Back in June, Jack reviewed the ever stellar Pommelier box from The Fine Cider Company, and in doing so he threw down the gauntlet to the rest of us to review other subscription boxes available out there. As a subscriber to the Æble cider club since it launched in ’22, I immediately thought I’d set about reviewing the next offering. And well, to paraphrase John Lennon paraphrasing Allen Saunders, life happened while I was busy making plans.

Æble was set up as Scotland’s first cider shop in 2021 by husband and wife team Jaye & Grant Hutchison in Anstruther in Fife. And they, in no small part are responsible for me being part of the wonderful cider community and that I’m here writing this now. Beyond Æble and being one of the trio of hosts of the Neutral Cider Hotel podcast, many of will of you will know Grant was also the drummer of Frightened Rabbit. A band without hyperbole that I love dearly. A band that along with Springsteen and Biffy Clyro were one of the first bands that became a shared love between my wife and I, a band that have soundtracked our relationship back as far as the time my wife scolded me for mindlessly playing the track Keep Yourself Warm (if you know the lyrics, you know) in the car with our then impressionable toddler daughter (she’s now turning 18) in the backseat.

I’m not a music journalist and much better and much more succinct things have been written elsewhere about their music, but it struck a chord like nothing else. Scott, Grant’s brother and lead singer & principal songwriter could, in the course, of a song be deeply funny, brutally honest and achingly venerable, sometimes within a single verse. He was honest about his struggles with mental health and that was reflected in his song writing. I’m someone who has struggled severely with their mental health over the years, and has seen people around me struggle as well. After 25 years in hospitality it can sometimes feel like a sad reality of the business. But Scott’s lyrics and the band’s music always made me feel a little less alone when I was struggling.

When Scott took his own life in 2018 I was devastated. We’d just seen them live a few months before and it didn’t seem real for the longest time. Around the same time I’d lost a family member, I’d quit my job of almost ten years without anything to go on to, and Anthony Bourdain, another hero of mine, had also taken his own life. Too much tragedy and too much changing that felt like it came all at once, personally and professionally, I wasn’t in the best of places.

Fast forward two years, and in the height of COVID, I was still able to work at the job I was at, at a time when many others were furloughed. I was trying my hardest to make it all work despite the uncertainty of the future, and frankly I was failing at it. I was making stupid choices and letting people down and a lot of the mental health struggles I faced during that time honestly fell at my feet. I don’t want to paint a picture of it being hard for me at a time when it was hard for everyone without acknowledging my culpability for it as well, but my late 30’s felt like a dark time that thankfully is behind me.

I can’t remember where I’d heard about it during that time, but I knew Grant had started a cider podcast, and with an hour commute each way at that point and as a podcast listener while driving, I thought I’d give it a listen at the very least just to pass the time. By that time, I think I’d maybe tried a couple of bottles from Pilton and knew of Wilding because of their connection to the hospitality scene in Bristol, but very little else. The Neutral Cider Hotel provided a good distraction for everything going on in the world, and I was actually learning about cider. And almost crashing my car listening to Martyn’s slow eruption of laughter at the ‘Your kids will be slaves to the spiders’ line in one show. But less said about that the better, and definitely don’t ask Martyn about me crashing my car.

For the first time I was seeking out the ciders and the producers that appeared on the podcast. It was the start of something that over the years led to friendships with a number of these producers, and of course now my CR colleagues. When Jaye & Grant opened Æble it was one of the first things to inspire me to think that maybe I could one day do something within the cider sphere. That 5 years later I know Grant as well as Gabe and Martyn, and at various points be able to turn to them for help and advice as well as getting encouragement from each of them is a testament to how strange life can turn out sometimes, as well as an acknowledgment of how generous each has been with their time.

All of this is a rather longwinded way of saying I might be somewhat biased, or as my wife prefers to phrase it ‘a massive fanboy’! Which is why I was a little nervous about asking Jaye & Grant for an interview. In fact, the first time I ever met Gabe and Martyn during the book tour for the former’s Modern British Cider, Martyn clocked the Frightened Rabbit tattoo on my arm and proceeded to send a picture of it to Grant. I have no idea what he thought being sent a picture of a random guy’s arm one evening, and I feel better off probably not knowing, but I still fear that 5 years later I might just be the random arm picture fan. Nevertheless, they agreed to chat. As I said, generous with their time, especially as our chat came just after them putting their children to bed, a point at which I’d usually consider myself done for the day.

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Cider Review: Grant, you’ve spoken a little about your cider journey on the podcast before. When did it go from trying different ciders on tour to actively visiting cideries and thinking about opening a shop?

Grant Hutchison: I think it was when we visited Bristol, I want to say it wasn’t too long after Scott died actually. I’d been telling Jaye all about Gabe, the ciderologist, like there’s this cool guy down in Bristol, he does these cider tours and he’s got a really cool moustache, etc, and she booked us on one of the tours.

Jaye Hutchison: I reached out to Gabe to see if he’d take us on a private tour. I think he was only doing groups of ten or twelve people or something like that, but I managed to convince him to just take the two of us.

GH: So we spent a weekend in Bristol, we went on the cider boat, I don’t know if that’s still going?

CR: Yes the cider boat is still there.

GH: And just spent the weekend around the city with Gabe. We’d also gone out to New York at one point and there was this amazing bar called Cardiff Giant that had this massive selection of New York producers like Eve’s cidery. Another time we were out in Japan and there’s a district in Shinjuku, Golden Gai, that’s like hundreds of little bars that are down these side streets, and each one is tiny, they only have a few seats in each and you have to wait to go inside them. But each one does one type of thing, but they do it really well. The shop I’d always thought of in the back of my mind as something I’d like to do when the band ended. I was being realistic really, one way or another I knew that the band wasn’t going to or couldn’t last forever, and we wanted to move out of the city and with starting a family it felt like the right time.

CR: Jaye, what was your cider journey like alongside that?

JH: It’s a drink I’ve always enjoyed. Along with wine and sherry in particular. It’s a drink that’s been around in all the countries I’ve lived in. I think it was at the start of lockdown though, like a lot of people we were just trying so much new stuff and learning so much as we went along.

GH: I was getting cases a lot from Crafty Nectar, which was great.

JH: Then you started getting some mixed cases from Ross-on-Wye.

GH: Yeah, that was really mind blowing, suddenly just trying all these single varieties and invariably there’s one or two you don’t like, but there’s so many varieties it doesn’t matter.

CR: The cider club box launched in July ’22. When did the idea of a subscription box come about and what have been some of the challenges.

GH: I think the idea of a subscription box came about pretty much immediately because we had gotten so many ourselves, and it just feels like a great way to introduce new people to cider and introduce new ciders to people. The hardest thing is finding ciders in the right bracket each time and keep it constantly different. We make a little less on the subscription boxes than we normally would but at the same time it gets different bottles out to people who maybe haven’t tried them before.

CR: That’s what I love about the cider club box. I get the pommelier box from fine cider as well but you can kind of predict what you’re going to get producer wise bar the odd bottle here and there, which is no bad thing. But at the same time I love that with yours it’s normally a complete surprise each time.

GH: Well, Felix is a merchant, so it makes sense to some degree to be including what he’s stocking. With us it’s more about highlighting someone you maybe haven’t heard of before, or something that we love.

CR: Æble celebrated its 4th birthday this year, how has it evolved over that time and what changes have you seen?

JH: I think the main evolution is just having a better idea of what people want.

GH: Yeah, I think at the start I think we or I assumed that people would like what we liked. I love dry, still ciders so I had bottles of things like Art of Darkness, which are beautiful but not always the most straightforward to introduce new people to. You want to be the place that people come to to buy their cider, so there needs to be the variety to keep people coming back and eventually talking them into trying something that’s a bit different. So we have a lot more cans, small bottles and stuff in keg now. People like a little sweetness, something like Tamoshanta from Pilton you can sell all day long.

CR: You did a box a few months ago that was completely from one producer, Ayrshire Rivera, are there any plans to do more boxes like that? I really loved being able to try more than one bottle from a new producer at a time.

GH: We’d love to, we’ve got a few ideas but truthfully, it’s really hard to find enough bottles from one producer that fits the budget. There’s loads of small Scottish producers, ones that might be harder to find outside of Scotland that it would be great to highlight though. I was also thinking at some point to do a small can subscription.

JH: Don’t make it any more complicated please.

GH: But again, there’s the problem of having enough variation in cans to keep people’s interest. I know cans and canning lines are difficult for a number of producers but they work so well. Imagine a Pilton in a can? Actually, I was talking to Martin at one point years ago and he was talking about canning Jester, which I can’t imagine being the go-to cider for a can. Tamoshanta on the other hand… Martin if you’re reading this then do some cans!

CR: Cans can be a difficult proposition though can’t they? I really loved the 250ml Mêlé that Find & Foster did a few years back, I thought that was the perfect introduction to their ciders, but I think some people didn’t get it.

JH: The wine crowd would have got it, but the beer crowd and anybody else maybe not.

GH: I think cans just make things approachable and at a good price point. I’d just love to see more cans available. I’d love a Little Pomona in a can? I’m sure James would be dead against it. James if you’re reading this do some cans!

CR: You released your house cider last year which featured in one of the previous boxes. You crowdfunded to put that out and reached the target really quickly so there was clearly an appetite for it. How’s the response been to it since it came out?

GH: That was really a case of not looking before we leapt. Peter Crawford of Naughton Cider offered us the tank of cider and I said yes without really thinking how we were going to do it.

JH: But it worked out, and the response has been great. It’s Peter, so we knew it was going to be good you know? But it’s been really wonderful sharing it and seeing people’s responses to it. It’s almost completely sold out, we’re down to the last few cases (Update, it has since sold out).

GH: I think we can say, we did a tasting the other day for the next version, there will be a next version.

CR: Lastly, I really love that each Christmas you include a little gift in the December box. This year included a little orange Cider Journal which I think was a perfect little bit of merch.

GH: Well, when I first started going to tastings and things I took along a little notepad, and it was orange. So I kept the colour. We wanted to encourage people to take notes when they tried ciders from us. If it was good, then we can recommend something else you might like, or even just to remember what it was so you can get it again. It can be hard sometimes remembering what a person may have had, so it really helps.

JH: Equally making a note if they didn’t like something. If you’re recommending something, you don’t always get it right. But encouraging people to make notes, if we know what they didn’t like about a cider it can help us find something better suited to them the next time around. It’s really great to have that dialogue and help build up that trust that hopefully keeps people coming back, and trying something different.  And it’s also just interesting to see people’s notes and what they think of some of the ciders.

CR: Thanks so much to both of you!

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Now onto my notes for the August box of three.

Redvers, Batch 18 (Dabinett, Michelin & Foxwhelp) – review

How I served: A day in the fridge and 30 minutes at room temperature to take the edge off.

Appearance: A light amber with a delicate haze. Completely still. Light viscosity.

On the nose: A honeyed Sauternes character gives it some weight that isn’t present in the appearance. A cucumber/underripe melon type savouriness along with warm strawberry notes. Even after a while in the glass it doesn’t open up to much or give much away.

In the mouth: The melon note carries through mixing in with that slightly indefinable papaya tropical texture. Strawberry like tannins blend with a   minty menthol herbaceous-ness that build into fruity peach iced tea meets black earl gray weight.

In a nutshell: A light easy drinker that reveals more of itself as you go, but leaves you with the feeling that it’s not yet showing you all it’s got to offer.

Blue Barrel, Black Dabinett Pét Nat 2024 – review

How I served: A day in the fridge, then only 10 minutes at room temperature. Never know how a Pét Nat will react if it’s too warm.

Appearance: Golden colour. Big mousse-y bubbles that rapidly disappear to an almost imperceptible sparkle. Keeping it almost fridge temp was unjustified.

On the nose: An initial meaty savouriness that relaxes to a familiar Dabinett spice bolstered with the oily aroma of sage and resin-y hard herbs.

In the mouth: Overall this is about big fuzzy tannins that strip the moisture from your mouth like a cream cracker. But before the tannins take a grip there’s an almost Champange method like lightness to it juxtaposed with notes of elderflower cordial and foam candies that come and go with the tannins. A gentle acidity at the back of the mouth providing a little length to it. 

In a nutshell: It’s Dabinett but not as you know it. Lots of character that might at times sound incongruous but never is. I can see this easily standing up to all sorts of spicy foods and kind of gutted that I didn’t make a curry to go along with it.

Burrow Hill, Kingston Black Special – review

How I served: A day in the fridge and then 30 minutes at room temperature.

Apperance: Amontillado sherry like amber hue. Completely still.

On the nose: Familiar KB notes of warm cinnamon and clove and a hint of foam bananas. As it opens up there’s a pleasant farmyard quality to it that is like wet goat or sheep’s wool mixed with cave aged cheddar and a tart tatin on the side for good measure. Butterscotch meets scotch tape.

In the mouth: Red & dark fruit squash vie with mulled cider spice notes and clementine flesh & zest along with a goat cheese like creaminess, funk and salinity.

In a nutshell: An initially unassuming bottle that delivers in spades. And happily occupies the space between Burrow Hill’s 500ml bottles and their more expensive bottle conditioned single varieties.The sleeper hit of the bunch.

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Æble run their cider club as a bi-monthly subscription of one, three or six bottles. The next being October.

If you have change from a pint or some cash to spare, then please consider donating to Tiny Changes, the mental health charity set up in Scott Hutchison’s memory. It’s something that’s meant a great deal to me over recent years. And if you’re struggling then trust me, it may not seem like it, but there’s always someone out there that will take the time to listen. The cider community is too big and too kind to let someone go through something alone. Reach out.

Cover image: Jaye & Grant Hutchison. Photo: Clubhouse Paradiso.