When the rain moves in sideways ice sheets and all the Bon Iver cabin feels are swimming around in your Friday work brain, it’s time to head upstate.
Last minute Friday night Airbnb search pulls through on a sweet yurt in the middle of nowhere and we jump in the car Saturday morning, leaving behind the madness of car lights end to end in the rain. We drive the Taconic state parkway which gradually turns into a dusky night ride through magnificent red and orange woods. I take about a million of the same photo from my position in the backseat.
After a great night of board games, red wine and microwave burgers (you try finding a lost grill in the dark and in the rain!) we wake up in a giant round room to a crisp clear day ready for upstate exploration.
There are tons of orchards in the Adirondack region near the New York/Vermont border, but browsing through a Fall Adirondack Guide at the Yurt we found this one.
In it’s 111th annual picking season, Hicks Apple Orchard boasts over two dozen types of apples which range from eating to baking to hard cider production. And if that’s not enough to tempt you, a promise of apple cider donuts, hot apple cider and a pack of baby Nigerian Dwarf goats(!) will.
Inside the store a backlit window of honey bears cast streams of light through the air, hazy with apple cider donut smoke from the kitchen and the scent of hot cider. Procuring more than enough of each we head outside and walk through the orchards eating these sweet apple treats and warming our hands on the steaming cups. We’re late to the apple picking game whose season finished a week ago, but it’s a decent autumnal wander down the avenues of trees.
Before leaving we do a Hard Cider tasting which includes some interesting flavour profiles ranging from sweet to dry, some fermented with their own-grown tart cherries and blackcurrants, and an ice cider. Enough to jump back in the car feeling a little warm and fuzzy ready for the next part of the upstate adventure.
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