Michael Pollan

Cider Review: Crispin THE SAINT: Cider52

UnitedStatesofCiderLeave a comment

Cider: Crispin THE SAINT Trained&PrunedAppleTree

Maker: Crispin Cider Company

Origin: Minneapolis, MN & Colfax, CA

website: www.crispincider.com

ABV: 6.9 % Bottle: 22 fl oz. 650 ml.

Maker’s Style Notes: Super Premium cider. Naturally fermented with Belgian Trappist yeasts. Organic maple syrup added. An homage to American craft beer makers pioneer spirit. Designed to be enjoyed over ice.

Fruit: Apple. 

Cider Maker: Bruce Nissen, Head Cider-Maker, Crispin Cider Company

Our Tasting Notes: Crispin THE SAINT: 

In The Glass: Golden, creamy, milky, opaque. Lots of tiny very active effervescent bubbles.

Aroma: Very strong confectionary aromas on the nose, with a slight maple sugar note.

Taste: Culinary apples, spun sugars, honey syrup, with hints of maple in the finish.

Overall Impressions: This cider has one dominant consistent note: sweetness. Smooth, sweet, uncomplicated.

Note: Drank this cider up and chilled, not over ice as maker recommends. Next time we will try over ice and see how that affects the cider drinking experience.

And: Beer yeasts used in cider making. We’ll discuss that topic in an upcoming post.

Pairing Notes-The Tasting Lab: Drank solo.

For more about Crispin Cider Company, read this informative interview from Heavy Table with Crispin Cider Company founder and CEO Joe Herron, written by Joe Norton, 2009.

If you have tasting notes to add please leave a comment.

Further Reading:

www.randomhouse-1

For an interesting read on apples and the human quest for sweetness: see Botany Of Desire: A Plants-Eye View of the World, Michael Pollan’s fascinating look at how plants have directed our desires.

“Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, we have also done well by them. So who is really domesticating whom?”

 

Gleanings: Artist Jessica Rath. Art+Science: Apples: Beauty, Desire, Seeds, Persistence, and Time.

UnitedStatesofCider4 Comments

Jessica Rath

Intrigued by author Michael Pollan’s description in The Botany of Desire, of rare apple diversity being collected, curated, and saved under the direction of Dr. Philip Forsline in Geneva, New York at the USDA/Cornell Plant Genetics Resources Unit (PGRU), Los Angles based artist Jessica Rath used kickstarter to fund a research trip.

In 2009, guided by William Srmack, Rath touched, tasted, collected, and photographed rare and unusual apples, returning in 2010 to photograph the architecture of the apple trees being bred by Dr. Susan K. Brown at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station. The resulting project, Take me to the apple breeder, was recently on view at the Pasadena Museum of California Art.

Read Jessica Rath’s 2012 Take me to the apple breeder museum essay.

From the essay:

“Agriculture and food production have always been as much cultural as scientific practices, with human preferences and desires influencing biological outcomes. In focusing our gaze on the curating of the idealized beauty of apples plucked from natural selection and the extreme diversity found in breeding left to nature, take me to the apple breeder examines our sublime but fraught relationship with nature.”
 

Artist Jessica Rath’s talk: Take me to the apple breeder, at TEDxYouth:ValVerde.

Project and Artist Information: Artist’s website description of Take me to the apple breeder includes 10 images of slip cast porcelain apple sculptures and photographic tree portraits.

Interview and Images: Of Sisters and Clones: An Interview with Jessica Rath by Nicola Twilley and Geoff Manaugh at the always fascinating Edible Geography. Beautiful images and an interesting examination of the similarities between making porcelain sculptural apples and apple breeding – the acts of selecting and shaping, and the process of creating many to ultimately select only one, or in the case of the porcelain apples, two best specimens.