Union Hill Cider Andrew Handley Co-Founder Chats Apples, Cider, and More.

Andrew Handley co-founder of Union Hill Cider Co in East Wenatchee joins us for this episode.

Union Hill began with a failed experiment to make cider by letting it ferment in a closet. Lets just say the first batch was not a success. Fast forward to 2021 and Union Hill is creating some amazing ciders! So glad they did not give up.

Andrew is an orchardist and along with his father and two close friends created Union Hill Cider Co. We chat about cider making, the Wenatchee Valley and much more during our episode. We are also joined by Andrews wife Katja.

When you are in Wenatchee you need to make sure you check out Union Hill Cider Co. I personally really enjoy their 2021 Whiskey Business. Barrel aged 10 months in red wine barrels and then finished in American Whiskey barrels. You can pick up the Whiskey which makes this one so, so good…..tell them Scott sent you!

Union Hill Cider Andrew Handley Episode Transcript

Scott Cowan [00:00:00]:

Online, I read your first batch of cider you made with a friend was perfect.

Andrew Handley [00:00:05]:

Yeah. It was the best thing I’d ever tasted. So I threw it away immediately.

Todd Phillips [00:00:28]:

Welcome to the Exploring Washington State podcast. Here’s your host, Scott Cowan.

Scott Cowan [00:00:34]: 

Alright. I’m here with Andrew today. Andrew, thank you for having me here at Union Hill Cider. It’s awesome view. I’m looking out over well, I can kinda see the Columbia if I stand up. But anyway, enough of that. Why don’t you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about how you got started making ciders?

Andrew Handley [00:00:52]:

Yeah. Thanks for having me. My name is Andrew Handley, and I run Union Hill Cider Company.

Scott Cowan [00:00:58]:

Do you?

Andrew Handley [00:01:00]:

my three business partners. So it’s me, my father, then Matthew and David Dobbins. Okay. So it’s not just me, but, you know, I’m here talking today. So I get to kind of call the shots.

Scott Cowan [00:01:11]:

He gets all the

Andrew Handley [00:01:11]:

credit. How

Scott Cowan [00:01:13]:

long you guys been in business?

Andrew Handley [00:01:15]:

So we started in 2018, like officially. So been making CIDER for three and a half years for sale to the public. But But we kind of got started a little bit earlier than that because it takes five years to to grow an apple tree from planting it to actually being able to have full production. So we kind of had to have a, I guess, a period of getting ready to to start. So we probably started about three years prior to 2018, just kind of getting stuff ready. But officially, you know, we kind of get everything together in 2018 to finally say, okay, this is when we actually are going to be about ready to start. And then in 2019, we had sat on our product long enough that we thought it aged well enough to actually sell to the public.

Scott Cowan [00:01:59]:

Okay. Online, I read your first batch of cider you made with a friend was perfect.

Andrew Handley [00:02:05]:

Yeah. It was the best thing I’d ever tasted, so I threw it away immediately.

Scott Cowan [00:02:09]:

Because it would ruin you for life. If you would have had that, nothing would have ever compared again.

Andrew Handley [00:02:14]:

Exactly. So you just had to get rid of that.

Scott Cowan [00:02:16]:

What went wrong?

Andrew Handley [00:02:18]:

You know, there’s a lot that goes into it. One, apples are super important to what you use. But two, temperature control is also really important. So what we did is read a couple things on Google real quick, how to make cider, you know, bought a carboy from Stan’s Merry Mart and said, okay. And we put the apple juice in there, dump some yeast in there, we put it in our closet. And so, you know, it’s probably sat at, like, between 70 to 80 degrees, through the whole fermentation, just totally boiled over. And it was just awful. But we didn’t know what we’re doing.

Andrew Handley [00:02:51]:

Right. So it’s like, that sounds like how you’re supposed to do it. That should work. It definitely didn’t. But we learned from it. We learned that that was not how we wanted to make cider. And we wanted to actually do a much better job in the future. So we kind of put the craft down for a couple of years.

Andrew Handley [00:03:07]:

I just went back to being an orchardist. You know, I said, Okay, like, we obviously didn’t do well at that. We’ll probably just drink other people’s ciders. And it was kind of right when the industry started to get going here and became more prevalent. So it wasn’t until a couple of years after that that I tried Snowdrift Ciders. And then I said, Okay, this is good. Like, this is what a cider should be. And so from there, that kind of was where it reignited that, Oh, we should maybe do something with cider.

Andrew Handley [00:03:33]:

We grow all these apples. You know, we have land. We have, you know, the resources to do this. Maybe we should actually look into this again.

Scott Cowan [00:03:41]:

This episode is about you, but I’m gonna ask about Snowdrift. So I apologize because you brought them up. Yeah, no. What was it about their ciders that you liked? Because obviously well, I’m gonna guess that wasn’t the only cider you had tried in in in the interim. You tried other stuff. Yeah. But so what is it about Snowdrift that resonated with you?

Andrew Handley [00:04:00]:

You know, so they had a lot of body, which was nice, and that was different. A lot of ciders, you drink and it’s like, it’s gone. They’re very watery. And they had that tannic profile and a lot more acidity than a lot of their ciders did. And so it’s just it was a really interesting cider. And so it was just it had a lot of characteristics that I enjoyed in in drinking. And, also, I mean, as a newer drinker at the time, too, you know, you want to find something that is, I guess, acceptable to your palate. Right.

Andrew Handley [00:04:35]:

But also has more than more going on than just its sweet, you know, sweet enough to to get over the flavor of alcohol. You

Scott Cowan [00:04:43]:

know? Alright. So that was a a new inspiration to you to start up again. Alright. Did you start So you mentioned it takes five years for trees. So did you actually, like, plant the trees or did you start using fruit from other sources to get started?

Andrew Handley [00:05:02]:

So we wanted to do everything ourselves because, I mean, that’s kind of the orchard nature. It’s like, oh, if I can do it, why am I not doing it? And so it’s really hard for us to get around, you know, not doing something ourselves if we can. So what we did is we ended up going to Peter over at Snowdrift and talking to them and saying, hey, we want to get into this. We want to grow apples. And so what varieties should we be getting into? And so we had some discussions with them and figured out what varieties that we wanted that they had. So we got scion wood from them, kind of got our orchard planting ready because we were planning on planting a 90 acre orchard.

Scott Cowan [00:05:40]:

90? 90. Okay.

Andrew Handley [00:05:42]:

And so but the apple industry right now is is horrible. It is a commodity and it is hard to make any money at it. So we wanted to diversify. And so we said, Okay, well, let’s diversify by having some cider varieties because we’re interested in it and it’s something that not a lot of people are doing. I mean, most cider variety, like orchards out there are like one, two acres, you know, so nobody’s planting in a big scale. So we wanted to see if we could do it in a larger scale and be able to kind of supply more people

Scott Cowan [00:06:13]:

in the industry. So not only then, you guys are also selling fruit to other cider makers?

Andrew Handley [00:06:20]:

So that was the original plan.

Scott Cowan [00:06:21]:

Oh, Okay.

Andrew Handley [00:06:22]:

And we have been in contact with, Tim over at Snowdrift and he started a couple of different projects. And right now their current one is The Source. And so on a totally different story, I mean, we lost most of those orchards for fire blight. Cider apples are very susceptible to it. And it once and we had about two really bad years. It’s an industry in the hole, where it just went right through all of our fields. I mean, when you get rain at just the right time during bloom, it just and you get that infection in there, it just it takes off. So we lost a lot of those orchards and we’re kind of replanting and restarting.

Andrew Handley [00:06:59]:

But we learned a lot too about how not to grow this stuff and how to it’s how to take care of it and drip irrigation. And we use a couple different sprays now to help. So I guess use a copper spray really helps to prevent against the spread of this bacteria. So we’ve learned what to do to prevent this and to get a better handle on it. But it takes a lot of failure to get some success.

Scott Cowan [00:07:27]:

You’re stealing my questions from me. I love to ask what the failures are and what did you learn from them, but you’re sharing them upfront. So, all right. Oh, we

Andrew Handley [00:07:32]:

like to be pretty open.

Scott Cowan [00:07:33]:

Yeah. All right. No. Because you learn from it. Like you said, you learn from it. I love that when you say, oh, let’s try blah blah blah, and you go, well, that didn’t work, but from that, I did something else.

Andrew Handley [00:07:44]:

Yeah. I’ve never had a major success unless I had at least two or three failures in front of it. And I think that’s how everyone is. It just depends on how open you are to share how many failures it took you before you got to that success.

Scott Cowan [00:07:55]:

So how many currently then as of today, how many acres do you have growing right now?

Andrew Handley [00:08:02]:

So right now, it’s probably we’ve probably cut back to about 15 to 20, I think.

Scott Cowan [00:08:07]:

Okay.

Andrew Handley [00:08:08]:

Some somewhere in that region. Okay. So and we also had some varieties that just did terrible. So we had Garlington Mill, and we just could not keep it alive. I mean, it probably when we had that fire blight outbreak for about it took us about three years to get it out of there. And by the time we got it all out of there, we maybe had a hundred trees left out of the, I think, five or seven acres we started with. So it’s just we realized in our location, this was not gonna be a variety that we could keep alive and sustain, and it was too susceptible to, to that disease. So we had to cut that out completely.

Andrew Handley [00:08:41]:

So we kind of reshipped it around our amounts of each variety that we decided to keep.

Scott Cowan [00:08:48]:

Totally. Well on topic, but totally unscripted for you. Did last week or two weeks ago in the Seattle Times, there was an article about there’s this organization that tries to find lost apple varieties. Have you heard about them?

Andrew Handley [00:09:04]:

Oh, yeah. The lost apple

Scott Cowan [00:09:05]:

I think it’s the lost apple project. Yeah. But they just found some new stuff down in the Palouse. Would you guys ever try reintroducing some quote unquote lost Apple if it were rediscovered? Would that be a I think we’d

Andrew Handley [00:09:23]:

be open to it. It just depends on its growing characteristics and the fruit too, because, I mean, it’s really hard to say what

Scott Cowan [00:09:31]:

it’s going

Andrew Handley [00:09:31]:

to do inside her. So the thing that we do that’s a little different than other companies is there’s some companies that’ll collect as many different types of apples as they can, and they just make an amalgamation of of everything they have, which can be really good, but it’s hard to, recreate the next year. So what we like to do is keep all of our, our products, I guess, our apple variety separate through fermentation and then blend at the very end. So that way we can have a really consistent product. Okay. So

Scott Cowan [00:09:58]:

let’s, let’s jump to your cider recipes, you know, specifically no, I’m just kidding. But what was your first product?

Andrew Handley [00:10:07]:

So our first product, we came out with, Pink Heart, Hopton Hazy, and Hard Harvest were the first things because we wanted to just focus on three products and, you know, kind of have more than one, but not so many that you got lost and were like, Oh, I have no idea what to drink from these people. So what we did is we we took our so the first year’s crop, so I guess it would have been the second or third leaf of the apple trees. We took that crop, barely anything, but it’s enough that we could kind of do some tests and see kind of what we liked and what we thought blended well together. So we took that all, kind of did some blending trials and said, these are the ones we really like together. We think this is going to be, you know, pretty good. We think this is what the market needs. So we brought those together and took those out to market, and and we’ve been really happy with them. And and I think so of the people that get to drink them.

Scott Cowan [00:10:54]:

You were not keeping these in your closet anymore. No. You’ve grown beyond that. So I guess I tend to bounce around of caution. So you started you launched with three, but building out the where were you where were you doing all the work at?

Andrew Handley [00:11:13]:

So over, I guess, over at my house, we have an old barn here. And so this used to be my my grandpa’s property. So in this old barn here, I asked my grandpa, I said, Hey, you know, we want to start the cider company. Can we convert your old barn into a place that we can do some production? And he said, Yeah, go ahead for it. So we kind of remodeled the inside. We got some tanks from, I think it’s the SS Brewtech and, you know, jacketed tanks. Like, I mean, little I mean, they were half barrel tanks.

Scott Cowan [00:11:40]:

Okay.

Andrew Handley [00:11:40]:

But so we wanted to be able to control the temperature of our fermentations, you know, and be able to really keep an eye on stuff. So we did that and we had like a little walk in cooler here also. So we expanded it. So I talked to our guy that does AC and he goes, oh, yeah, it’s big enough that you could probably bump that wall out and you’ll still be fine. So we were able to expand our cooler and basically start in this little barn. And it worked out. I mean, it was just enough space that we could do everything we wanted to do and kind of get ready to launch into the market.

Scott Cowan [00:12:14]:

So when you, when you first did this, you said it was in your closet, it was 70 to 80 degrees. Now you’re able to, you were temperature controlling. What’s a good temperature for the fermentation process?

Andrew Handley [00:12:24]:

So I like to ferment around like 49 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Scott Cowan [00:12:28]:

So you were really out of that when, when it was, when you first started? Oh, yeah. I mean, what

Andrew Handley [00:12:33]:

you use, you overstress the yeast when they’re, when it’s that high. And I mean, because they just want to keep going and, and keep eating. So, so you, I mean, and they’ll put off off flavors and other things can go wrong, you know, other kinds of spoilage that’ll happen too at those higher temperatures.

Scott Cowan [00:12:46]:

Okay.

Andrew Handley [00:12:46]:

So it’s definitely better to be able to keep it at a low, like a nice easy temperature so those yeast can just take their time and, you know, don’t have to stress when they do their job. So, I mean, really, all you’re doing is you’re taking care of yeast in the tank.

Scott Cowan [00:12:58]:

So how long at 49 to 50 degrees, how long does this process take? And does it does it vary between what you’re trying to do? Like, does does this apple take longer than that apple? I mean, type of thing.

Andrew Handley [00:13:11]:

Yeah. So different varieties will take different amounts of time to ferment, but usually it takes between a month to two months. Okay. And then what we do too with these cider varieties is they’re very tannic and they come off very harsh, especially right after fermentation. So then what we do is after it’s done fermenting, we’ll crash our tank, try to get as much of the yeast out as we can, and then we’ll hold it in storage for six to eight months, like minimum, because that really helps those tannins to settle down and for everything to kind of, I guess, ease off and to kind of to mellow out.

Scott Cowan [00:13:43]:

And then you, and from there you blend it into one of your products. Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew Handley [00:13:48]:

And from there, I mean, we’ll keep them in storage. So throughout the year, you’re getting something that’s been aged even longer. And so we just, we leave them as individual varieties in storage aging. And then we’ll, when the time comes, oh, we need more pink art, then I’ll pull off all those different tanks and blend them together to, to make more.

Scott Cowan [00:14:08]:

So how long can they stay in storage? And, well, if you can’t tell, I don’t know much about your process, which is okay because if I don’t, others don’t. Yeah. So when they’re in storage tanks, what temperature do you keep them at ish? You know?

Andrew Handley [00:14:22]:

So in storage, we keep them about 34 to 35 degrees.

Scott Cowan [00:14:25]:

Oh, Oh, okay.

Andrew Handley [00:14:26]:

We just don’t want any, activity with the yeast, any kind of re fermentation to start. And we also don’t want any kind of bacterial growth in there. So I don’t know if you know a lot about winemaking. I don’t know a lot about winemaking, but what I do know is malic acid is one of those things in wine that can be detrimental because you’ll have different bacterias and microbes that’ll eat off that and use that as like a source of food if I if I’m getting that right. But so apples are all malic acid. Oh, right. So with wine, you have tartaric acid and then you have malic acid in there. And then they’re trying to get rid of as much malic acid as they can because that’s, you know, a dangerous thing to have in there.

Scott Cowan [00:15:04]:

Right.

Andrew Handley [00:15:05]:

With us, that’s all we have. So it’s like we really need to keep those temperatures low. And some people will use, sulfites in order to kind of help stabilize their products. But we’ve never really loved doing that because I know some people have issues with it, where it’ll give them headaches and and just we want to be, I guess, as natural as we can with our process. So we ferment with yeast and we call it good. So we try to keep our process as clean as we can so that we don’t have any spoilage in the future. And then we keep our, our storage at 35 degrees set to prevent that.

Scott Cowan [00:15:37]:

So how long can this stay in storage?

Andrew Handley [00:15:42]:

If it’s stored well, you could probably keep it in there years. Oh, okay. So like we have some stainless steel tanks and with those, if you seal them off, I mean, it’ll last in there. I mean, a really, really long time. We also have some IBC plastic tanks and those you do need to move it out of there sooner than later because the plastic is permeable. So, you are letting oxygen in, and it will oxygenate your product.

Scott Cowan [00:16:06]:

So, really, once you got the pump primed and product coming in, you could start producing. But now what what you’re blending today might have been last year’s crop or maybe even a little bit older. Am I am I right now? Okay.

Andrew Handley [00:16:22]:

Yeah. So like today, like, say we’re going to go make something today, you’re probably getting something from a mixture of twenty nineteen and twenty twenty crops. Okay. Just because depending on on what we have, some of it moves faster, some of it doesn’t. And and that actually is fine. I’m I’m very okay holding on to cider varieties the longer I can because they just get better, and it just makes your product better.

Scott Cowan [00:16:42]:

So, like,

Andrew Handley [00:16:42]:

I blended up some pink cart the other day, and I thought it was just phenomenal. But it’s because it was all two years old that had been sitting in, you know, aging in storage. And we’re just finishing off that last bit of it, but it made it even better. So I was pretty happy with that.

Scott Cowan [00:16:58]:

What we put you on the spot. What’s your favorite cider that you guys make? Even though we’re only talking about three so far. I you know? But so you might say it’s one not one of those three. I don’t know. But do you have, like, your go to cider?

Andrew Handley [00:17:12]:

It depends on the time of the year. So, like, hot summer day, I really like the Hopped & Hazy.

Scott Cowan [00:17:17]:

K.

Andrew Handley [00:17:18]:

From the bottle, Pink Heart’s actually one of my favorite from the bottle. It’s slightly different than On Tap, and that probably is just due to pasteurizing, but I think it’s really good out of the bottle. We do another one called Whiskey Business that we are just releasing now. We just got labels like two days ago. So that will actually be able to start selling. And that one, I think, is really good. So we we took our barrel aged. So we age one of our products in red wine barrels for six to eight months.

Andrew Handley [00:17:44]:

We took that, then we pumped it from those wine barrels into whiskey barrels from Woodinville Whiskey and let it age in there for three months. And it’s actually it’s really good. A lot of notes of vanilla to it.

Scott Cowan [00:17:58]:

So the with that one, you’re so I’m I’m confused. Are you are you blending it before you put it into the barrels, or is it just one variety that’s in the barrel?

Andrew Handley [00:18:08]:

So that one, we are blending before we put in the barrel, just because we want a more consistent product.

Scott Cowan [00:18:12]:

So the blended product goes in and is barrel aged. Yeah.

Andrew Handley [00:18:15]:

And then what we’ll do is we’ll actually, before we decide to make more of that product, we’ll go through and we’ll taste all of our barrels to kind of see what what we think tastes better together because they’re all slightly different, just depending on what was in there, what kind of red wine is in there and everything. So we’ll taste around, kind of go, okay, this one’s a little more acidic. This one’s a little more tame. We’ll kind of mix and match these two or three barrels

Scott Cowan [00:18:38]:

to

Andrew Handley [00:18:38]:

get something we like. All

Scott Cowan [00:18:40]:

right. How about wintertime? What do you like to drink during cooler weather?

Andrew Handley [00:18:45]:

I would say probably the barrel aged. Just because you get some of those more pokey notes to it. And it just seems to be more fitting. And that could just be You’re fooling yourself, maybe. Who knows?

Scott Cowan [00:18:57]:

But who cares? Okay. So you started with three products and the market received them well and you guys are growing. Yeah. So today, as of today, at the time of recording, how many products do you have right now?

Andrew Handley [00:19:16]:

Let’s see. I was trying to count them up before he got here because I was like, how many do we have? But I think it’s between ten and twelve.

Scott Cowan [00:19:22]:

Really?

Andrew Handley [00:19:23]:

Yeah. And we’re trying not to we’re at that point where it’s like we don’t want too many products where it’s like you don’t know what to choose from us. But we also want to keep any time we get good ideas, we try them out. And if we like them, we want to be able to provide them to people. So it’s we’re at that really interesting point where it’s like, I don’t want too much stuff, but I also if it’s really good, I don’t want to deny people from having it. If I like it, then other people probably will like it. So we’re trying to be careful now with not putting too much stuff out there.

Scott Cowan [00:19:52]:

When we first came here, my wife and I ordered a flight each. That way we could sample everything you had. And I can’t remember if it was, is it four in a flight or five in a flight?

Andrew Handley [00:20:02]:

Yeah. Four in a flight.

Scott Cowan [00:20:02]:

So it was eight. So we got at that time, you had eight. Yeah. And, I will confess, I am not a fan of the hopped and hazy. I don’t know what it is about hops that in a cider that doesn’t work for me, yet everybody else that I know loves them. And,

Andrew Handley [00:20:19]:

Yeah. That’s one of our our ones that people either hate it or they love it. Yeah. And I can’t tell you who that’s gonna be because I have people come up to me and say, I don’t like IPAs. I don’t like hops. And they’ll try it and they’ll love it. And I had people, you know, that are totally fine with it, and they’ll come up and they don’t like it. So, yeah, it’s it’s very polarizing, but the people that love it absolutely love it.

Scott Cowan [00:20:37]:

So what other ones do you have that are polarizing to the to the population?

Andrew Handley [00:20:42]:

I would say probably we have a a single varietal, Porter’s, and it’s really good. It’s really tannic, really acidic. And that one probably is polarizing. So I don’t like to, like, for people that never drink cider, I don’t love, like, giving that out to them first thing, like, oh, try this.

Scott Cowan [00:20:56]:

So what do you give to somebody that’s, you know, they come here first time and they’re like, Well, what should I try? You know, they got that confused look on their face. Yeah.

Andrew Handley [00:21:08]:

Yeah. I usually go with, depending on if they like sweeter or drier. It’s kind of a base point to start with. But if they like sweeter, usually I recommend Pink Heart or Cosmic Rose or Barrel Aged. Those are really popular. And then, if they want something a little more dry, we go Hard Harvest or our DJ Dry. And that usually sits about right. Okay.

Scott Cowan [00:21:34]:

We have a new guest. What’s your favorite? We’re gonna put you on the spot. You

Katja Handley [00:21:39]:

This is just gonna be an onlooker. My favorite cider is probably our cosmic rose. That one’s also one of the most popular, so I I feel like I’m in the majority because it’s our, it’s well, it was our new it was our January release, I think. And it’s 50% red flesh and 50% cosmic crisp apples, And it’s just like a perfect, like, crisp, tart, refreshing cider. And but it still has it still has some complexity because those red flesh apples are so acidic. And I just yeah. I don’t know. That one

Andrew Handley [00:22:15]:

floral notes from you too. A lot of, like, hibiscus and, you know, like, strawberry and, like, rhubarb to them.

Katja Handley [00:22:22]:

Yeah. So that’s my favorite right now for sure.

Scott Cowan [00:22:25]:

Is there one you I don’t wanna say don’t like, but what what do you stay away from?

Katja Handley [00:22:31]:

You know? And you guys were just talking I overheard you guys talking about the hop cider. Hop ciders, I I actually I’m not a big beer person or IPAs or things like that, but I do like our hop ciders. But I go through phases where I’m, like, not there’s there’s seasons where I’m not really into it. But, otherwise, I I love all of our ciders so far.

Scott Cowan [00:22:47]:

Okay. That’s good. Good. So you just said that one came out in January. About how often are you guys releasing or do you have a release schedule?

Andrew Handley [00:22:56]:

We’re trying to get more consistent with that. Oh. Because we have a lot of ideas and a lot of plans, but you get held up with, you know, making labels, getting them approved by the TTB. And and so there’s a big process that goes into getting your product, like, ready to go out there. So we have more ideas for cider than time to prepare everything, you know, through the legal routes and get everything all ready to release to the public. TTB, it’s the Tobacco Trade Bureau. So they’re the ones that control wines and then ciders in our category, which is like between seven and eight and a half percent alcohol. So they got to approve your labels and they got to agree with everything you say.

Andrew Handley [00:23:37]:

So we had a big fight with them lately over whiskey business because they didn’t like that we said whiskey.

Katja Handley [00:23:43]:

Very misleading.

Andrew Handley [00:23:44]:

And so we we had a lot of conversations with them because a lot of people like we’ve seen that tequila lime cider and we’ve seen like rum something cider. And so we’ve seen a lot of them that do that. And so we said, how do we like, other people are doing it. How do we get to do that too? And they were very difficult to work with. And that’s how it is a lot of times.

Scott Cowan [00:24:03]:

I can’t imagine a government agency difficult to work with. Sorry. What so currently, how are you guys selling your product? Just just here, or are you in retail? Are you on tap at places? And the reason I’m asking that is how how hard is it to get into those channels from the oversight point of view?

Andrew Handley [00:24:28]:

Yeah, we’re a little bit of everywhere. So we sell here at our tasting room. We’re out in Seattle and in Tacoma and in Spokane. And we self distribute. So if you see it somewhere, it’s because we took it there. Okay. But we it’s actually been fairly easy. People are really receptive to it, you know, and they are pretty excited to get new products.

Andrew Handley [00:24:47]:

And so we’ll we’ll go to these places and go into a bottle shop, say, and we’ll, hey, can we talk to a buyer? Can we talk to a manager? And and we’ll get contact information. And usually people are really open to just right on the spot doing tastings or talking to you. And and so it’s been really, pretty easy and pretty fun getting to Well, but to

Scott Cowan [00:25:05]:

put you on the spot, where are you at in Seattle, Tacoma, and Spokane since those are three big cities? I mean Yeah. Here, my wife probably knows.

Katja Handley [00:25:15]:

So we have several accounts over there, and we actually just hired our our cousin to do some sales over there, which is super fun. So there’s actually a lot of new accounts that I haven’t been up to date on. Easiest places are like BevMo and Total Wine. So we are in those those bigger accounts. Not all of our ciders are carried by them, but our main ones. And then there’s some fun places in Tacoma, like Edison City Ale House. We’ve got, oh, and now I’m gonna Peaks and Pints. Pint Defiance.

Katja Handley [00:25:46]:

Over in Seattle, you’ve got, like, there’s Craft, but it’s like c c r f t. They’re called Craft Brewery. It’s like a bottle shop. And then, Downtown Spirits carries us in, like, more Downtown Seattle. And then I’m trying to think black black Ravenbury. And then there’s lots of different there’s lots of different restaurants that carry us over there, or we’re on rotation. Those ones, I I’d have to look at our list. But

Andrew Handley [00:26:11]:

We keep everything on our website. Okay.

Katja Handley [00:26:13]:

But, yes, you can go to our website, and we have, like, a where to find bottles, and that is pretty up to date. It’s like a little map, and you can see in your area where, yeah, where we’re buried.

Scott Cowan [00:26:22]:

How’s how have you done in Spokane?

Katja Handley [00:26:25]:

Oh, Spokane’s a new one, actually. So well, not new ish. So like we said, you know, we only are the bring cider to where we go. So we have to do it physically ourselves. So with Spokane, we kind of started the beginning of the year, and one of our partners, Matthew’s one Matthew and his wife, Kirsten, have been going out there. That one, I think we’re still fairly small. Like, I I think they’ve only they have family there, so, really, they they kind of it’s like, okay. We’re gonna go over there, and whatever restaurant we go to tonight, let’s try to sell them some cider too.

Katja Handley [00:26:56]:

So that one, it it’s still just very few accounts, and I’m trying to think of the names over there. Do you have I know well, EZ over there too, there is a Total Wine. Yeah. There’s two Total Wine. So I know those for sure, but but there’s some small places too that are carrying us.

Scott Cowan [00:27:10]:

Yeah. Spokane’s become a new fun spot for me. I had to be careful. When in an early episode, somebody took offense to what I said about Spokane and actually wrote a negative review because I wasn’t nice about Spokane. So I’m not being nice now because I have to. Actually, it’s a fun city. That’s great that you guys are self distributing that. Do you think you’ll grow into having so you’re not delivering it yourselves?

Andrew Handley [00:27:41]:

I don’t know. It’s tough. Distribution’s tough. If you talk to anybody in the beverage manufacturing industry, they all are not very happy with their distributors. Yeah. So because it’s kind of like a marriage. And if you decide you don’t want to be in it oh, no. What what I mean sorry.

Andrew Handley [00:27:59]:

I didn’t mean that to be kind of weird.

Katja Handley [00:28:01]:

Unhappy. That’s not

Andrew Handley [00:28:02]:

what I meant. What I mean by that is because of state laws, it’s like getting a divorce if you want to hook up with another distributor.

Scott Cowan [00:28:10]:

Let’s change the topic. I’ll save your relationship. Let’s Marriage

Katja Handley [00:28:14]:

counseling after this.

Scott Cowan [00:28:17]:

Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.

Andrew Handley [00:28:22]:

I know that came off wrong. Yeah. But it’s just the the legalities of of switching between different distributors.

Scott Cowan [00:28:27]:

We’re totally giving you a hard time. That was that was beautiful.

Andrew Handley [00:28:32]:

We’ll be back after a short intermission. Yes.

Scott Cowan [00:28:36]:

Oh my god. So we’re okay. In are you on tap in Wenatchee anywhere besides here?

Andrew Handley [00:28:44]:

Yeah. So McGlynn’s has been awesome.

Scott Cowan [00:28:46]:

Oh, yeah.

Andrew Handley [00:28:47]:

They started at McGlynn’s. Like, right at the start, they were, like, one of our our best accounts because oh, do you guys have to

Scott Cowan [00:28:54]:

say the best?

Katja Handley [00:28:54]:

I was just gonna say no. This time of year, they do, cider slushies too, if anybody’s into that, which I think is really fun. Like, kind of like like the wine slushies that they do with our cider. And yeah. So just random side note on McGlynn’s having us on tap to try their cider slushies.

Andrew Handley [00:29:09]:

But, yeah, they’ve been awesome. They carried us, like, right from the get go, and they’ve we’ve been on tap there nonstop since we opened. So we really appreciate the exposure that they’ve given us and and keeping us on tap. You can also find us up at, like, Milepost 111. Let’s see. Columbia Valley Brewing has us on tap regularly, and then we’ve been on tap at Badger Mountain.

Katja Handley [00:29:31]:

And Wenatchee Valley Brewing. We’re kind of a non and

Andrew Handley [00:29:35]:

Yeah. Yeah. With Wenatchee Valley Brewing, I think ever since the pandemic, we haven’t been on tap there, but a lot of weird things happened. So a lot of people really had to go, oh, we need to focus on our our own products. So

Scott Cowan [00:29:48]:

so just because it comes up almost every time now, how did the pandemic impact you guys?

Andrew Handley [00:29:55]:

So it took our we were doing before the pandemic, probably like 60% bottle sales, 40% keg sales, or maybe it was even close to fifty fifty. Our keg sales dried up. So overnight, nobody wanted cakes anymore because they couldn’t get rid of them. So we had to transition to like 90 to 95% bottle sales, which wasn’t too big of a deal. But what happened was is it really throws your numbers off. So when you’re selling kegs, you move a lot of volume. When you’re selling bottles, you’re not moving very much volume.

Scott Cowan [00:30:25]:

Not comparatively. How big is a keg?

Andrew Handley [00:30:27]:

So our kegs are either five gallons or 15 gallons. And our bottles are a seventh of a gallon per bottle. So it really threw our numbers off. So we actually had a lot more cider in our warehouse and cold storage than we were ready to sell because we thought we were going to be doing a different kind of business. So that definitely changed our game up a little bit for a while. But do you

Scott Cowan [00:30:52]:

think it’s helped because you’re I’m guessing you were forced to come up with new ways of doing bottle sales? And so, did you how do I want to say this? I mean, I think you probably started to reach a different audience.

Andrew Handley [00:31:08]:

Yeah. Well, we definitely branched out a lot

Scott Cowan [00:31:10]:

more,

Andrew Handley [00:31:11]:

and we were willing to branch out more because we knew that we weren’t going to come into any kind of supply issues. We had a ton of supply, so we we knew that it was going to be okay to move ourselves out a little faster than we originally planned. The other thing it did, though, too, is our tasting room. We hadn’t opened it at this point, so we opened it about in October. So like halfway through the pandemic.

Scott Cowan [00:31:34]:

That’s right.

Andrew Handley [00:31:35]:

Great timing. But that was also a way for us to start moving through some kegs and be able to have a different venue. And it gave us time to focus on getting that ready and getting that, you know, able to be able to open that up.

Scott Cowan [00:31:48]:

So how was the process of opening a tasting room? Flawless? No problems? Definitely.

Andrew Handley [00:31:56]:

It was different than we thought. We were going to build a building out here and do some different stuff, But it turns out that you have to widen roads and get fire hydrants and equip your buildings with sprinklers and stuff. And so it became, way too expensive to do. So instead, what we said is, okay, we can’t do original plan. It’s too expensive. There’s no way you can find the money. So we’ll just take our old barn that we’re we’re producing cider in. We had just made a new barn to to make cider because we needed more cold storage.

Andrew Handley [00:32:27]:

So that’s over at my father’s house behind one of his orchards. We were able to pull some stuff and put that new production facility there. So we said, okay, let’s take our old production facility, which is just tiny. I mean, it’s like a 16 foot by 30 foot barn. So it was pretty small barn. And we said, let’s remodel that. We’ll do our tasting room out there. And so we did it a little different than we had originally planned, but it’s actually worked out pretty well.

Andrew Handley [00:32:52]:

We have a really nice view here at the tasting room. We did some terracing this spring so that we’re able to kinda sit down into the yard and be able to, I guess, get, I guess, just or have the view and be able to incorporate the view a little bit better. Mhmm.

Scott Cowan [00:33:07]:

And we

Andrew Handley [00:33:07]:

have some walnut trees out here too. So it’s like this beautiful shady seating.

Scott Cowan [00:33:10]:

So So is that what these trees are, is walnut?

Andrew Handley [00:33:13]:

Yeah. Yes. We have three big walnut trees. Yeah. And the shade is just amazing, especially in the summer. So I’ve always we always loved sitting out there before we had the tasting room, but it was on this steep slope. So it’s like you could never do a table out there. So after being able to do these terraces, now you can sit out there in the summertime.

Andrew Handley [00:33:30]:

It’s just lovely.

Scott Cowan [00:33:32]:

So how well was the tasting room received? I mean, you opened middle of pandemic, October. We had winter. Did that impact you at all? I mean, because to me okay. This is the West Side guy. You know? I’m amazed that during winter, we can get around over here. It’s like even you know, those streets are plowed, but you’re not really out there, but you’re not in downtown. Were people coming by in

Andrew Handley [00:33:58]:

the winter? Yeah. In the winter, it was a little more difficult,

Scott Cowan [00:34:02]:

but

Andrew Handley [00:34:03]:

we actually made it work. The only thing I didn’t want to do was be open on any days where it was really snowy Because we have a hill coming into our driveway, and I’ve seen so many cars slide right to the bottom of that hill. So that was something I knew we didn’t want to do. We actually didn’t have that hard of winter, so we never had to have a day where we said, nope, nobody can come out, because it never really lined up that way. But we what we were able to do is we took our carport area and we put sheets of like a thick plastic sheeting and wrapped that around there. And so we were able to have heaters in our carport area and it was still open enough that it’s, you know, it’s outdoors, got airflow going through there. So we were able to sit people in here. We got some of those, those bubble pod tents, like those clear ones.

Andrew Handley [00:34:44]:

And so we got three of those and then we reserved those out to people that wanted to come. And that actually worked pretty well. And they were nice because you put a little space heater in there and it got to 70 degrees. And when it was snowing and you were in there and you swatched the snow kind of flitting around on your tent, it was really, really pretty. So we were able to make it work in the winter. Hopefully we’ll have some different plans for this next winter. And being able to use some more indoor spaces would be nice because it’s it’s still a small area inside, so we couldn’t really put anybody inside this winter.

Scott Cowan [00:35:16]:

So you’ve terraced the area that we’re sitting in. This concrete here is new. Yes. Because I think when we came during October, November, we Yeah. So we had

Andrew Handley [00:35:26]:

gravel and

Scott Cowan [00:35:27]:

fire pits out here. So we were sitting here the first of oh, I’ll see. Yeah. What the heck? I’ll make fun of myself. So the four of us were here and I’m sitting at probably this specific no, I’m just kidding. But we’re sitting right over there and all of a sudden, you know, and we’d been here for a while, which implies that we’d been sampling your product for a while. Yeah. All of a sudden, I felt really funny.

Scott Cowan [00:35:48]:

And I’m like, what’s going on? I couldn’t figure out what it was.

Andrew Handley [00:35:51]:

Had a sinking feeling?

Scott Cowan [00:35:53]:

Not at first. And then all of a sudden, I was like my wife looks at me. She goes, I think he’s having a heart attack or something. Because I am just, like, slipped over, like, What’s going on? I’m sinking into the gravel. And I was laughing so hard I couldn’t get out of the chair. And, anyway, yes. So thank you for putting in concrete.

Andrew Handley [00:36:11]:

That’s not the first time that’s happened.

Scott Cowan [00:36:13]:

Okay. Yeah.

Andrew Handley [00:36:14]:

We had another friend who was sitting near the edge of the blocks, and he tipped all the way over off off of the the seating. But we we tried to compact it down a little bit more so that it wouldn’t do that. But, yeah, that was that was an issue. It was pretty funny.

Scott Cowan [00:36:26]:

So you you put in more concrete. You’ve terraced this. You’re building a an amphitheater sounds large, and it’s

Andrew Handley [00:36:34]:

Oh, it’s like a mini amphitheater.

Scott Cowan [00:36:35]:

A mini amphitheater. Okay. Yeah.

Andrew Handley [00:36:36]:

Yeah. So we’re building that. We want to do more live shows out here and be able to host larger bands because right now at our current tasting room, we can maybe have one or two people playing, and that’s about the only size we can fit in here. But be able to do big shows and have people out later into the evening. Is

Scott Cowan [00:36:52]:

that right? So that’ll be this summer?

Andrew Handley [00:36:56]:

Yeah. So I think right now what we have scheduled is August 6, we’ve talked to older and wiser and got them to come out and play. So that’s gonna be when we

Scott Cowan [00:37:06]:

close the thing

Andrew Handley [00:37:07]:

up.

Scott Cowan [00:37:07]:

The inaugural cruise. Everything will go well. I hope But you guys have food trucks

Andrew Handley [00:37:13]:

out here too. Yeah. We’ve had a couple of food trucks. We’ve had,

Scott Cowan [00:37:19]:

Birch Mountain Barbecue. We

Katja Handley [00:37:20]:

had your

Andrew Handley [00:37:21]:

dog days. Been awesome.

Scott Cowan [00:37:24]:

What was awesome is all the dogs here got along. They’re all because that’s a little risky at times. You don’t know.

Andrew Handley [00:37:30]:

Yeah. I got off to, like, a little bit of a rough start, but for maybe a minute.

Scott Cowan [00:37:34]:

It did? We were really early. Well, there was I

Katja Handley [00:37:38]:

know there’s just one small puzzle, I think, in the very, very beginning. And it was just because, you know, funneling into our tasting room, it’s a small it it’s a small enough space where dogs have to interact, but I that was the only one I saw all day. And it was like a dog growled at another dog, and that’s that was about it. So there was there was nothing serious. I think

Andrew Handley [00:37:56]:

But, yeah, for, like, a seven hour event. I mean, to have, like, thirty seconds of dogs

Scott Cowan [00:38:01]:

It was not

Andrew Handley [00:38:01]:

not playing all together is not bad. No. I think

Scott Cowan [00:38:04]:

everybody had fun. And I like the fact that you guys are kid friendly and pet friendly. What else? Well, I feel like I’m not asking something. There’s gotta be something else. What’s what’s the future look like for you? What’s the crystal ball?

Andrew Handley [00:38:17]:

I mean, it’s hard to say. We’re just trying to constantly improve what we’re doing. So especially if you come out to the tasting room, it it seems like there’s always something going on out here because we’re just trying to to make our spaces as useful as we possibly can. And we’re, I mean, trying to to plant our trees and get them, you know, set up to to be producing and healthy. And so we’re just, I mean, we’re trying to proceed with with caution, but also to be able to take our fun ideas and and work with them.

Scott Cowan [00:38:44]:

Will you ever do other fruit ciders? I mean, would you ever do a pear cider, a peary,

Andrew Handley [00:38:49]:

or anything? Or are you gonna just stay with apples? We’ve talked about it. Our brand is very apple focused, and we do try to, like, showcase the apples we use. And so

Katja Handley [00:38:59]:

We don’t grow any

Andrew Handley [00:39:00]:

pearls either. We our last pearls that we had, we took out, I think it was, like, seven years ago or not maybe it was not long. Maybe it was only five years ago. And we built houses there, because it was right in the middle of of town. So in and everything’s getting pushed out of Wenatchee into Quincy. And so most of our orchards are in Quincy. I’m just I’m not a huge fan of pears.

Scott Cowan [00:39:22]:

Okay. That’s fine. And I know

Andrew Handley [00:39:23]:

that it makes it harder for me to

Scott Cowan [00:39:25]:

be Enthusiast. Yeah. No. Totally get it.

Andrew Handley [00:39:27]:

And then we’ve tried some ciders with cherries before, but when you ferment cherries, they taste like cough medicine. Some people like that. Some people do. But what a lot of people do to kind of get around that is they’ll back sweeten with just cherry juice. We’ve talked about that. But again, we’re so apple focused in our brand. We don’t know if we want to, you know, pull our brand away from that because that is kind of what makes us special is that we want you to taste the different kinds of apples in our products.

Scott Cowan [00:39:54]:

Okay. No, that’s great.

Andrew Handley [00:39:57]:

So when

Scott Cowan [00:39:57]:

you’re not doing this, what do you do for fun? I don’t know if you could hear them both chuckle when I said that. So

Andrew Handley [00:40:05]:

This does take up a lot of our time. So working the orchard then coming out here. But in our spare time every now and again, we really like paddle boarding. I think that’s a ton of fun. We do some rock climbing.

Scott Cowan [00:40:15]:

So where’s a good place to go rock climbing?

Andrew Handley [00:40:18]:

The closest place is probably going out towards the gorge to Vantage. There’s some nice rock climbing out there. Leavenworth has a lot of really good rock climbing, but you need to know some people to kind of show you around to to find a lot of those spots.

Katja Handley [00:40:30]:

I should say. I don’t know. You’re And

Andrew Handley [00:40:31]:

then I got my pilot’s license last year, so I do a bit of flying, which I really enjoy.

Katja Handley [00:40:36]:

I love that he says that super casually. Like, Yeah. You know, got my pilot’s license while I was starting a cidery and all these things.

Scott Cowan [00:40:43]:

So is that how you’re delivering is that how you’re delivering ciders to Tacoma and Spokane and Seattle as you’re flying them there?

Andrew Handley [00:40:48]:

There? I’ve done one delivery like that. So we flew some stuff out to Cle Elum the other day.

Scott Cowan [00:40:54]:

How did I hear about that?

Andrew Handley [00:40:55]:

Somebody Oh, I think we posted it on our Instagram. Yeah. But, yeah, my cousin was over there and he had an account that he wanted to deliver to. And I said, oh, well, let me just fly that stuff over to you and we’ll give you some of the other stuff you need. And it worked out okay.

Katja Handley [00:41:08]:

It sounded a lot more fun than the actual practicality of it.

Andrew Handley [00:41:12]:

Well, the thing is, flying to Cle Elum takes twenty four minutes and driving there takes an hour and a half. So it was pretty clear in my mind. It’s like, I can save a lot of time if I just can go fly over there. Weight wise, you are very limited in a little airplane. What are you flying? I’m flying a little Tri Pacer. I think it’s a 1956 Tri Pacer. So about the cheapest airplane you can buy.

Scott Cowan [00:41:34]:

And by 1956, you mean it was made in 1956?

Andrew Handley [00:41:37]:

Made in 1956. Yeah. And hopefully, it was updated before then, too.

Scott Cowan [00:41:42]:

After

Andrew Handley [00:41:43]:

that. After that. Not before. Yeah, after.

Scott Cowan [00:41:46]:

I know nothing about airplanes, but that seems really old to be airworthy, if you will.

Andrew Handley [00:41:54]:

Well, what was nice about this is it sat in a barn for a long time. So it’s a tube and fabric, and that’s just kinda how you made them back then because, aluminum is expensive and, you know, it was an easier way to make airplanes. But no, it’s a good little airplane.

Scott Cowan [00:42:09]:

Wow. It’s cool.

Katja Handley [00:42:11]:

Airplanes are different because I feel like a lot of them Yeah.

Andrew Handley [00:42:13]:

Well, you gotta stay every year.

Katja Handley [00:42:16]:

Longer than, like, cars or

Scott Cowan [00:42:17]:

Well, you

Andrew Handley [00:42:17]:

have to annual them every year. So they are picked over a lot. And so you can’t just, you know, park your airplane for a couple of years and then take it out for a spin.

Scott Cowan [00:42:26]:

You need to have

Andrew Handley [00:42:27]:

like, every year a mechanic looks over it.

Scott Cowan [00:42:29]:

Can you, could you, like, pull a banner behind it and, like, Union Hill cider and fly around the area? Somebody could.

Andrew Handley [00:42:36]:

I think I might need a different rating for that. Oh, okay. And maybe, like, practice a little bit so I don’t, like, kill myself.

Scott Cowan [00:42:42]:

So where do you where do you fly out of here?

Andrew Handley [00:42:45]:

So I just fly out of Wenatchee. We’ll go So on our orchard in Mattawa we have a little airstrip because my uncle is a crop duster. And so they have a little airstrip right on our orchard in Mattawa. So every now and again, I’ll fly over there to go to our orchards because it’s more fun than driving. But, yeah, a lot of just local flights. I mean, it’s we do it for fun.

Scott Cowan [00:43:02]:

Do you fly with him?

Katja Handley [00:43:05]:

Yes. Begrudgingly so. Sometimes we yeah. We do. I mean, we’ve done a couple fun flights. I think the first when he first got his license and we’re we’re all excited, we, flew up to Stihican

Scott Cowan [00:43:18]:

Oh.

Katja Handley [00:43:18]:

Which that about killed me. What? It was terrifying. It’s it’s a small so when you fly into Stehekin, if anybody’s been up there so it’s above Chelan, up in the mountains, and it’s just it’s a very small

Andrew Handley [00:43:31]:

trees coming into the the runway. It

Katja Handley [00:43:34]:

yeah. So it’s in between mountains. There’s trees. It’s a small runway. So it’s like, you’ve gotta just, like, come in, drop down, land, and then, like, not hit the trees at the end of the runway. And, you know, it’s it was a little it was a little scary, but we made it.

Andrew Handley [00:43:48]:

It’s exciting.

Katja Handley [00:43:50]:

He says exciting. I see.

Andrew Handley [00:43:51]:

But what’s nice about that is it’s forty minutes to fly to Stehekin from here or from Wenatchee. Yeah. And to get there via car, it’s, like, what, four hours, five hours, right, with the ferry ride. So it’s, like, it’s way quicker.

Scott Cowan [00:44:03]:

That’s very cool.

Katja Handley [00:44:04]:

It’s fun. It’s we’re trying to do it more. The plan is to, you know, be adventurous and go out and see more places in Washington.

Andrew Handley [00:44:11]:

Well and we just had our third child. So he’s four months old now, but it’s hard to get out and do a whole lot when you have a newborn. So that’s that’s been slowing us down a little bit too. So it’s just just trying to hang on with keeping the orchards and the cidery going. Wow. Alright. So

Scott Cowan [00:44:29]:

I expect to see delivering product via plane. I I think that needs to be your guys’ shtick.

Andrew Handley [00:44:34]:

Yes. You know? I can’t

Katja Handley [00:44:35]:

just think so.

Scott Cowan [00:44:36]:

I think I think that’s gotta be it. So you can only deliver in the radius that that plane can fly.

Andrew Handley [00:44:41]:

Yeah. And if you load it down with too much stuff

Scott Cowan [00:44:43]:

How much can you carry?

Andrew Handley [00:44:45]:

So I think I have a useful load of, if I fill the tanks all the way up and I’m in there, probably 600 pounds, which sounds good until you think about a half barrel keg is 170 pounds. So, I mean, you can carry, like, three of those.

Scott Cowan [00:44:58]:

Three of

Andrew Handley [00:44:59]:

them. So it’s cost prohibitive. It’s super cost prohibitive.

Katja Handley [00:45:02]:

We may need to get a new plan. You know, business expense, we may need to look into that.

Scott Cowan [00:45:12]:

So is there anything else we’ll wrap this up. Is there anything else that I didn’t ask that I should have asked?

Katja Handley [00:45:18]:

I wasn’t here for the start, so I’m not I’m not sure if

Andrew Handley [00:45:21]:

I’m No. I don’t I don’t know if there’s a whole lot else we need to cover, but, we are an Estate Cidery. We grow all of our own fruit.

Scott Cowan [00:45:30]:

We That’s awesome.

Andrew Handley [00:45:31]:

We do everything by hand. I know we’re supposed to we’ve been meaning to, like, push that more because when we started, we we didn’t push the fact that we don’t add sulfide to our product. We didn’t really push the fact that we’re a state. Like, we grow everything ourselves. We bottle it ourselves.

Scott Cowan [00:45:45]:

I mean, everything is all shut in house. Do you

Andrew Handley [00:45:48]:

guys can it yourselves? So canning, we actually have Kevin from PairUp come over and he brings a machine and he cans for us. That’s the only one we don’t do ourselves. But he’s an awesome guy and they do such a good job. It’s hard to be like, oh, let’s, let’s go find a bunch of equipment and, you know, make our life even more difficult when he comes in and does a great job with what he does and helps us out so much that that’s the only one we don’t do ourselves. But that’s just one of those things that we just need to be better about.

Scott Cowan [00:46:18]:

Well, let me ask this question. So are you going to be planting different varieties in the future? Do you guys keep an open mind about that? Yeah.

Andrew Handley [00:46:28]:

So we have about 80 acres out in Quincy that we’ve planted, cider varieties onto. And we’re going to, as the years go on, get rid of more of the dessert fruit we have, because the market’s not there. It’s really hard to make money with dessert fruit and we would rather put it into cider. But it’s just time and money. And so as the years go by, we’re going to slowly keep pulling acres there and then replanting them with cider varieties. So we’ll keep an open mind to what those new varieties are in addition to older varieties too.

Scott Cowan [00:46:59]:

So is there one you’re not growing now that you wish you were?

Andrew Handley [00:47:03]:

I wouldn’t mind growing like Wixom Crab. I think that’s a really nice variety. And then I’ve heard a lot of good things about other things like, is it the Harry Jersey Masters people talk about? I think that’s what it’s called. Don’t quote me on that name. It’s something similar. That’s gonna be the title of the episode now.

Scott Cowan [00:47:20]:

Okay.

Andrew Handley [00:47:21]:

But yeah, there’s lots of interesting varieties out there and there’s a lot of guys that, that grow a lot of varieties. So what they’ll do is they’ll have smaller orchards and they’ll plant like 30 to 40 varieties. And we thought that was just too much to get into. So that’s why we only chose the ones that we really like to start with. But as time goes on, we’ll probably branch out a little bit more to the ones that we really like.

Scott Cowan [00:47:42]:

Okay. Well, thank you both for being here. Well, since it’s your place, so thank you for letting me be here. But thank you for both being on and, all the continued success.

Andrew Handley [00:47:53]:

Yeah. Well, thanks for having us. This was a lot of fun.