Made by: Tom Oliver & Ryan Burk

Made in: Herefordshire, blended in Frankfurt

Style: Dry

ABV: 6.5%

Carbonation: Still

Bought: Good Spirits Co. Wine & Beer, Glasgow

Price: £2.80 (330ml bottle)

Producer’s website: Oliver’s

Also from this producer: Traditional Dry

The first cider I ever tasted for this blog was one of Tom Oliver’s and it blew me away. (I also only realised tonight that I fucked up that first review by referring to the High Priest of Cidermaking as Tim Oliver throughout. How to win friends and influence people…) Anyway, at the time I had no idea who Oliver was and knew nothing of the reverence with which he is rightly treated by cider heads the world over. It was just an astonishing drink, like nothing I’d ever tasted before and I’d been formally tasting beer, wine, whisky, vodka and more for over 20 years as part of my job.

So a while later and with a little more knowledge of proper cider under my belt I was chuffed to find this bottle of Gold Rush #6 in Good Spirits Wine and Beer in Glasgow. I will admit, however, that part of me was definitely thinking ‘please don’t let this be pish’ because the first one was so good.

As it turns out, I needn’t have worried because it’s just sublime. No other word for it.

Gold Rush #6 is the 6th collaboration between Tom Oliver and other cider makers who share his ethos and approach to making the proper stuff. The first 4 were, I believe, collaborations between Oliver and Gregory Hall of Virtue Cider in Michigan while numbers 5 and 6 were with Ryan Burk of Angry Orchard in New York. Confusingly, Oliver’s website refers to a Gold Rush #7, also with Burk, but the photo illustrating it shows #6. So someone who knows more than me might want to get in touch to clarify.

Number 6 apparently came about because #5 sold out sharpish so Oliver shipped some samples over to a cider festival he was going to in Frankfurt that Burk was also attending and did the blending right there and then in the hotel room. So the story goes.

According to Oliver’s website, #6 is made from vintage bittersweet and sharp cider apples from traditional Herefordshire orchards which were slow fermented by wild yeasts in old oak barrels and tanks. Then, after a malolactic fermentation in the spring, Oliver and Burk met up again at Ocle Pychard to blend the final product.

TASTING NOTES, AFTER A FASHION:

In the glass it’s a rich, luscious, deep amber and it’s nice and bright.

Give it a damn good swirl and get your nose into it and it’s just a riot of gorgeous aromas. There’s pears and apple skins, then raisins and figs with some unctuous honey in the background and then some dense leathery notes. Reminds me of a freshly baked panettone at Christmas. Take another noseful and there’s some spice and melon too and clear acetone notes in the background which, bizarrely, don’t detract from the experience. It’s an utter monster of an aroma, massive, complex, rich, superb.

What is this stuff going to taste like with an aroma like that, I find myself marvelling?

The first sip reveals this to be a big, imposing drop with more of that acetone, more melon and an underlying, restrained sweetness. Woody, leathery notes take over alongside a very, very elegant peary fruitiness. It’s a robust, chunky drop with some biting tannins that just hold everything together perfectly. By mid palate it settles down into some lovely bittersweet red apple and it has a spirity quality that reminds me of Calvados.

The acetone thing bothered me because I couldn’t place it for a while but it finally came to me: fino sherry. Having spent a long weekend in Jerez a couple of years ago drowning myself in industrial quantities of sherry at countless bodegas I knew I recognised that unmistakable smell – but it took me a while to put a name to it. But the #6 has a definite whiff of fino sherry about it, an acetoney, super dry, hard to describe aroma that’s nonetheless impossible to mistake or forget. I can’t find anything anywhere suggesting this cider was aged in sherry casks so I may simply be losing my mind – but there you have it.

The finish is leather and wood soaked in honey, strongly dry but not manically so. The full bodied tannins play their part immaculately and the only downside to the whole experience is that the 330ml bottle ran out way too soon.

At any rate, the Gold Rush #6 is nothing short of immense. An absolute symphony going on here. How you coax that much flavour and complexity and depth and joy from nothing but apples is a wonderful mystery.

This, for me, is as rewarding and nuanced and complex as any fine wine. It’s not only one of the best ciders I’ve ever tasted, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever tasted, full stop.

5️⃣/5️⃣