Ragged Hill Cider Unveils New Orchard Tasting Room

Ragged Hill Cider Company, is celebrating its first full year in business by unveiling a newly constructed tasting room, where cider enthusiasts can sample and purchase their award winning ciders starting on Saturday, September 8. Tasting room hours this fall will be Saturday & Sunday from 12-4 p.m.

The tasting room is located at Ragged Hill Orchard in West Brookfield where all the apples that go into Ragged Hill ciders are grown, pressed and bottled. “We are unique in that all the fruit in our ciders is grown right here at our orchard“ says Steve Garwood, cidermaker at Ragged Hill. Steve is also not adding any sugar to his ciders. “Not adding extra sugars helps the true beauty of the apples shine through. We are taking the time to grow amazing fruit, we want you to be able to taste it!”

In addition to building a dedicated tasting room and larger production space this past year, Ragged Hill Cider Company has been busy racking up awards for its heritage style ciders. “We suspected our ciders could hold their own among the best out there. Now we have some tangible proof of that,” says Anne Garwood-Hampp, daughter of Steve and head of Sales & Marketing. The medal tally currently stands at:

TRADITIONAL DRY CIDER:

• SILVER MEDAL, HERITAGE CIDER, 2018 – New York International Beer Competition
• SILVER MEDAL, 2018 – Drink Outside the Grape International Competition
• BRONZE MEDAL, HERITAGE CIDER – DRY, 2018 – Great Lakes International Cider & Perry Competition (GLINTCAP)
• BRONZE MEDAL, 2018 – Big E Cider and Perry Competition

TRADITIONAL SEMI-DRY CIDER:

• GOLD MEDAL, 2018 – Big E Cider and Perry Competition
• GOLD MEDAL, 2018 – Drink Outside the Grape International Competition
• BRONZE MEDAL, HERITAGE CIDER – DRY, 2018 – Great Lakes International Cider & Perry Competition (GLINTCAP)

“We’re so proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish during our first year and are looking forward to sharing it with our customers at the tasting room“ says Anne.

The increased production space (about 1500 sq. feet) has also allowed us to ramp up production and perfect our recipes. While we have been pretty good at our direct to consumer business, we are now in an excellent position to provide a consistent supply of delicious orchard-made heritage style cider to new wholesale retail and bar and restaurant customers.