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New Apple Country Cider Jam opens festival season

Underhill Rose will release its first live album and launch a tour with its performance at the Apple Country Cider Jam on Saturday.

Hendersonville is gearing up for the first-ever Apple Country Cider Jam, a downtown festival that will bring bluegrass and Americana music to Main Street and showcase Henderson County’s apple crop.

 

Nine North Carolina cideries are scheduled to pour their products, the farthest from Durham and the closest three blocks up Main Street.
The last five years have seen a spike in consumer interest in hard cider, says Mark Williams, executive director of Agribusiness Henderson County (AgHC), and local growers have seen an expanded market because of it. Williams originally thought of starting a Cider Jam around five years ago when local cideries were new. Fast forward to today, and the hard cider industry is booming. With 16 cideries in North Carolina alone, the product is catching on.
“This is the heart of apple country, it should also be the site of our Apple Country Cider Jam,” Williams said.
The Henderson County Tourism Development Authority, the North Carolina Apple Festival, the city of Hendersonville and Carolina Farm Credit collaborated with AgHC to plan the event right down to the entertainment, which includes headliner Balsam Range and opener Underhill Rose, which is kicking off an album-promoting tour at the Cider Jam. Also performing is the Josh Daniel-Mark Schimick Project.
Kim Chappell, the retail business development manager at Bold Rock Hard Cider, said when Bold Rock was looking to expand from its Virginia base, the founders followed the Blue Ridge Mountains to the orchards of Henderson County and made their second home in Mills River. Bold Rock is a featured cider makers hosting two tents. Its flagship tent will feature top sellers like the Carolina Apple Cider and the Dry Hop IPA Cider, a favorite among craft beer drinkers, as well as a non-alcoholic sparkling apple cider. Its Crimson Ridge tent will pour premium, drier ciders such as Vat 1 and Vintage Dry, ciders that they’ve been making for over five years.
The festival demonstrates a growing use for Henderson County’s signature crop.
“It really shows the reach of our apples,” said Chappell.
“The Cider Jam is a great collision of our apple crops,” Williams added. With last year’s apples being featured in the recipes for the ciders being enjoyed at the Cider Jam during the same time of year as the apple trees begin to bloom for next year’s crop, it looks like Henderson County has found a new way to embrace its rich Apple heritage.
Tapping into the cider-loving audience, Bold Rock is hosting an event the next day that includes tours, specialty cider tasting flight and cocktail mixer cards. The Bold Rock Food Truck will feature its famous Cider Dog, an all-beef hot dog braised in the IPA cider. The event begins at noon Sunday with tours ending at 5 p.m. The taproom is open until at 9.
The Cider Jam takes place on South Main Street from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday. There will be food truck fare for purchase as well as additional pints. Tickets are $25 for people 21 and over (includes cider tasting from 1 to 3 p.m.) and $10 for ages 12-21 and designated drivers. Children under 12 get in free.

Cideries include St. Paul Mountain Vineyards, 1898 Hard Cider (The Waverly Inn), Red Clay Ciderworks, Charlotte; Bold Rock Hard Cider, Mills River; Bull City Ciderworks, Durham; Flat Rock Ciderworks; Good Road CiderWorks, Charlotte; Noble Cider, Asheville; Burntshirt Vineyards.
Food trucks are the CHUB Wagon from Oskar Blues, Amazing Pizza Company, Season’s at Highland Lake Inn, Prime Time Eats & Catering, The Vintner’s Table from Burntshirt Vineyards and Fields of Gold Farms (gelato).

BRIEF HED

Underhill Rose launches
live album at Cider Jam
Underhill Rose, the female Americana trio from Asheville, is releasing its first live album and launching a U.S. and United Kingdom tour with the Cider Jam performance starting at 1 p.m. Saturday.
“We are thrilled to release our very first live album because it features the stripped-down sound of our core trio and captures the magic of our live performances,” said band cofounder and guitarist Molly Rose.
Featuring original songs from their three studio albums, Underhill Rose Live covers the depth and joy of nearly a decade of musical partnership. Like the group’s prior albums, the live album features all three songwriters of Underhill Rose. In a divergent move from past albums, however, the live collection also includes several crowd-favorite covers, including “Bette Davis Eyes,” “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’,” and John Prine’s “Long Monday.”