This cider was made in 2021 as part of the research carried out in writing 'A Vagrant's Pomona'. It is made entirely from fruit removed without the owner's permission and may or may not taste better for it.

Orchard 2
6-9-21 0840-1130 sunny after misty start 22°C
This was the Goonhavern run and I’ve been itching to
get these. These are all feral trees so not really an orchard
as such, but there’s a sequence of road and pathside trees
grouped fairly close around the villages of Peen Cross and
Goonhavern near the north coast of Cornwall which all
produce hugely sweet but bitter and sharp, early ripening
fruit and there are eight of them. Two of the trees are
obviously Spartan half sibs and one clearly a cox half sib
given the flavour profile, but they’re different from the
parent varieties understandably in subtle ways, these have
an edge of astringency alongside the sweetness which will
lend nicely to cider, maybe the heavy Atlantic weather
makes them so.
The day starts with a blanket mist, trapping the latesummer
dusty smell close to the ground and autumn is
unmistakably just around the corner. I love this time of
year, not least because the pressing will begin in earnest
in a heartbeat and the anticipation runs high, but this is
the time of hiraeth and that romantic longing, bittersweet,
I feel most keenly at this time. If this time of year was a
song to me, it’s got to be Can’t find my way home by Blind
Faith.
We’ve been mapping the positions of feral trees for a
number of years now and I won’t go into the reasons
why this is such an excellent thing for a cider-maker to
do, as it’s been covered in greater depth and poetics than
I’ll be able to muster by Andy Brennan in his excellent
Uncultivated. Suffice to say, this method of gathering
fruit is extremely uneconomical and would render
production at scale impossible. Given most of the trees are
in roadside hedges, they either have a tight nest of bramble
and blackthorn at their bases, or the stem is inaccessible
without trespass. This means that most of the fruit has
to be picked from the tree using the pole picker a few at
a time. This is the reason why it took nearly three hours
to pick about 30Kg of fruit. However. The rewards are
generous in return for the time spent. The flavour of the
cider made from this fruit is unique. These are not known
varieties and this particular fruit will need pressing
tomorrow as some of it bruises as soon as you sneeze by
it, but I’m sat writing this with the sacks right beside me
and the perfume is extraordinary, soft and violet. There is
no such thing as homogeneity in the cider I make, as for
many makers, for various reasons. The fruit changes every
year according to the weather throughout its formation
and the quantities of what I use from where are different
year to year as is the case for everyone, but the wild fruit
lends something exceptional and it feels a bit heretical
as well; there’s a great deal of tradition in cider-making
with many people fiercely defending the use of extremely
venerable and excellent vintage varieties, and this is all to
the good. I like the trickster’s finger in the barrel of feral
fruit. I like that it’ll piss off some traditionalists, but again,
I don’t have the privilege of my own orchards, so get it
where you can.
The first tree is along of an equestrian yard and I can hear
people attending to their charges when I get out of the
car. I’m pretty sure they’re not going to care, but I do get a
few strange looks and a few people slow their cars as they
pass on the quiet lane to have a good look at the hairy
weirdo waving his pole around, but this fruit is ace, so
easily damaged and absolutely bursting with the sweetest
honeyed juice, every piece I shake loose to batter itself on
the metalled surface makes me wince.
Trees two, three and four are right by the entrance to a
very popular dog-walking spot and this is presumably why
the trees are there, the usual discarded cores (spartan and
cox offspring). There are also a few vans, the inhabitants
coming slowly from overnight torpor and I’m watched
with interest as tea is brewed and I set to gathering. The
good stuff here is an early retirement couple, obviously on
holiday, walking string-rats and toting broad Yorkshire
accents (I’m not getting into the gods’ own country thing
there versus here – no need. It’s here.) As they pass me to
go walk the rats, a little too loudly: ‘Good grief! This lot’ll
do anything if it means they don’t have to pay for it!’ Love
this.
Trees five to eight are all within a hundred metres of
each other on a lane the other side of Goonhavern. A tiny
jewel-like ruby beauty which I’m extremely disappointed
to see has only a dozen fruit this year (it’s an off year in
Cornwall anyway and the weather has been exceptionally
weird meaning fruit is thin on the ground). It’s a bizarre
little apple which tastes of bitter bubblegum but loaded
with sweetness too. Do you remember the bubblegum
icecreams which were available when we were kids? Plastic
cone, dark blue bubblegum sphere at the bottom? These
apples actually taste of the blueness of that bubblegum
sphere. Six and seven are standard Cornish greenies, pale
and steadfast, but the seventh tree is absolutely festooned
this year and fifty percent of the blend will be from this
tree, sweet with tannin and stoic but happy to keep the
rhythm.
The last tree is a bit dear to me. I grafted it on last year to
preserve it as it’s nearly dead. Only managed four fruit
this year, but they’re decent and feel like a last hurrah.
Wouldn’t surprise me if it’s pegged by this time next year.
The fruit is exceptional in flavour – no idea how it keeps
or which diseases the tree is susceptible to yet – it’s that
waisted, codlin shape quite typical of Cornish varieties and
the tree is clearly in its second state of collapse. I reckon
on at least eighty years old. Bitter as sin and bursting with
juice, there’s an almost herbal, rosemary and oregano
back flavour hidden in here, but very sweet also. It’ll be
interesting to see how it performs on a stock as an opengrown
pampered orchard resident if it gets the chance.