EsoTerra Cider Opens Tasting Room
EsoTerra Ciderworks
18390 Hwy 145,
Dolores, CO 81326
Media Contact: Elizabeth Philbrick, Elizabeth@EsoTerraCider.com, 202/577-6583
Despite all odds, a new business is opening in the era of Covid-19:
EsoTerra crafts premium artisanal hard ciders; capitalizing on Southwest Colorado’s spectacular apple varieties and unique terroir.
We are located in the Old Mountain Sun Juice Factory in Dolores, CO. Once the home of the world’s largest organic apple juice manufacturer, this facility used to turn the local apple orchards into premium juice distributed across the country. EsoTerra is not reinventing the wheel. Co-Founders Jared Scott and Elizabeth Philbrick, are here to add value to the juice that was once in production, by fermenting it into hard cider; one of America’s fastest growing adult beverages.
The historic juice factory has had a face lift and is now outfitted with a beautiful tasting room and 1,200 feet of outdoor patio. Our on-site food truck, Zoe the Tail, will be home to a rotation of chefs and the permanent home to some of the best gelato you have ever tasted.
If you are unable to make it to our tasting room, our dry, wine-like cider can be purchased and either picked up curbside, or shipped to 39 States across the country.
An economy ready to rebound:
Montezuma and La Plata are historically apple growing counties with a rich history of juice production. Our counties have the highest number and diversity of old, pre-prohibition trees in the state, and ranks high across the nation. Thanks to the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project (MORP) trees have been inventoried and mapped, many of these trees were originally used for hard cider.
While interest in this fruit exists, our remoteness and lack of infrastructure keeps our apples from being competitively priced for anyone outside the region, and so many of these orchards have become unkempt or undermaintained. Today, less than 10% of our local apples are making it to any market, with only 3% being used by the existing cideries.
EsoTerra has a solution: Couple the existing local apple supply with the market potential of hard cider, then leverage our companies close proximity to the apples to create a premium hard cider. By paying orchardists what their apples are worth, these trees will be seen as valuable assets once again, and care for the regional orchards will improve; providing us with access to cider apple crops not currently available in other apple growing regions.
Currently, EsoTerrra picks over a dozen full scale orchards, several distinctive backyard trees, and numerous feral varieties found along roadsides, trails, and streams throughout our region. We are searching for the best apples that exemplify the flavors of our region. We love ciders from all over the world, but we do not attempt to make a cider that is defined by another culture. Instead, our cider tastes uniquely of SouthWest.
Custom Crush:
On top of our own fine cider production, we are a custom crush facility. Custom crush is a licensed and bonded winery that lets other brands of wine make their product in our building. This saves them the hassle and cost of establishing a liquor license and the expense of outfitting a building, and gives them the benefit of starting small.
It comes down to economies of scale. By bringing together multiple small brands to divide equipment, facilities, and storage space expenses, as well as encourage cooperation and experimentation, custom crush operators can see stability in their business—and provide big savings and convenience for small producers.
Those in the area who wish to try their hand at owning their own brand of cider need only give us a call. We are happy to begin a new contract as small as 300 gallons.
Collaboration with Fort Lewis College – Chemistry Department:
Alongside Dr. Callie Cole, EsoTerra published our first paper in the Journal of Beverages with the Fort Lewis Chemistry Department. This exclusive collaboration has led to the donation of over a half million dollars in scientific equipment to the College, as well as funding for two research assistants through 2021. This equipment allows us to stay ahead of the competition by better understanding our regional fruit potential and maintain consistency and quality in our product.
Superseding quality control, is our ability to create a pipeline from our regional college to some of the best paying jobs in the fermentation industry. Dr. Cole has been instrumental in our success and EsoTerra looks forward to a more permanent collaboration with the Chemistry department as we move forward.
Elizabeth and Jared’s Story:
It all began in 2013 when Jared began to notice that the hundreds of old apple trees he runs past every day were beginning to drop fruit. Not a little fruit, but a lot. Jared dubbed this the year of the ‘great fruit rot’. Determined to make these orchards viable again, Jared began making hard apple cider behind the barn of some newly acquired friends, Marth and Dusty Teal of Teal Cider.
Once rural America’s drink of choice, hard cider had gone somewhat out of fashion. And its revival was mostly spearheaded by sweet, sticky cider with artificial colors and added flavoring. Good in their own right, these ciders hardly touched the classic dry ciders of early America, or even modern Europe.
Fast forward to 2015, when a boy meets a girl. Jared and Elizabeth fell in love in the same manner that both came to realize defined their personalities: wholeheartedly and enthusiastically. Elizabeth began to introduce Jared to the world of wine (he mostly drank beer at that time) and it dawned on Jared that the problem with cider in America, is that it is being produced and treated like beer, and not the wine that it is.
A few years past, and Jared and Elizabeth began to craft fine ciders together. First, in small batches in their garage in Fort Collins, CO, then on a larger scale when they moved south to Durango – where the fruit grows.
In 2019, they took several leaps, in their first year of marriage, they began their own cider company in earnest. With the extraordinary help of the Southwest Colorado Accelerator Program for Entrepreneurs (SCAPE) a business was formed. EsoTerra Cider can now be found crafting cider along the banks of the Dolores River.
Cider that requires climbing trees to pick fruit.
Cider that focuses on the unique flavors of a multitude of apple varieties.
Cider that has no coloring, flavoring, or additives.
Cider that is served in a wine glass.
Cider born from a land, somewhat forgotten.
EsoTerra Cider: Savor the Land, Drink Real Cider!
Summary:
EsoTerra Crafts Premium Artisanal hard cider. But we are more than that: we are laboring in orchards to rebuild an apple economy, we are scientists creating jobs for students, and we are an incubator for future cideries in our region. We are the cider of the SouthWest.
We are here to help you savor the land, and drink real cider.
