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Fresh-pressed apples perfume the air at
B.F. Clyde’s Cider Mill in Old Mystic, Conn. (pop. 3,025), where the Clyde
family has squeezed the fruit into a popular beverage each fall since 1898.
“We have four generations working here,” says Amy Monk, 32, whose
great-great-grandfather Benjamin
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Four generations operate the family
owned business in Old Mystic, Conn.
grandson. Joshua Miner. 27, crush 50 tons of apples into cider each week.
Customers linger inside the barn-like building and marvel at the surround
ings: wooden plank floors, polished antique counter and dozens of crockery
jugs hanging overhead. Farmers once swapped the jugs for cider.
An oil-fired steam engine powers the pulleys and belts that transport
apples from a truck to the second story inside the mill, where they're
dropped into a grinder and chopped to bits. The apple pulp falls into a
wooden rack lined with a strainer cloth, where a 100-ton wooden press
squeezes out the juice. The juice flows into a refrigeration tank, is
pasteurized and bottled upon purchase. T V.;
With the exception ol pasteurization, a heating process started
10 years ago to destroy potentially harmful bacteria, “we do every- MB
thing just the way it was 110 years ago," Bucklyn says.
The family-owned mill is such an outstanding example of
the cider mills that dotted rural New England in the 1800 s
that it was designated a National Historic Mechanical Engi- sjj| SBl
neering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical ||||t
Engineers in 199-1.
Bucklyns grandmother. Abby Clyde, gave him
the cider mill in 19-tb when he graduated from If fMT
high school. Likewise, Bucklyn and his wife. Stt ,JSI ■
Barbara, passed the mill down to their daughter. mml K JjHH?
Annette Miner, and her husband, Har- _
it
produce sweet ' |R
and hard cider.
*Juicing Apples!
Generations
of who we are.”
Before building his own mill, Clyde
pressed apples at nearby mills to fer
ment into hard cider, a common alco
holic drink of the day. Clyde’s is the
oldest producer of hard cider in the
United States and operates the nation’s
last steam-powered cider mill.
From September through Decem
ber, the century-old machinery rum
bles to life as John Bucklyn, 79, and
his son-in-law, Harold Miner, 50, and
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old, in 1997. The next year, the Miners built a store and bakery next to the
mill on the foundation of the Clydes’ home, which burned in the 19305.
Family history and stories—such as feisty Grandma Clyde being arrested,
though never charged, for bootlegging in the 1920 s and navigating the
country roads in a horse-drawn wagon on buying trips for cider apples—are
cherished. Today-, the Miners buy apples from orchards in the Hudson Val
ley region in New York, and each variety—whether Honey Crisp or Ginger
Gold—produces a distinct flavor of cider.
About 20,000 gallons of sweet cider and 7,000 gallons of hard cider,
which is aged for a year in oak barrels, are made and sold each season. Hard
cider is sold in plastic half-gallon jugs for $9 and gallon jugs for SlB.
On weekends, customers stand in long lines to buy sweet cider by the cup
for 80 cents and in larger sizes, such as a gallon jug, for 55.25. Some folks sip
their fresh cider and eat hot cider doughnuts and apple turnovers at picnic
tables beside the spring-fed brook meandering through the property-.
“When you think fall,' you think of Clyde’s," says customer Ada
Elmer, 59, of Stonington, Conn. (pop. 1,032). For 35
, K - years, she and her husband, Bob, have visited Clyde's
after church on Sundays to buy fresh cider. “It’s
Ik i'Sk a part of life that hasn’t changed."
n %| Bob adds, “Clyde’s is a hand-me-down fam
l m I ® ilv business, the epitome of that." He also
- A admires the family’s work ethic.
Jaß The youngest worker, Sarah Monk, 8.
,gap ( (Gr rings up sales at the cash register and
„ <!■ 1 wm p counts back change. Her mother, Amy,
once stood on paint cans to reach the reg
il ister and perform those same duties.
Amy's mother, Annette. 51, gets misty
eyed when she talks about her pride in
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