The continued success of small craft fermentations

After visiting Brown's Orchards I did a map search for brewery/distillery and saw that 10 minutes away in a town called Seven Valley's was a new distillery named Old Republic Distillery. I stopped in to sample and buy a bottle, luckily the woman pouring was extraordinarily kind and forthright about their journey to opening. I have heard from almost everyone who has started a cidery/vineyard/distillery that they barely made it through an almost two year process from planning to opening. There is a lot of bureaucracy in the way which hangs like a fog over start ups. Its like the specter hangover from prohibition, a kind of puritanical nervousness that makes alcoholic production difficult. Its probably easier to open a shop selling marijuana in Colorado than opening a distillery in Pennsylvania.

I told her I was in the very beginning stages of planning a cidery and she was kind enough to mention a new farm cidery that just opened. It just so happened that cidery has a booth at the farmers market in downtown York so I got in the car and drove up there. I tried their champagne style cider with forced carbonation. It was very pleasant and their booth was well visited. I did not get a chance to talk to the cider maker but hopefully next time I am up there I am able to. There are now 3 places (that I know of) making apple cider within an hour of Baltimore. The folks at Nepenthe tell me they get a lot of requests on how to make cider at their home brew shop. Lot happening in the cider world around Baltimore!