It’s truly hard to believe that we are here… nearly one year later. A heck of a year it’s been… and it’s hard to believe it’s been a year.
We started this journey more than a year ago. In fact, much more than a year ago. I vividly remember the very first batch of cider we made. I remember the process of that first batch clearly. I remember Dan adding the yeast and watching it get started fermenting. It sat on our kitchen counter as it bubbled away. That was October 31, 2013. Since then that one one-gallon carboy grew into five-gallon carboys covering our dining room table and every flat surface in our small town home. Then into the basement of our new home. Then five-gallon carboys became 500 gallon tanks in their own home, our cidery in Aurora.
The process to opening our cidery was not a straight forward one, nor an easy one. We’ve learned so much about owning a business, running a tasting room, navigating laws around alcohol in the United States, and balancing our family life and our business. It’s been quite the on the job education.
We made no secret that we opened our doors while I was 9 months pregnant. It was not intentional. In our ‘defense’ we thought we would be opening sooner but construction and equipment delays pushed our opening to February 1st. Every moment until we opened was spent trying out our new systems, figuring out how to sell our ciders to customers and learning how to talk about ourselves to the press. We opened up our doors and Megan, Dan, and I were behind the bar. Today we laugh at my giant belly tending bar but I felt enormous and like I wasn’t going to make it until the end of the night. But I did… and we promptly had our baby girl six days later. It was excellent timing, leaving Dan able to be back in the bar that Thursday night chatting with customers.
This year, in our tasting room, we sold 3400 bottles of cider. 1500 flights, 3700 glasses of cider. And we had 1313 customers come join us in the tasting room (many of you multiple times)!
We couldn’t have made it a year without all of you. So please join us on Friday February 1, 2019 and join us for drinks all night. Dan and I will be there. Plus 20% off all bottles that night.
