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Vermont apple grower finds a tree in his orchard; discovers it has a unique profile which makes it a good addition to sweet and hard cider blends.
THE STORY OF the 'Franklin' cider apple is one of happy accidents.
Bill Mayo and wife Susan run the Franklin General store in Franklin, VT. His family has a small orchard of 400 trees, most of which are 'Honeycrisp.'
However, there is another tree in his orchard - a chance seedling, which Mayo discovered in 2008. He began incorporating the apple into the Franklin General Store's sweet cider.
"You get this mystery dryness that makes you want to drink more and more," he says.
After the apple's influence on Mayo's sweet cider made it quite popular, Mayo set his sights on the burgeoning hard cider industry. He sent samples of the apple out for testing to distributors, hard cider makers, and researchers.
This is where Terence Bradshaw, tree fruit and viticulture specialist with the University of Vermont, comes into the fold. Bradshaw, also a hobby hard cider maker, says hard cider apples often find their way to him.
Such was the case with Mayo's seedling apple, which Mayo calls the 'Franklin' cider apple.
EVALUATING THE VARIETY
Bradshaw ran juice samples in his lab, and then compared it to 44 other dessert and traditional hard cider apple cultivars picked at multiple orchards in multiple harvests across several counties, to get a comprehensive look at how the 'Franklin' apple compared with other hard cider cultivars.
He sorted the apples by the three parameters by which hard cider varieties are evaluated - tannins, sugars, and acids. Bradshaw says...