The Tasmanian ciders set to become the Apple of your eye

I love visiting Willie Smith’s Cider in Tasmania’s Huon Valley. My first trip there was in 2013, not long after fourth-generation apple grower Andrew Smith had teamed up with Sam Reid, a former marketer with drinks multinational Diageo, to launch the Willie Smith’s brand, using apples from the family’s organic orchards.

The cider making set-up was pretty rudimentary, in a room off the packing shed, and there was no cellar door. As was the case with many new producers in the early years of Australia’s modern cider boom, the products were inconsistent, too: some were great, others not so much. But the orchard valley setting was spectacular, the enthusiasm of the co-founders infectious and the ambitions impressive. (A rather boozy dinner, featuring plenty of cider and other local drinks, was also memorable: I’m never going to make the mistake of discussing politics with apple farmers late in the evening again...)

My next visit, in 2016, was equally memorable, for quite different reasons. I was a guest of Willie Smith’s for their Huon Valley Mid-Winter Festival, a distinctly pagan celebration of cider-drinking, bonfires, effigy burning, music and food. Echoes of similar festivals I’ve been to in Europe, but also distinctly Tasmanian.

By that point, Willie Smith’s had hired Dr Tim Jones – former cider maker at CUB and passionate grower of proper English and French cider apple varieties – and the quality and consistency of the products, both the ciders and the new apple brandies, had improved greatly.

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