turn them all into cider

Foxwhelp. It’s sort of an odd name for an apple, if you think about it. No one really knows where the name came from, though in the 19^th century some speculated that it was discovered by a hunter, growing near a fox den. It is a very old apple, mentioned by name in a number of mid-17^th century English treatises on cidermaking. Apples were more typically cited by class, but Foxwhelp had already gained a reputation for making distinctive cider. As seems to happen with all famous apples, 200 years later there were any number of new arrivals bearing the Foxwhelp name–Bulmer’s Foxwhelp, Broxwood Foxwhelp, Black Foxwhelp, Red Foxwhelp, Rejuvanated Foxwhelp. How they related to the original wasn’t clear, though all seem to have found their way into some farmer’s cider barrels.

For all its reputation, Foxwhelp’s history in the U.S. is problematic. It crossed the Atlantic many times, it seems, but according to its DNA profile it turns out that the apple listed as ‘Foxwhelp’ in the official USDA apple collection in Geneva, NY, the source of scionwood for so many new orchards, is something quite unrelated, a Fauxwhelp.

The story of Foxwhelp’s arrival in the U.S. starts with William B. Alwood (1859-1946), Professor of Horticulture, Entomology, and Mycology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and Vice-Director of the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station (1888-1904). As the 20^th century approached, there was some concern in government circles that American apples not fit for the fresh market were going to waste, and something needed to be done about it. Some of those “waste” apples went to cider, of course, but the sense was that there was room for improvement. Funding was found to send Alwood on a research trip to England, France, and Germany where he studied all aspects of cidermaking with the leading experts of the time. He returned with enough information to write several treatises and a collection of scionwood for some of Europe’s most popular cider-specific apples, including Foxwhelp. A report on activities at the Virginia Experiment station published in 1904 said that the apple was thriving, though it had not yet fruited.

All of the research work done by Alwood and his colleagues came to naught, though, as Prohibition loomed. Alwood moved on to other work. The apple varieties he collected were relocated to another federal research orchard in Maryland, then mostly vanished from the public mind.

Foxwhelp next officially arrived in 1939 courtesy of the Gloucestershire nursery Hopwood & Sons, joining hundreds of other varieties grown at the USDA’s Plant Industry Station in Beltsville, MD. Twenty-four years later, according to A Survey of Apple Clones in the United States made by the USDA, Foxwhelp was being grown in agricultural experiment stations in Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York, sourced from from the accession in Maryland, but also independently from a New York nursery (Kelly Brothers) and the Long Ashton Research Station in the U.K. By the early 1980s, it was advertised in the catalogues of several commercial nurseries, though who might have been planting it, and why, isn’t clear.

What of the apple currently held in the Geneva collection? What of Fauxwhelp? The database listing indicates it was donated to the collection in 1986 by Cornell University emeritus professor Roger D. Way, but not where he might have obtained it. There had been an state-supported agricultural experiment station in Geneva since the 1880s, maintained jointly since the 1920s by the New York State Department of Agriculture and Cornell University‘s Department of Pomology. Foxwhelp was listed as part of that collection in the 1960s. Trees die, however, and orchards get moved or labels switched. Clearly when the collection came under USDA control and moved to its currently location in 1986, some mistakes were made.

When it became clear that the accession in the USDA collection in Geneva wasn’t Foxwhelp, several individuals set about bringing in new material from established U.K. sources. John Bunker of Fedco Seeds imported Old Foxwhelp, Broxwood Foxwhelp, Red Foxwhelp, and Rejuvanated Foxwhelp. Dr. Greg Peck at Cornell University chose Bulmer’s Foxwhelp and Broxwood Foxwhelp from a different source. In the last year or so, as these importations neared release from a multi-year quartantine process, they were sent out for DNA analysis with some surprising results. The Old Foxwhelp and Red Foxwhelp imported by Bunker turned out to be identical, but his Broxwood Foxwhelp wasn’t related to Foxwhelp at all. It was another apple often used for cider called Ellis Bitter. Peck’s Bulmer’s Foxwhelp was also not a Foxwhelp, as one of its parents turns out to be Gala, an apple discovered in New Zealand in the 1930s.

All of this just goes to show that when dealing with old apple varieties, you can’t necessarily take an identity for granted. Orchards change hands, memories fade, records are lost. If the cider made from the fruit still finds a place in the market, a farmer may not be all that fussy about keeping perfect track of the original variety name.

What of the cider made from Foxwhelp? Historically it was admired, but not without its complications. Robert Hogg, in his 1886 book The Apple and Pear as Vintage Fruits, quotes one 17^th century writer as saying. “Cider for strength and a long-lasting drink is best made of the Fox-whelp…but which comes not to be drunk till two or three years old.” Hogg goes on to say, “It will retain its full flavor for twenty or thirty years.” The secret to this incredible longevity wasn’t tannin, but acid, and lots of it.

It’s Foxwhelp’s acidity that commends it to cidermakers in the U.K. even today. Every cidermaker I spoke to on a recent trip to Herefordshire uses Foxwhelp to some degree. It is most useful in a blend, adding a lilting brightness even in small amounts, and its ability to lower pH aids in stability, a useful attribute for the cidermaker that employs little or no microbe-killing sulfite during fermentation.

The volume of apples grown as Foxwhelp in the U.S. is still relatively small, so there are few examples of single variety cider sold under that name. It seemed reasonable, then, to include here some sourced in England for comparison. All these English ciders were made with what the cidermakers believe to be Broxwood Foxwhelp, and all were as searlingly acidic as the writers of old would lead one to expect. Their common flavors were lemon and barely ripe stone fruit, apricot, peach, and plum. The example from Little Pomona had taken on a pronounced smokiness from its years in a used Islay whisky barrel, and its acid was somewhat rounder, perhaps due to the modified solera system in which is was made with the oldest cider in the barrel dating back to 2015. One of the American ciders was similar in its acid profile to its British counterparts, but with generally riper fruit flavors.

The second American example was altogether different. The fruit flavors were riper and spicer, and the acid level, though perfectly balanced, was medium rather than high. This is not particularly surprising, for one can deduce from the source of the scionwood that the apple used in this cider wasn’t Foxwhelp, but Fauxwhelp. That being said, it is a very good cider, one that I was happy to drink. In the end that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it? The varietal name on the bottle might well give you clues as to what to expect, but the true measure of pleasure comes from what’s in the glass.

Newton Court Cider, Newton, Leominster, U.K. – medium sweet; lemon, apple skin, pear skin, yellow apple; sparkling; (undated); 6.6% ABV

Ross on Wye Cider and Perry Co., Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, U.K. – dry; lemon, lime, green plum, just ripe apricot, tart green apple; petillant; (harvested 2019, bottled 2021); 5.6% ABV

Oliver’s Cider and Perry Great Parton Farm Single Orchard, Ocle Pychard, Herefordshire, U.K. – dry; lemon, green plum skin, barely ripe apricot, barely ripe peach, tart green apple, lime, lime zest; still; (2020); 5.1% ABV

Little Pomona, Bromyard, Herefordshire, U.K. – dry; smoke, lemon, green plum, just ripe apricot and peach, vanilla, cedar, tart orange; still; (from 2015, bottled 2020); 7.0% ABV

Eden Ciders, Oliver’s TwistNewport, VT – dry; lemon, green plum, green herbs, thyme, lemon zest, just ripe apricot; sparkling; (2018); 7.5% ABV (fruit grown in Lebanon, NH)

Alpenfire Cider, Port Townsend, WA – dry; baking spice, ripe apple, orange juice, orange peel, ripe peach, ripe apricot, hazelnut; sparkling; (2016); 6.9% ABV

The modern cider enthusiast tends to think of England when the subject of famous apples for cider comes up, but the United States has had its fair share as well. Harrison. Hewe’s Virginia Crab. Campfield. Hagloe Crab. Most had all but disappeared from American orchards by the early 20^th century. Winesap is an exception, still grown and relished today.

It originated some time in the 18^th century, possibly on land owned by the Coles family in West Jersey who had been farming there since Samuel Coles arrived in the area around 1678. One of his descendants, another Samuel Coles, was noted as growing Winesap in the first mention of it found in print, A.F.M. Willich’s Domestic Encyclopedia, v.3, updated to include American apples by James Mease in 1803, where it is listed as Wine-sop. “Makes an excellent cyder, preferred by some to that of the red streak,” wrote Mease. “. . . the cider produced from it is vinous, clear, and strong; equal to any fruit liquor of our country for bottling,” noted William Coxe in A View of the Cultivation of Fruit Trees, and the Management of Orchard and Cider (1817).

The reference to wine in its name is an immediate clue to the high regard in which Winesap was held. From the 17^th century on, cidermakers were always excited to find an apple that they believed made “vinous” cider, cider that was as rich and flavorful as the wines they knew. The early 19^th century American horticultural writers made frequent comparisons between cider and wine, apples and grapes. Coxe wrote, “I have Cider of 1810 the mixture of Crab and Harrison and Winesap . . . which annually improves like the finest wines.” In a piece on cider apples written for The New England Farmer in 1826, Judge Jesse Buel said, “[t]he quality of cider depends upon the apples from which it is manufactured–the soil and location where they grow–and the process of manufacturing. When the two first are favourable, and the last well conducted, the product will be a fine racy liquor, superior for the table to the common wines of France, Spain, and Italy, and will keep as well as them.”

Change was afoot, however, as the demographics of the country shifted from mostly rural and agricultural to industrial centers in rapidly growing cities. Waves of immigrants from places where cider was not the drink of choice–Germany, Italy, Poland–shifted the American palate toward other beverages such as beer that could be cheaply made on an industrial scale. As tastes changed, so did the roll of apples. Farmers still made cider (which didn’t get manufactured on a large scale until the 20^th century), but they increasingly focused on producing fruit for the fresh market. Winesap, as it happened, fit perfectly in that niche, too.

Tannin gets talked about a lot in today’s cider circles. It adds body and fullness to a cider (and wine) as well as being one of the chemical components that will help it keep well over time (acid is important, too). Cidermakers of the past eras recognized this, however for them the most important attribute of a cider apple wasn’t tannin but a rich concentrated flavor and plenty of sugar. “The only artificial criterion employed to ascertain the quality of an apple for cider, is the specific gravity of its must . . . This ensures to the liquor, strength . . .” explained Buel (New England Farmer, v5, no. 33, 1827). Winesap had both sugar and complexity of flavor. What saved it from obscurity, though, was the other things it brought to the table: red color, a good size and texture, mid- to late-ripening time (so it tended to keep well), and not having much in the way of tannin. 

Winesap’s popularity as a fresh market apple, and the ability to grow well in many climates and soil types, helped it to find a place in commercial orchards from coast to coast by the mid-19^th century. Its reputation also led to the proliferation of other, sometimes related, apples bearing the Winesap name: Winesap of the West, Winesap Start Double-Red, and Stayman Winesap among them. 

As it is still widely grown today, it is possible to find any number of Winesap ciders made in different parts of the U.S. The examples I tasted through recently, though, were sometimes so divergent in strength and complexity that I had to wonder if they had truly been made with the same variety. What is more likely, though, is what Buel observed almost two centuries ago, that the manner in which an apple is grown can have a profound impact on the nature of the cider that apple will produce. The needs of the fresh market may not always jibe with those of the cidermaker. 

Potter’s Craft Cider Pelure, Charlottesville, VA – dry; bay leaf, dried apple, apple, skin, pear, lemon, nutmeg, just ripe apricot, toast; sparkling; 2019; 9% ABV

Manoff Market Cidery Winesap, New Hope, PA – dry; apple, apple skin, peach, sweet lemon; sparkling; 2019; 6.6% ABV

Lassen Traditional Cider Paradise Strong, Chico, CA – dry; apple skin, plum, plum skin, bread dough, VA; sparkling; 2019; 7.5% ABV

Lassen Traditional Cider Winesap, Chico, CA – dry; ripe apple, just ripe peach, pear, plum skin, just ripe pineapple; sparkling; 2016; 8.1% ABV

Lassen Traditional Cider Winesap, Chico, CA – dry; mint, pear skin, oak, dried pineapple, peach, yellow apple, orange juice; sparkling; 2019; 8.1 ABV

Liberty Ciderworks Winesap, Spokane, WA – semi-dry; ripe apple, lemon juice, pineapple, pear, nutmeg, peach, vanilla; sparkling; 2017; 9.0 ABV

There is something a little fascinating about red fleshed apples. Red skins we’re used to, and the marketers tell us that it’s that rosy red color that attracts us, though I’m not sure I buy that. But red flesh is so unexpected, especially if the apple’s skin is yellow or green, giving us no hint of what might be hiding inside. Airlie Red Flesh is just such an apple.

It was found in Oregon, a lone tree growing in the rolling semi-forested hills between the tiny towns of Airlie and Kings Valley, north and a little west of Corvallis. Some say that the first to notice it was Jean Ivan “Lucky” Newell (1928-2016) who came across it sometime after buying a piece of land there in the late 1950s, and, according to one of his daughters, comparing the color of the flesh to his wife Audrey’s lips. As an ironworker and horseman, maybe apples didn’t interest him much for Newell doesn’t seem to have brought it to anyone else’s attention, selling the land in 1966 with the apple unremarked upon. Stories of how it came to wider notice involve, variously, pomologist William Schutz and/or a former local farm manager Thomas Kimzey finding the apple in the 1980s. What is certain is that by the 1990s it was being grown by apple enthusiasts in various parts of the Pacific Northwest and beginning to attract some commercial success as well.

How, though, did it end up in that field to begin with? Apples with red flesh aren’t complete unknowns, but they are hardly common. Before Lucky Newell bought that piece of land it had been owned for many years by the Story family. James Francis “Frank” Story (1895-1956) would have been farming it at the time the apple arrived, and one particularly intriguing notion is that its source was the northern California apple breeder Albert Etter (1872-1950). This is not as far fetched an idea as it might sound. Etter had been breeding red-fleshed apples for many years, with Pink Pearl as his most noted red-fleshed success. According to an article written by Ram Fishman and reprinted in the winter 1996 edition of the newsletter of the Western Cascade Fruit Society, the Bee Line, in the late 1940s Etter sent scions of a number of his apples to Quentin Zielinski (1919-1967), professor of horticulture at Oregon State University in Corvallis. Perhaps one of those scions was for the apple now known as Airlie Red Flesh and just maybe Zielinski gave a scion to Frank Story.

This is, of course, highly speculative, but also not completely crazy. Well, it’s a little bit crazy since though Story was a farmer nearby there isn’t any documentation that would suggest he had any particular relationship with Zielinski. What is interesting, though, is suggestive evidence derived from the apple itself. 

First, a little science, the simplified version. There are a couple of genes that cause apples to create redness, either in their skin or flesh, and those genes are in turn controlled by other chemicals in the apple’s cells called transcription factors which in this case occur in two distinct versions. One set, type 1, tells the apple to make red pigments (anthocyanins) in all its various parts–leaves, stems, flesh, and skin. A different set, type 2, says “hey, only make pigment in the flesh. Leave the leaves green, the stems green/brown, and the skin yellow”. A classic example of a type 1 apple is Malus niedzwetzkyana, which was discovered in the mid 19^th century in the the apple’s ancestral home of Kazakhstan. It was introduced to the U.S. in the late 19^th century by plant breeder Niels Ebbesen Hansen (1866-1950) who used it, and other Central Asian and Russian varieties, to create new cold-hardy apples in his South Dakota State College breeding program.

Etter used a type 2 apple for his breeding work, Surprise, which has light yellow skin and no evidence of any red pigment in its leaves or bark, only in its flesh. It is one of the parents of the apple Pink Pearl as well as countless other red-fleshed apples bred by Etter that were never introduced to the public. Surprise has apparently been in the U.S. much longer than M. niedzwetzkyana. Lee Calhoun describes it in his 1995 book Old Southern Apples noting that he found it listed in American nursery catalogs from as early as 1824. Noted horticulturalist Andrew J. Downing (1815-1852) had it in his orchard, though he didn’t think much of it describing it in the 1845 edition of Fruit and Fruit Trees of America as “. . . of little or no value, but admired by some, for its singularity—the flesh being stained with red. . .”

That Airlie Red Flesh is a type 2 apple like Surprise, and unlike M. niedzwetzkyana, suggests they are related, though definitive proof will have to wait until some enterprising scientist has analyzed the DNA of both. Even then, that wouldn’t prove that Airlie Red Flesh was one of Etter’s apples, yet there is something a little romantic about the possibility that it could be.

The final piece of this apple’s story concerns its various names. Airlie Red Flesh seems to be the name given to it by William Schutz in acknowledgement of the area where it was found. A second name, Hidden Rose^®, is a trademarked (not patented) name created by Eric Schwartz, the owner of Thomas Paine Farms located just outside Kings Valley, OR. Various articles quote him saying that he took the apple and improved it, though what the particular improvements might be go unreported. Then there is Mountain Rose, a name which might have arisen to get around Schwartz’s trademark and yet sound prettier than Airlie Red Flesh. They are for all intents and purposes the same apple, and each of these names has appeared on cider labels over the last decade or so. In his Bee Line article, Fishman takes a moment to complain about the the decline in the standards of pomological nomenclature, particularly the practice of coming up with a new name for an established apple purely for commercial purposes, a practice that leads to a multiplicity of names and the attendant confusion. Frankly, he has a point.

Although Airlie Red Flesh is grown in a number of states, often under one of its pseudonyms, it is cidermakers in the Pacific Northwest that have particularly embraced it. Most of the examples I tasted through recently were various shades of pink, true rosé ciders, with noticeable but balanced acid. It is probably the anthocyanins that elicit the flavors of various red fruits, for in general the more red pigment retained in the cider the greater the range of red fruit flavors like red currant or raspberry. The exception to this was the traditional method cider from Alpenfire, Cinders, where some of those primary fruits had matured into the bready autolytic flavors that come with time on the lees. 

Double Mountain Redfleshed Rosé, Hood River, OR – dry; cranberry, pear, red cherry, watermelon, raspberry; sparkling; 2020; 5.9% ABV (a blend of Moutain Rose and Pink Pearl)

Art + Science, Cider + Wine Mountain Rose, Sheridan, OR – dry; plum skin, yellow apple, just ripe pear, bread dough, toasted almond, VA; sparkling; 2018; 7.2% ABV

Alpenfire Cider Glow, Port Townsend, WA – seam-dry; red currant, red plum, raspberry, strawberry, lemon, green apple skin; sparkling; (2018); 8.0% ABV

Alpenfire Cider Cinders, Port Townsend, WA – dry; red currant, red plum, raspberry, lemon, brioche, bread dough; sparkling; (2014); 8.9% ABV