Monday Cider Flight and a Movie: Knives Out

Knives Out is the story of a dysfunctional family assembled to celebrate the 85th birthday of their patriarch, crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), at his extravagant Massachusetts mansion. But when Harlan turns up dead, everyone is a suspect. Most family members initially assume suicide, but if Harlan slit his own throat, why did an anonymous person hire famous detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to question each member of the Thrombey clan? Knives Out screens at 7 p.m. inside neighboring Blue Mouse Theatre. Enjoy Monday Cider Flight and a Movie: Knives Out before at Peaks and Pints before or after the film.

Finnriver Pear Cider

6.5% ABV

Finnriver Farm & Cidery’s small batch Pear Cider features cider fermented on the farm using 100 percent organic apple juice pressed from Washington apples. Finnriver ferments the apple juice, then sweetens it with organic pear for additional depth, sweetness and flavor, although apples rule the nose here. There’s a certain bitterness grounding the pear flavor, pulling it out of the realm of single-note sweetness.

Eric Bordelet Sidre Tendre

3.5% ABV

During the 1980s, Eric Bordelet was considered one of the most influential figures in the Parisian wine scene, as he spent several years at the helm of the wine program at the illustrious Michelin Three Star restaurant of l’Arpège in Paris. However, his native Normandy called him, and he handed over his sommelier duties at l’Arpège and returned to the windswept orchards of Normandy in 1992, desiring to bring his superb palate to bear on the high-powered ciders of the region. Believing that cider and poiré, or perry as it translates to English, should be produced like wine he grew more than 20 varieties of apple and 15 varieties of pear on his family orchard situated in the south of Normandy on the Armorican Massif, extending from Domfrontais to the outermost borders of the Mayenne and the Orne. His Sidre Tendre is an apple cider made in a gently off-dry sparkling style, with racy acidity giving the wine an almost dry impression. Expect notes of concentrated red apple, apple skin, vanilla, honey and a light tartness.

Double Mountain Dry Cider

6.7% ABV

Double Mountain had long toyed with releasing their own hard cider, occasionally featuring housemade cider on at the taproom made from owner Matt Swihart’s own apples. The brewery finally releases its own Dry Cider in December 2017, blending freshly harvested heirloom apples from Double Mountain Orchards and Hood River Newtowns, Braeburns, and Hanners for old world complexity. Double Mountain gave it plenty of time to dry out and develop the aromas of juicy pear, lychee, green fruit, and chamomile.  It finishes tart, crisp, dry and quenching.

Eaglemount Raspberry Hopped

8% ABV

Fourteen years ago, Jim and Trudy Davis founded Eaglemount Winery & Cidery on an original 1883 homestead in the town of Eaglemount on the Olympic Peninsula. Part winery, part cidery, Eaglemount continues the tradition of the original homesteaders by making hard cider with heirloom apple varieties such as Gravenstein, Winesap, White Pippin, Roxbury Russet, and Twenty Ounce, although they also source heirloom varieties from other old homestead orchards on the Peninsula. Their Raspberry Hopped cider is a semi-sweet raspberry cider infused with seven different hop varieties.  Made with organic heirloom variety apples, organic raspberries from their farm and a neighboring farm, for a lush, fruit-forward and savory cider. Raspberry seed, rosemary and even mint aromas pops and fuse with the berry and apple base, zested with a touch of citrus in the dry finish.

Union Hill Barrel Aged II

8.2% ABV

Andrew and Katja Handley left Union Avenue, drove down the hill, waved goodbye to East Wentachee and delivered their Union Hill Cider Company goods to Peaks & Pints. The Handleys have been making cider on their family orchard since 2012, but recently have been spreading the good word of their Dabinett, Porters Perfection, Kingston Black, Yarlington Mill, Muscat de Lense, Snowdrift Crab, and Red Fleshed apples to Western Washington. Peaks and Pints is thrilled to have their family business in our lodge, especially their Barrel Aged II cider with Pinova and Snowdrift Crabapples aged for 8 months in red wine barrels.

Photo courtesy of Karl Gruber