Behind the Scenes Highlights of our 2020 Cider of the Month Gift Box

Did you hear the news? We just released a gift box that features the 12 unique Ciders of the Month that we released in 2020! We wanted to review 2020 through the lens of this gift box in the blog today. This is from my perspective (Andrea) - if you want a LOT more information on how the ciders were made and how they should be consumed, you need to get one of the boxes to access to some awesome behind-the-scenes content written by Joseph, our Cidermaker. :)

The Background: Though we’d done the CoTM program for four years, we had never canned the releases. We decided in mid-2019 that we wanted to go that route, and had spent the latter half of the year designing the label, picking the flavors, and brainstorming how to make the program even more successful. In fact, we’d already decided to save some back and release a gift box at the end of the year!

This gift box is a great walk down memory lane, as each cider is tied to a specific time in a really wild year. Here are a few behind-the-scenes stories from some of the releases.

February, 2020 - Blueberry Lavender - Every year, Aaron and I and several of staff members go to CiderCON, which falls over the first weekend in February. This year, Devour Indy, a city-wide dining event and the Blueberry Lavender release both fell on February 1st, which happened to be a Saturday, and also happened to be when a lot of our staff would be in Oakland, CA. Now that we’ve done this for four years, I get a bit of a spidey-sense when a release is going to be big, and Blueberry Lavender was going to be BIG. In preparation, I even sent out one of the rare Facebook messages to people who were interested in the release, telling them to NOT come on the 1st if they didn’t have to because we were going to be so crowded. We opened up our warehouse and added tables and a second layer of staff to ease the pressure. I compulsively checked the sales from my phone and texted our tasting room staff for status updates from San Francisco. Apparently it was a well-controlled zoo and everyone loved the cider! It’s one of our most popular releases from 2020.

April 2020 - Mango Lassi - This was our first post-shutdown release. We offered carryout cider only from mid-March through the end of May, and we were running things with limited hours and staff. We had no idea what to expect of a cider release during COVID. Luckily, there was a lot of community support for small businesses in April, and our fans really showed up! It was so fun to have our team here, busily getting orders ready, answering the phone as people pulled for curbside pickup, and running cider outside. It felt great to be busy and gave me a sense that maybe we could make things work during the COVID shutdowns after all. Little did we know we’d be doing these same things for the rest of the year!

May 2020 - Margarita - We always try to do a fun cider that could pair with Mexican food for our May CoTM because of Cinco de Mayo, and this year we thought a Margarita cider would fit the bill. But BOY did we underestimate how popular this cider would be!

A little peak behind the curtain on this one: when we process a finished cider, it goes from a Brite tank, through our canning line (which at the time was a manual canning line that did 8 cans per minute), into a hot water bath for 20 minutes, cooled in a cold water bath, and then for the CoTM brand, run through a manual labeling machine and finally hand-stickered.

For some reason, we thought it’d be fine if we canned Margarita starting at 10am on the morning it was released. We’d have the first batch of cans (8 cases worth) out of the Pasteurizer by 11, and they could be labeled and ready to go by the time we opened at noon. We were still carryout only, so how hard could it be to keep up?

Just what we needed during one of our most stressful releases ever - a huge, expensive, long-awaited piece of equipment to be delivered!

WRONG. As often happens, it took a little longer to get started than we thought, and then things didn’t run as perfectly as we hoped once we got going. Meanwhile, the number of online pre-orders climbed over 100, most of which included at least a 4-pack of Margarita and several that wanted an entire case. We were behind before we even opened. Our meticulously lined-up pre-orders were sitting on the bar, but as customers popped in without a pre-order, we stole cans from the pre-ordered pile to keep the lines down. But then someone who had ordered hours before would come in and we wouldn’t have their order ready! Or in the heat of the moment, we’d forget to mark an order as picked up and we’d re-make an order that wasn’t necessary. It was just a mess the entire day. Bartenders who had been furloughed but came by to pick up some cider were immediately asked to help run orders outside, or label cans as they came out of the Pasteurizer. Customers were calling asking if it was okay that the cider they just picked up was still hot.

The whole time it was happening, I was thrilled that we were making money and getting people a cider they were excited about, but I was STRESSING about the lines outside.

Oh, and did I mention, right as we opened and started to realize how nutty the day was about to be, a freight truck with our new canning line arrived, which pulled three of the production guys from canning into one of the most intricate, time-consuming, and stressful forklift removals we’ve ever had?

Yeah. It was a wild day that I will never forget.

Watermelons coming in fresh from the fields! They were in the cider within 12 hours.

August 2020 - Watermelon - This was a fun one! We try to use local fruits as often as we can, and hoped to do so for our watermelon cider. I found out that Hackman Family Farm was doing their first watermelon harvest on July 27th, 4 days before the cider would be released. I drove down to Seymour, IN in the morning, and arrived when the first truck of watermelons was being brought in on a tractor. They were hot from the sun. I could tell that everyone at the farm was excited to get the watermelon season started, as one of the workers ran a watermelon over to a table and the Hackmans cut it open, chopped it up, and handed it around for everyone to taste. It was SO GOOD. I’ve never had a warm watermelon before, but it was still so refreshing! Truly the best watermelon I’ve ever had.

They loaded up my car with 37 watermelons and I headed back up to Indy. I didn’t realize how heavy my car was, and at the very first stop on the way home, a rogue watermelon came flying into the front and smashed my hand a bit. I drove a lot more carefully after that!

I got back to the cidery around 1, and the production team quickly unloaded my car, started chopping up the watermelons, and running them through the juicer. The fresh watermelon juice was added to the cider that night. From field to cider in 12 hours!! You can really taste the freshness in this cider - I think it may be my favorite one.

December 2020 - Cranberry Rum - We didn’t realize until after we’d announced our that our gift box would be released on Black Friday that it meant we had to have Cranberry Rum finished in enough time to can it, Pasteurize it, sticker it, and put it in the box several days before the official release date. Luckily, our production team was able to switch some things around and make it happen for us, so Cranberry Rum is the first Cider of the Month that was done DAYS EARLY. It made the release in the tasting room really smooth, which was great because this one had a lot of traction on social media. Thank goodness we didn’t have a repeat of Margarita!

I hope you enjoyed some of these stories as much as I enjoyed telling them! Part of what makes supporting a small business worth it are stories like these - you get to know the people that make the cider, the team in the tasting room, and the customers you see every week. We hope that 2021 brings more in-person gatherings and shared stories, but for 2020, this is about the best we can do. We hope you get one of these gift boxes and create some stories of your own too. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Designing A Beautiful Space for Cider-Drinking

Without fail, guests that come into our tasting room mention how beautiful the space is. A lot of that is - of course - based on the awesome brick walls and archways that were already here when we got here. But we did make some (many, actually) design decisions, which we wanted to share with you all.

We have always had a pretty distinct vision for our brand (learn more about those in previous blogs about how we came up with our logo and the sign we had made for the building). We wanted clean, modern lines and decor. We wanted to enter the market with a fully-formed aesthetic instead of kind of fumbling into it after several false starts. That meant spending money at the outset on a graphic designer, marketing materials, and interior designers, but it was well worth it.  

The best decision was working with Heidi Lofton, a good friend and design student, who helped conceptualize and bring into fruition the ideas that we had. We had several meetings to talk through our vision for the space and based off of these conversations, she came up with everything you see in our tasting room today.

We started by picking a floorplan that would allow us to add seating in the future and show off some of Matthew Osborn's great furniture (more on that in a later blog).

Heidi helped us figure out ways to maximize the seating capacity while still making a comfortable space for gatherings.

Then we got to work putting together some ideas for finishings. Given how rustic and dark the interior of the building was, Heidi encouraged us to go with light, clean finishes, both for contrast and to help the natural features of the space stand out. That meant light, natural wood tables (made of ash, of course), extra-large white vertical subway tiles on the bar, so as not to conflict with the pattern of the brick, and a super-light concrete counter top. Heidi found some great seating options on Overstock.com and included them in her next sketches of the space.

Already surpassing my wildest dreams for the tasting room space.

We were all still on board with the vision, so Heidi created a complete rendering of the space, including artwork on the wall (hopefully coming soon!) and a window-bar that we will add sometime in the future. Here's the crazy thing - she had never actually been in the tasting room yet because it was still under major construction and we didn't have a key! If you've been in the tasting room, you'll be able to see how spot-on her renderings are.

Heidi's rendering, having never been into the building.

The final product. Incredible!

Heidi also helped us come up with the idea for the light fixture over the standing bar, saving us literally thousands of dollars by using natural elements and building it ourselves instead of buying a more standard fixture. 

Sparse and natural homemade light fixture. Air plants and large Edison bulbs are an easy way to make something really nice!

Lastly, our friends Jason and Lara who built us the awesome sign for outside of our space had a great surprise for us right before we opened. They had made the sign once, realized the weight of the aluminum was a little too light, and re-made it with a thicker piece of aluminum. They gave us the original piece to do with what we desired. It was a no-brainer that we had to put it up in the tasting room. Add a little bit of flexible rope lighting and voila - an incredible statement piece of art in the back of our space. 

Perfect place for pictures.

So, there you have it - how we came up with such a beautifully designed space! 

From 'Opening' to 'Open'

Guys, we did it! We opened a cidery and it only took us 2.5 years!

Now that we’re open, our focus has changed from fundraising, seeking legal counsel, location hunting, permitting, and general contracting to managing daily operations. These are the things we’re focusing our energy on these days:

1.       Staffing. Up until May of this year, we were a pretty lean operation of me (Andrea) keeping everything moving and Aaron helping out with production and overall business decisions on nights and weekends. In May we hired our first employee, Joseph, as an Assistant Cider Maker. He put in long hours leading up to our opening to make sure we had cider ready, kegs were cleaned of all the little tiny rust spots that settled in from unloading them in the rain and not wiping them off (my bad), and improving the efficiency of the production process. Then we hired Melissa to run our tasting room and kitchen, who helped create our menu, made sure we had everything we needed to run a retail storefront, and taught me about standard serving practices. Finally, we hired Wes to make sure every customer is treated well in the tasting room and to turn visitors into regulars.

My job has changed from creating job descriptions and making hiring decisions to worrying about whether our employees like their jobs, are getting enough hours, and are as excited about the future of Ash & Elm as we are. For the record, I’m pretty sure we lucked out with each of them, but I still spend a lot of time thinking about how to make sure they are all getting out of Ash & Elm what they hoped to when they signed on to this crazy ride.

The whole team! From left to right: Joseph, Wes, Aaron, Andrea, and Melissa

2.       Distribution. A lot of folks have asked when they can get our cider from bars and restaurants. Of course, there’s a short and a long answer. The short: ‘Soon, hopefully!’ The long: The state alcohol permit we need to make and sell cider (a Farm Winery permit, for those interested) doesn’t allow self-distribution. Which means I could have bars and restaurants with checks in hand waiting to put our cider on tap, but legally I can’t sell it to them. Instead, I have to sell the cider to a distributor, who would then sell it to the bar.

Fun fact! Our tasting room is on the ground floor of a three story building, and our Farm Winery permit only covers the first floor. If one of the businesses operating on the top two floors wanted cider, we would have to sell it to a distributor, who would then have to drive 10 miles away to their warehouse, who would then have to load it back up and bring it back to our building to sell to the top floor. Silly laws.

We have had meetings with multiple distributors, and our goal is to have that relationship lined up and going by the end of summer. Hang tight, we’ll get there, and we’ll make sure you all know about it!

3.       Getting the word out. Our tasting room has been open for three weeks now. A lot of my focus is shifting to marketing, sales, and promotions. In the short term, that will happen via events in the tasting room and participation in festivals throughout the city. Longer term, that means pounding the pavement to get bars and restaurants to buy into our product (see #2 on why that hasn’t happened yet). New menu options, seasonal ciders, consistency, and sponsorships/partnerships are always on my mind as avenues to explore as we grow our business.

Our first big event is Ciderside Chats! Head over to the event page by clicking on the photo.

4.       Data Crunching. If you know Aaron and me, you know that we both LOOOOOVVVEEE data and Excel. Fun fact #2! Aaron is an electrical engineer, and I have a Master’s in Public Health with a concentration in epidemiology, so using data to predict the future gets us more excited than it really should. Anyway, now that we actually have tasting room sales and numbers, we can start crunching data. How much on average does a person spend in the tasting room? How many ounces of cider does the average customer drink, and how much does that increase if the customer also orders food? Which ciders are selling the best, and given sales in our first month, can we predict what our annual sales might be? When does it make sense to add another employee?

Truly, it is so nice to be open after such a long time. Transitioning from ‘starting’ to ‘managing’ has been invigorating. Thanks for joining us for the start-up phase of the business, and I hope you continue to enjoy the ride!

What's Happening in the World of Craft Cider

Aaron and I have spent almost three years now living, breathing, thinking, and drinking cider. We’ve been to CiderCON twice and both have Google alerts set up for Hard Cider, along with a growing library of books to use as resources for every part of our business.

There's a growing library of information online, too, by way of blogs, newspapers, and online journals. If you’re new to the world of craft cider and want to learn more about what’s happening out there, here are some great articles that have come out over the last few months:

1.       Everything You Need to Know About Cider (And Why You Should Stop Calling it “Hard”) – This is a great overview about the latest trends in the cider world. Use it to learn why people in the industry don’t like the term ‘hard’ cider, how ciders differ from region to region, and why cider should fall more in line with the wine than the beer category. 

2.       Is Chicago Ripe for A Cider Boom? – This article outlines the growth of cider in Chicago since 2012 and likens it to the craft beer boom that we’ve all gotten familiar with. It addresses some of the barriers to entry for cider-makers, such as the all-too-common ‘cider stigma’ and how craft cideries are adapting their methods in order to enter a market dominated by craft beer. Plus, with Chicago just being a hop, skip, and a jump away, this might be helpful if you’re a cider fan that’s headed up north any time soon.

3.       Raising the Bar on the Cider Trend - A little different than the rest, this article focuses on two cideries in the Chicago region: Virtue Cider and Uncle John’s Cider Mill. Both Greg Hall and Mike Beck make really great ciders that you can find at some specialty liquor stores in Indianapolis. We’re particularly fond of Mike Beck and Uncle John’s Cider Mill because he’s one of our orchard partners that provides us with juice. Once we open, you all may be fans of Uncle John's as well if you like what you get!

4.       Critical Drinking – Are Craft Brewers Cutting Craft Cider to its Core? – This is a really thoughtful and challenging article from the folks at Good Beer Hunting (a great podcast to listen to if you’re into craft beer). The premise is that the trend of craft breweries jumping onto the cider bandwagon is doing harm to the craft cider world, since the craft cider movement is still in its infancy. Since both the market and some producers are ignorant about the history and tradition of cider, ‘bad’ ciders are turning people off of the industry before ‘good’ cider can turn them on. Choice quote: “In many cases, brewers are making all of these compromises at once in the pursuit of profit, or in their ignorance of another person’s craft, and hitting the gas peddle on production hoping they can cash in on another exponential growth trend adjacent to craft beer. In other words, craft brewers are co-opting craft cider the way craft brewers claim macro brewers are co-opting craft beer.” Oof!

Hopefully these articles have been enlightening to both current and future cider nerds. If you want to learn more about cider and the growth of the industry, give us a shout and we’ll connect you with some of our favorite resources. Happy drinking!

What We Can't Do - Graphic Design

So far, the start-up phase of a business has really boiled down to making a lot of decisions.  Those decision can be summed up pretty simply: Do it ourselves and how? versus Have someone else do it and whom?  

Aaron and I both consider ourselves capable, and love saving money where we can, so we tend to try to do a lot ourselves. But from the beginning, there have been a few key areas that we’ve wanted to get right the first time. For example: forming an LLC? Lawyers can do that faster and better than we can. On the flip side, consultants offered to do market research or help us come up with a budget. Nah, we can do that. Research and math are our strong suits.

One thing we can’t do is graphic design. We have a lot of opinions about graphic design, and had a strong vision about the look and feel that we wanted, all of which drove us toward finding a designer who could bring it to life. Enter Amy McAdams, an AWESOME freelance graphic designer in Indy who had created logos and artwork for multiple local businesses. We knew we had our design partner.

When we changed our name to Ash & Elm (see previous blog about this), we were at a loss of what direction to go. Amy came up with a solid idea to have typeface only, and we loved the idea of laying it over a cross-section of a tree. Amy was in, and took it a step further, suggesting we find an actual piece of a tree and make a print instead of trying to create everything through technology.

This was our typeface logo which we used as a jumping off point. I called a tree-service company that had tree cuttings at their disposal and picked up a few cross-sections (also known as tree cookies!). Though I’d requested a piece of an Ash or Elm tree, they only had Cottonwood available (sad face).

Next, I went to a friends’ wood shop and sanded these bad boys down. I had a near death experience when my scarf got eaten by the sander while I was still wearing it, so this may have been something I should’ve had someone else do. I also took a blowtorch to the sanded cookie to make the rings really stand out (Google suggested this).

Then, Amy came over, we had coffee, rolled ink onto the cleaned cookies, and made multiple ink pressings. It took a while to find the ideal method (paper on top of inked cookie, rub with fingers over and over again, use just the right amount of ink, and carefully remove).

We took our best pressing and then Amy worked her magic by digitally scanning it in, correcting a few issues, and overlaying our typeface.

We love the finished product, and are so glad we called upon an expert in this case! Hopefully this logo and brand will become synonymous with great, hand-crafted, ciders put out by a company that is active and engaged in their community.