GET TO KNOW STEVE
Steve in his new tasting room, barely resisting a pose for the Ithaca Voice.
In the past few weeks there have been a couple interviews published with Steve, the creator of South Hill Cider. If you want to get to know more about what got Steve into cider and what has inspired him along the way, here are a couple of glimpses.
Ria Windcaller of the Cider Chat podcast visited us in October and just released our interview.
Every Tuesday, when Steve was growing up, his Dad would be out that evening drinking cider with friends at the Cider Cellar, at the farm outside of Buffalo. That memory is his first on cider. Years later this professional musician and self taught cidermaker merged his love of the Finger Lakes and quality craftsmanship into South Hill Cider. In 2019, the brand new Tasting Room and Production facility for South Hill was opened. This new site provides a lovely setting to taste the large selection of South Hill Ciders and for Steve to manage his orchard that is just outside the door of the Tasting Room.
There was also an Ithaca Voice interview done by Laura Gallup who grew up at local Silver Queen Farm.
ITHACA VOICE: How did you get into cider-making?
STEVE: I fell into a community of people around here that were making cider. It was a happy accident that the apples we were using were actually really good apples for cider - they were wild apples, or apples from old heirloom trees in abandoned orchards. Wild apples aren’t very palatable to us, but they tend to have high acidity and some tannins, and thats what you want in cider.