Grown-up Juice
Seedling Orchard's apple cider for adults
If you want to make the best hard cider, it makes sense to start with the best apples. Fortunately for Peter Klein, there are more than 70 varieties of them growing right outside his door in Seedling Orchard, his 81-acre farm in South Haven, Michigan.
Three years ago, Klein, the go-to fruit guy for many of Chicago's top restaurants, including Blackbird, Charlie Trotter's and Spiaggia, started making six varieties of soft (nonalcoholic) cider. Hard cider seemed like a natural next step, but perfecting it took some time.
After two years of tinkering with the recipe with the help of a winemaker friend, his all-natural hard cider--made from a combination of apples, including Golden Russet and Mitsu--is ready.
The Normandy-style cider is lightly sparkling and crisp, with a touch of sweetness and a clear fermented apple flavor. It can be found at Provenance Food and Wine ($16), Wine Discount Center ($13) and Vie ($8 a glass or $30 a bottle), where chef Paul Virant likes to pair it with his crispy house-made pork sausage ($12). Nacional 27 sells it by the bottle ($27), and mixologist Adam Seger recently paired it with Koval's chrysanthemum-honey liqueur (and come fall, he'll use it to top off an Heirloom Appletini).
