The best Finger Lakes cider houses

Cider evokes a different emotional response that’s hard to pin down – the thrill of something familiar, yet new. I was taken by the feeling of a sunny autumn Sunday in Eve’s cider house, in Van Etten, New York, at the southern end of the Finger Lakes region. I was seated at a wooden table in the family farm and orchard of cider growers Autumn Stoscheck and Ezra Sherman. Half a dozen cider samples sat in front of me, along with cheese, bread and, of course, an apple.

“The emotional connection to cider is something I would like people to talk about more of,” said Stoscheck. “It’s something we’re super cut off from in our modern lifestyles.” On this previous trip, I had spent a night sleeping in the family barn, a short walk from where we were sitting; this time I stayed in one of the 24 guest rooms of the Taughannock Falls Inn (double from $ 285).

Eve’s is one of the country’s most established cider makers, producing dry, artisanal bottlings since 2002, about as old as contemporary artisanal cider in America. I have tasted lots made from a single variety of apple, like the Northern Spy; others came from the same place, such as Albee Hill, a real cider grand cru.

“This year I made a barrel from a single tree,” Stoscheck told me. The ciders were presented as great wines, their names appearing on a tasting sheet. “For years I was adamant: no tastings,” she said. “But we’ve just started making them, and they’re awesome. There’s a real sense of appreciation after the year has passed.”

The Finger Lakes, among the deepest on the continent, modulate winter temperatures while keeping them cool in summer. This climate, combined with rich, fertile and well-drained soils, makes it one of the country’s great fruit regions, both for grapes and apples.

“The only difference between what people call wine and what we call cider is the fruit it is made from,” said Steve Selin of Cider from the Colline du Sud, a few minutes southwest of downtown Ithaca. “There has been wine here for a long time, and many of us have acquired not only technical knowledge, but also our palates by hanging out with winegrowers.”

South Hill is a prime example of how the local scene has evolved: in 2014, Selin was a luthier, repairing and restoring stringed instruments, and making cider at home. Today it has a modern tasting room and an orchard with more than 2,000 trees.

“We’re getting more sophisticated drinkers now, and they’re looking for dry ciders,” Selin told me. When I visited South Hill on a sunny weekend last October, people lay outside in Adirondack chairs next to fire pits, enjoying thefts of apple ciders with names like Ashmead’s Kernel, Baldwin and Golden. Russet. They picked flowers, listened to a group of bluegrass and paired their ciders with toast and cheese boards.

About a 20-minute drive away, the town of Trumansburg sits between Seneca and Cayuga Lakes. It’s the perfect place for cider, and Trumansburg is the platonic ideal of a cider village, with great coffee and roasting, Give me some coffeee; a retro-chic bowling alley, Atlas bowl; and a farmers market on Wednesday night, where I sipped ciders from Eric Shatt from RedByrd Orchard Cider.

Close, Hazelnut cuisine (appetizers $ 25- $ 32) serves seasonal dishes like a burrata salad with grilled blueberries and pickled fennel. With its cozy atmosphere and long list of local ciders, including some from Trumansburg Black Diamond Farm—Hazelnut Kitchen is easily one of my favorite restaurants in the Northeast.

On a hill in Interlaken overlooking Lake Cayuga, the Finger Lakes Cider House has become a must-see destination for cider lovers in the six years since it opened. On my last visit, a diverse crowd picked apples, played cornhole, and chatted over sourdough pizzas and salads made with locally grown ingredients. In the tasting room, I made my way through a noisy crowd to sample ciders ranging from the crisp, dry Pioneer Pippin to the earthy, cask-aged Funkhouse.

TO Black Duck Cider House, meanwhile, the attitude is shamelessly difficult. In the barn’s slash tasting room, John Reynolds, a lean, bearded man known as an industry iconoclast, pours wild fermenting ciders. Some are made with a high percentage of bracing potatoes; many incorporate blueberries, currants or pears.

“Our ciders are dry, have a lot of acidity and they’re funky,” Reynolds told me. “People who come here looking for a sweet cider are going to be disappointed.”

Yet every time I have been there, I have seen visitors pleasantly surprised by what they taste.

All major wine regions have a food scene to match, and in the Finger Lakes it is centered in Geneva at the tip of Seneca Lake. The most difficult booking in town is FLX table (tasting menu $ 79), where chef and master sommelier Christopher Bates serves inventive dishes: black garlic and lemon brassicas; chicken with puffball mushrooms, truffles and dukkah – to just over a dozen people each evening.

Another strong point is Close rate (appetizers $ 15- $ 45), where Brian Butterfield’s drink program is among the best in the region, with cocktail ingredients such as plum gin and poppy amaro and a wine list dominated by local producers. I like to end my evenings with a house cider at Brasserie du tambour du lac, where the vibe is sweet hippie meets college bar.

In my book, I called the Finger Lakes the “Napa Valley of Cider”. But on this trip I realized that what is happening there is something unique and is still emerging. “Apples take a long time,” Stoscheck had told me. For the Finger Lakes, it seems the time has finally come.

A version of this story first appeared in the October 2021 issue of Travel + Leisure under the title As American as apple cider