Hello and Happy Labor Day weekend!
I feel once again I have become slightly distant from this blog, as it's been about 6 days (I think?) since I last did a review. TO BE FAIR, I have a perfectly reasonable explanation.....
THAT gorgeous, majestic creature is the newest addition to our home, and her name is Athena. She's three months old, and somehow magically gets along perfectly with our other cat, Odin, who is just over one year. The combination of her fearlessness mixes perfectly with his tenacity. I am so happy, and I can't take my eyes of them when they are together. He even cleans her face, it's incredibly cute.
So today I spent a bit of time away from the cats, and though I missed them, it was nice to get out and do something else for a bit.
It's almost my sister's birthday, so we decided to celebrate today and took a short trip down to Fennville to pick apples from Crane's Apple Orchard, eat at their pie pantry for dinner, and of course, I insisted on taking a quick skip up the road to Virtue Cider, the newest edition to Michigan's craft cider family.
Crane's was wonderful, and I am so happy to make all sorts of apple related recipes over the next few weeks! One of my favorites is so simple, just grilled cheese with some really good seeded bread, sliced apples, smoked gouda and bacon. BEST.
For lunch I grabbed a roast beef sandwich with caramelized onions, havarti, and horseradish sauce on grilled rye bread with pecan pie for dessert and a little (non-alcoholic) cider. All of that just screams Michigan to me!
Then we drove about a mile to Virtue, which is definitely still under construction but you can already tell, the building is going to be gorgeous.
Inside their tasting room, behind the bar, there was a huge window so you could see all the barrels of cider in the other room. They had all of their merchandise on display, all of which is beautiful (including really nice craftsman ceramic pitchers and mugs from a local artist).
I also am absolutely obsessed with their design aesthetic. Their logo, the fonts, the label art, everything is flawless. We always gush about them at the office, because it's just all so perfect. For example:
See, it's just flawless! It is so well designed, and the environment at mill was absolutely fitting to the graphics.
There's something so charming and Americana about drinking cider. It's been flourishing (relatively) in Michigan because of our abundance of apples, so I was thrilled to hear that Virtue does distribute outside of Michigan to a few other specific locations around the United States. Hopefully their audience will expand when people figure out how truly stunning these ciders really are.
I sampled everything they had available while I was there. My favorite cider that I sampled was definitely their Lapinette, a French Norman-style cider that poured a slightly yellowed cream color with a bit of haziness. It had these really brilliant blue cheese funk to it that really complimented the sweet-tart finish. It was also aged in French oak Chardonnay barrels, which came through heavily in the flavor.
I decided to take a growler home to review. What they had available on tap was Red Streak, their classic English dry cider (5.2% abv).
Red Streak, just like all their other ciders, is brewed with Michigan heirloom apples from surrounding orchards using old Farmhouse techniques with a bit of a modern twist.
No head, no retention, just light and carbonated, like a spritzer. Appearance is this gorgeous, hazy lemon tone. Like lemon chamomile tea with a touch of honey.
Aroma is incredibly faint, though not quite as non-existent as the Lapinette. Almost the exact aroma of apple peel mixed with a touch of alcohol that you can catch if you really get your nose in there. You start to feel it in your eyes when you take that big, deep whiff and get that alcoholic tinge.
You get a lot of incredibly tart granny smith, skin and all, mixed with lemon and champagne. There's also this great, woody barnyard funk going on that accents the fruit profile perfectly. Definitely a dry finish there, mixed with a continued tartness.
Mouthfeel has just enough fizz without feeling overly bubbly. It's not sticky at all, it's just very pleasant overall.
Virtue promised amazing artisanal ciders from the get go, and they have absolutely delivered. I am so excited to see what this brand will continue to do over the next several years. I am thrilled with how this cider turned out for them. What a great first display from Virtue.
