Today has been designated a day of rest, well deserved after the exertions of the previous few days. I say 'rest', but it's hardly been a 'feet up in front of the telly' kind of day. Even without actually milling and pressing apples, there always seems to be plenty of cleaning, tidying, and general mollycoddling of the apple juice to be done.
I did manage to stay awake long enough for a lunchtime pint down the village local. A couple of Streaky's from the award winning Potbelly Brewery really hit the spot, the perfect prelude to a planned afternoon nap which unfortunately never happened. The Red Lion had just ran out of Rockingham Forest Cider, and this triggered a key moment in our cidermaking year, the delivery of our very last box of this year's cider. I must admit, it was an emotional moment for me, although this could have been down to the heady cocktail of extreme fatigue and Potbelly Streaky!
Thanks to the stirling efforts of Kevin & Fiona at the Red Lion, and our other regular outlets throughout the year, we've now met our target of selling out of cider by the end of the Summer. It's important for us that the fermenters are empty by October at the very latest, so that they're then ready to be filled with juice for the new season cider.
We do have one barrel of cider put aside for the Uppingham Oktoberfest (9th - 13th October), but other than that, it's the Red Lion in Middleton if you want to try the last of this year's cider.
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