apple.”
While West County Cider is a staple in Franklin County’s cider scene these days, Maloney says it was slow going at first.
“My father was punching above his weight. He said we were a niche market without a niche. Liquor stores were not selling ciders in those early days. When we started trying to sell cider, my mother went around Boston’s liquor stores getting them to try the ciders,” he said.
And the cider business did begin to change. Maloney recalls a time when they were making cider in their cellar when his father said, “Cider grew up and left the house.”
Maloney has been involved in cider making right from the start. He worked in the family business during school vacations and he took a year off from college to clear a field and plant an orchard.
After his father died in 2010, Maloney returned to Catamount Hill to help his mother run the business.
“Before my father died he saw the cider boom. He could see that his dream was coming true,” Maloney said.
In 2014, Judith and Field Maloney bought more land for planting apples along with an old apple storage building on Peckville Road in Shelburne Falls, with space for a tasting room.
Today, their ciders can be bought there seasonally. They can also be found at many local and regional liquor stores and markets such as Atkins Farm in Amherst. The array of different varieties gives a hint of the different apples used, Judith Maloney explained.
“Redfield is a special apple. It has a red flesh and lots of tannins. About 20 years ago, we gave 1,000 Redfield whips to Pine Hill and Apex so we could use those apples for cider,” she said.
Now, Judith Maloney has retired although, she often helps in the tasting room. In addition, Elijah Rottenberg, Field Maloney’s childhood friend and neighbor on Catamount Hill, has become a partner.
“He is a quiet backbone,” Field Maloney said.
In 1994, Paul Correnty had written a book entitled “The Art of Cidermaking,” featuring Greenfield native Charlie Olchowski’s images. They wanted to give the book some splash, so they turned to Terry and Judith Maloney.
Judith Maloney said Olchowski was and is central to the group that they helped organize the first Cider Days in 1994. Olchowski helped form a coalition of volunteers that plans out the classes and events including the annual Cider Day’s Cider Salon, a large-scale tasting event that typically takes place in Turners Falls. Notably, the salon is not taking place this year because of the pandemic.
Instead, Cider Days 2020, features a Cider Trail of local orchards and cideries that can be visited individually..
Cider Days started with a core group of local cider makers and orchard owners who offered cider and apple tastings, lectures and workshops.
Nowadays, cider makers come from all over the country attend the talks and tasting events.
Maloney says there is always information to be learned and stories to tell. For example, he noted a story of lore about Gen. George Washington. Once, when he was in Massachusetts, Washington declared the state’s cider to the best he had ever tasted.
In this, Olchowski says events like Cider Days are not only education opportunities, they are also about building community.
Franklin County’s Cider Days events looks very different this year. Starting this past week and continuing Saturday and Sunday, the weekend on which Cider Days’ tasting salon is usually held, 16 cider venues, including West County Cider, are offering a variety of tours and events. Some will continue hosting tastings through the end of November.
The Maloney taproom and bottle shop at 208 Peckville Road in Shelburne will be open every Thursday through Sunday in November.
The state’s COVID-19 rules forbid cider tastings if food is not served. So, on Saturday and Sunday, pretzels from Rise Above Bakery in Greenfield will be served alongside the ciders. In addition, visitors can enjoy the new hiking trails and picnic grounds that provide a glorious three state view at West County Cider’s idyllic orchard.
For more information about Cider Days including a comprehensive list of events hosted at other area cideries and orchards, visit ciderdays.org.
Pat Leuchtman has been writing and gardening since 1980. Her column, “Between the Rows,” was published weekly in the Recorder for about 40 years. Readers can leave comments at her website: commonweeder.com.