I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are fully resurrected from the tryptophan-induced coma you put yourself into with that potentially lethal combination of starch, fat, and the misguided belief that a side dish should contain marshmallows and fried onions with which you subjected yourself yesterday. Because, however briefly, I need you to pay attention.

In the continuing saga of me pleading for your help in the ongoing Fresh Squeezed marketing effort, this week I am requesting the pleasure of your click at The Underground Book Reviews website where you’ll be able to propel Fresh Squeezed to the top of the pile in their Self-Published Author Awards contest. Just ignore the other worthy – as if – contenders, scroll down, and check the box next to Fresh Squeezed. Then vote. As always, thank you for your support.

Well, last week’s FUBAR SNAFU regarding the CENTCOM sitcom threw a wrench in the works of my hopes to provide, for a change, a light-hearted look at recent developments instead of my typical dire outlook for the future of Western Civilization, the world ecology, and the Almighty Dollar; subjects I will only be able to dwell on for another few weeks until the Mayan calendar resets itself and we all perish in a stream of unpronounceable diphthongs as the gods of old reassert themselves. Last week I planned to regale you with a true tale of the harvest season; all Norman Rockwell and shit. A story of community, friendship, and sharing. But then I thought: Nah! Why switch horses so close to the apocalypse.

So you get it this week.

As you know, we planted a micro orchard last fall and let the trees – against better advice – do what they will. Which was mostly nothing but one of the apple trees provided enough apples for a single apple crisp.

And golly-bob-howdy, was it good.

Afterward, as I lay prostrate from consuming so much dessert in one sitting, I wiped slabs of homemade bread through the puddle of homemade ice cream left behind after we ate the homegrown and homemade crisp, I was given pause to think on this wondrous blessing.

“We need more apples.”

“Roger and Daphne say they have apples.”

“They do?”

“Yup. Tons.”

“Too bad we don’t have a cider press.” I bemoaned the circumstance. “We could make a bunch of cider.”

“Roger knows where to rent one.”

Bingo!

I have always had a soft spot in my heart for freshly pressed apple cider. As a youngster in New Jersey I could still go down to Geiger’s in Galloping Hill and get the sweet brown nectar right out of the press. Just as in days of old. Then, I got older, Geiger’s got paved over – replaced by a Starbucks – and, eventually, I went to work in England for a while where, true to the legend, everybody drinks coolish beer with the color and consistency of King George III’s urine. I, at the time never having finished a single glass of beer in my short, miserable life, was left parched. Until one day I noticed that “Cider” was one of the beverages on offer. I ordered one.

Boy, was I surprised.

It turns out that in England, they still made hard cider. And I was smitten.

I returned to these shores and discovered that hard cider was experiencing somewhat of a rebirth in the wake of the micro-brew fanaticism of the 1990s. As one would expect from something resurgent in America, the end product was this cloyingly sweet, effervescent liquid with the approximate bouquet of apple-kissed 7-Up. I continued to drink cider, when I could find a good import, but tended to shy away from the domestic brands.

Always curious, I looked further into the whole American cider problem, and found that it wasn’t always so. In the past America was a country built on cider. The early settlers brought cider with them from the old country. Our Founding Fathers? Cider drinkers one and all. John Chapman, AKA Johnny Appleseed? Those weren’t Red Delicious he was out peddling on the frontier. They were all destined to be used for cider. Hard cider.

Cider’s popularity remained unchallenged until the mid-1800s when the German immigrants started washing up with their taste for fine beer. A taste, which in the span of a century, had devolved into Budweiser, Coors, and Miller Lite. Fermented, hard cider, by and large, faded from view following prohibition except for a few home brewers and for adolescent boys using it as the base for making what arson investigators everywhere call: an accelerant.

Which was my first foray into the brewing of hard cider.

While I was living in New York City during the Age of Sanity when experimentation, exploration, and inventiveness were still encouraged in the nation’s youth, my family happened to return from New Jersey with a gallon or two of cider, excess to our needs as it were. This was consigned to the garage to take advantage of the cold weather and free up space in the fridge, its presence quickly forgotten.

Until one spring day when my friend (and fellow pyromaniac) George and I found it while looking for a ladder to go up on the neighbor’s roof and put out the fire. The blaze doused, we checked out the cider which had acquired a nasty smell and taste, but which also seemed like it might have some potential.

So we set up a still – of course, didn’t everyone?­ – and proceeded to run the cider through. We ended up with a clear, fragrant spirit redolent of apple and fall leaves which also, most importantly, burned hot, and smokeless. Perfect.

Now an experienced brewer and distiller, I put cider making on hold until such time when 1) I didn’t have to pay for sweet cider and 2) I’d be less tempted to make something that might burn down the house.

So the decades passed. I got a cider press. Then it went away when I went sailing. But didn’t come back when I returned. Wasn’t much of an issue anyway, because I didn’t have any apples.

Enter Roger and Daphne.

“Sure,” he said. “There are still a few apples on the trees. Let’s rent the press and maybe we can get a few gallons of cider.”

“When?”

Knock, knock.

Roger and I headed out and picked up the press; a really nice two-barrel press with a power grinder. We then retired to his orchard where Daphne was already hard at work picking apples. The day was glorious. We ended up with a lot of apples which we moved to the micro-farm, unloaded everything into the carport, and called it a day.

Really, it was a lot of apples. We guessed that there might be twelve or fifteen gallons of cider to be had.

On Sunday I got the press all cleaned up, set up the washing bucket, and started a fire to help keep warm and heat up some freshly pressed cider. Roger and Daphne showed up and we started in grinding and pressing and dumping and grinding and pressing and dumping until we had filled up every available container with apple cider. And then some. We ended up with about twenty three gallons of cider and a leftover box packed with an additional eight cubic feet of apples.

We definitely have to work on that guesstimation thing.

Nevertheless, we cleaned up the press, returned it, and I settled in for some more research. I searched. And read. And searched some more until I found out as much as I could about fermenting cider. The one thing I learned was: 

Boy, did I screw up.

Seems the consensus of experienced cidermaker advice was that first timers should stick to small batches. Here I was sitting on ten gallons of fresh cider which, the experts assured me, was already well on its way to becoming vinegar.

My plans thwarted, I hurried to get the ten gallons into Ziplocs and thence into the freezer. Once safely frozen, I could learn the brewer’s craft at my leisure, sitting in front of the fire.

Ten gallons of cider is a lot. It filled up the freezer – to the brim. I was going to have to get a move on. On Monday my Acme Handy Gold Level Home Brew Kit arrived from Amazon. I unpacked it, took out three pieces, and packed the rest back up. I had ordered the kit, in my optimism, which would allow me to produce six gallons of cider at a time. But, for once, I took the advice of the experts and planned out a couple of small batches in gallon jugs.

To do this I converted the guest bathroom into a cidery. I cleaned and sterilized my equipment and now have two batches bubbling away. When they’re done and bottled I can start slowly climbing the ladder of home brewing success, a gallon at a time.

I’m still left with the conundrum of what to do with the supersized fermenters that came with the kit. The bucket I can always use in the garden. I figured the six-gallon glass carboy would make a nice fish bowl. But then, one day, I stumbled upon my answer: A large box printed with a green leafy background and a tempting message. “Have Fun!” It said. “Save Money!” “Inside everything you need to create your favorite wine at home!” And then they set the hook. “Kit Size:” the small print read. “Six Gallons.”

It’s already in the mail.