One chilly morning in May of 2023, fruit growers around the state of Vermont awoke to some devastating news: an overnight frost had killed and damaged many budding apples, grapes, berries, and other fruits around the state. But few were hit as hard as Scott Farm Orchard in Dummerston, who lost 90% percent of their apple crop as a result of the frost. To make it through the season, farm manager Simon Renault and and Orchardist Erin Robinson knew they had to get creative.
Without the usual abundance of heirloom apples from the farm’s orchard, the team began gathering wild apples from the Green Mountain National Forest to combine with the orchard’s survivor heirlooms to ensure a new cider would be ready for the 2024 season. But it was still missing that special ingredient. The team received a tipoff from Landmark Trust USA (which owns Scott Farm Orchard and the neighboring Naulakha, the former home of Rudyard Kipling), that there was a wild crabapple tree on the property bursting with bright red, juicy, tannic apples that might just make a perfect cider.
The Scott Farm Orchard team harvested these wild crabapples and used them to make a wild fermented barrel aged dry hard cider. The cider was pressed in November 2023, fermented with native wild yeasts through the winter, and transferred to oak barrels for 4 months of aging. At bottling, the cider tasted wild and floral, with the acidity of the wild crabapples finding full, extravagant expression.
The crabapple variety was not identifiable as an existing variety, so Robinson named them Just So Crabapples in honor of Kipling’s Just So Stories, a classic begun at Naulakha based on stories he told his daughter Josephine, who always asked for the stories to be told “just so.”
Just So Wild was a natural name for this exceptional new hard cider, and the bottle art features one of Rudyard Kipling’s original illustrations from the 1902 first edition Just So Stories collection, connecting the cider directly to the magic ingredient from Kipling’s home that gives this rare treat its unique flavor.
“Our hard ciders are really delicious and a great way to enjoy apples in one of their most traditional forms,” says Scott Farm General Manager Simon Renault. “With Just So Wild, we not only celebrate the resilience in the face of challenge that is so quintessentially Vermont but pay homage to the unique history of the place we call home.”
A portion of all sales of Just So Wild will directly help preserve the very place where these unique crab apples were found. With every bottle of Just So Wild cider sold, Scott Farm will donate a portion of sales to Landmark’s efforts to ensure Naulakha, its special history, and
unique stories remain for future generations. All purchases will support the preservation nonprofit’s Naulakha Campaign, a $1.25 million climate adaptation project that will preserve, protect, and enhance the experience of the historic estate through the in-kind replacement of Naulakha’s cedar shingle roof and the creation of an improved drainage system to better handle current and future rainfall and natural runoff at the site.
The cider joins the farm’s classic Chez Mémé, Kingston Black, and Redfield Rosé varieties along with the brand new Ginger Perry, a delightful ginger infused pear cider, to complete the 2024 Scott Farm hard cider family.
Just So Wild is a limited production hard cider, and each bottle is hand numbered. It can currently be purchased exclusively at the Scott Farm Market, 707 Kipling Rd., Dummerston,Vt., open 10am-6pm daily until Thanksgiving.
Here are a few other ways you can experience Scott Farm's harvest this season:
- The Scott Farm Market and PYO is open daily 10:00am - 6:00pm until Thanksgiving, featuring their heirloom apples, their own sweet cider bottled and from the tap, ginger cider, sparkling cider, hard ciders, apple cider donuts, and all kinds of local products.
- Pippin's Cafe is open 11:00am - 6:00pm Thursday-Sunday until Thanksgiving, serving baguette sandwiches and cider flights with outdoor seating overlooking the farm.
- Gift boxes of their heirloom apples are available to ship nationwide.
- Scott Farm's 21st annual Heirloom Apple Day is coming up on Sunday, Oct. 13!
