The Age of Cider Ascends: Descendant Cider Company is Toasting the Future of Cider in New York
Dressed in black on a 90-degree Spring day, Alexandria Fisk, a Londoner, was nothing but sunny after running late from the city to her cidery in Maspeth. Fisk, co-founder of Descendant Cider Company exuded a subdued sense of cool-- even with kegs to fill, clients to please and being 13 weeks pregnant at the time.
Before cider, Alexandria spent a decade as an investment bank analyst working as part of an executive team in the tech world for four years.
“I was quite young but at the top of my game doing my dream job,” she said. “I was traveling three weeks out of four - and totally miserable in how I was spending my time.”
Now, she views life as a “collection of projects,” working as a business consultant on a by-project basis and on sales, logistics and events for the cidery, which she co-founded in 2014 with her husband, Jahil Maplestone. Maplestone handles product development, production, design and social media.
Americans, who long ago were enthralled by cider, are rediscovering its tart and crisp appeal.
“The cider business is one hell of a project,” she said. “It’s probably a 10-15 year project. We may not be the biggest cidery in the world. We may never finish this project, so we have to enjoy it along the way.”
During the busy fall season last year, Fisk focused more of her energy on the cidery; with Descendant Cider Company appearing at 40 events in six weeks. Fall is also the only time to forage certain apples for specialty ciders and an exciting time for new ideas to germinate.
The company’s small production facility, located in an industrial strip along Flushing Avenue, is not fancy by looks: there’s one production room and one storage room amongst other businesses, like a photography studio and a mattress company.
“I would say we’ve done it sort of the slow, scrappy way, which has its challenges,” she said. “We probably have the most densely used space for a cidery anywhere in the world.”
Humble digs aside, the ciders offer an elegant drinking experience. Fisk and Maplestone’s goal is to create ciders that they themselves enjoy imbibing, regardless of trends. The Pom Pomme, with its unique blend of apples, pomegranate and a hint of flowers, has a nice balance and is one of Fisk’s favorites.
With drinkers thirsty for easily portable (and generally more budget-friendly) canned craft drinks, Descendant Cider Company might eventually release canned ciders. Most canning machines don’t fit up the elevator and around the narrow hallway to Descendant Cider Company’s production room in Maspeth.
“We can’t physically get a canning line into the space unless we buy a very compact one, which is the most expensive type to buy - and you need floor drains which we don’t have,” Fisk said.
So Maplestone started building his own small canning machine, via YouTube videos, an unyielding scrappiness that’s been a crucial part of the business model from the start.
The pair’s dream is to grow into a second facility upstate. In June they closed on a building in North Branch in Sullivan County, NY, next to an orchard where they planted 500 trees in Spring 2016. They plan to experiment with new ciders and open a tasting room there in 2019. They will keep the Maspeth space for creating ciders with a faster turnaround, utilizing the space upstate for longer experiments with barrel-aging, champagne methods and maybe even a canning line.
“We’ve seen this magical side of cider that continues to grow for us. For us this whole thing is evolving,” Fisk adds. “This opens up an opportunity to be more innovative with apples and how we use them.”
This new endeavor in North Branch will help visitors learn more about where cider comes from.
“I think an urban cidery as a concept does work, but there’s also this romanticism that can be very much played into,” she said. “You feel it [when you] pick the apples and drink the ciders made from them. It’s a pretty awesome experience.”
In the past two years, Maplestone completed the transition from video editor to working full-time on the cidery. Fisk, meanwhile, sees continued success on a by-project basis, juggling high-level executives, apples and the new responsibility of parenthood.
“If I describe to people what I do they ask where this is going. Sometimes the juggle is hard - no doubt - but it’s on our terms which it never really felt like before,” she said.
Descendant Cider Company’s enlightened journey continues through bushels of apples in the lush greenery of upstate New York. Cheers to Descendant Cider Company, and hoping it ascends the couple’s sweet, sour, funky, wild dreams.
Descendant Cider Company | @descendantcider
Jahil Maplestone | @jahilmaplestone
