New Manx Cider to be launched at 2011 Isle of Man Food & Drink Festival

Manx company, Apple Orphanage Co Ltd, will be launching the first commercially made Manx cider in living memory at the Isle of Man Food & Drink Festival on Saturday 24th September and Sunday 25th September at the Nunnery Gardens, Douglas. The cider can be purchased throughout the Festival weekend but stocks are limited and it will not be widely available elsewhere.

Twelve months in the making, the cider is 100% Manx and made from apples collected through Apple Orphanage’s Cooperative Harvest - a simple concept that allows apple tree owners across the Island to drop off their ripe apples and go home with free juice. The remainder of the apples are used to make juice and now, for the first time, cider.

Apple Orphanage Directors Will Faulds and Charlotte Traynor explain: “It’s been a slow process, but we think it’ll be worth the wait. Our cider is made traditionally and naturally using 100% Manx apples and nothing else. Our cider is unlike any available on the Island. A West Country ‘scrumpy’ style cider is made using cider apples, whereas our Manx cider uses dessert, cooking and crab apples, which are more commonly grown on the Isle of Man. This creates a light, fruity and slightly acidic Manx cider compared with a heavier, more tannic, West Country cider - it’s like the difference between a white and red wine.”

The Apple Orphanage will also be selling their apple juice and elderflower keshal and giving apple pressing demonstrations. They will be joined by a wide range of other local producers, a host of demonstrations and activities for all the family plus MasterChef semi-finalist Stacie Stewart on Saturday and celebrity chef and “Saturday Kitchen” presenter James Martin on Sunday.