Mountain Cider Crafter

Kirk Billingsley is dedicated to heritage apples.

Photo Above: Andrew Clark and Mike Herold feed Hewes crabapples into Big Fish Cider’s press. © Bruce Ingram.

It’s late August and Kirk Billingsley strides over to a white plastic barrel, uncaps it, siphons a few ounces into a glass, inhales the aroma, and samples the contents. “Right on schedule,” he says about the liquid that he and his staff pressed from bins of Dolgo crabapples a fortnight ago.

The Dolgo, which originated in the 1890s, is a heritage fruit, just as are many of the other crabapples and apples that Billingsley and his staff transform into cider at Highland County, Virginia’s Big Fish Cider, winner of multiple awards at the annual Great Lakes International Cider and Perry Competition (perry is the pear version of cider).

Billingsley’s missions are threefold: to keep alive the Blue Ridge’s mountain cider making tradition, promote the growing of heritage apples and crabapples, and make the most flavorful ciders he possibly can. The 62-year-old, which began his business in 2015, does not hide his disgust for modern day apples.

“Many modern, made-for-a-store apples like Red Delicious taste like old snow,” he says. Of course, the blandness of supermarket apples and the cider that comes from them is not the only reason that the orchardist expresses passion for vintage mountain apples and crabapples. As a child in Highland County, he helped his father make cider on the family homestead and fondly remembers often drinking a glass of freshly squeezed cider when he arrived home from school.

And as Billingsley grew older, he came to understand that heritage apples, like Northern Spy, Old Fashioned Winesaps and Smokehouse which flourished on the home place, were worth preserving and promoting to a public whose taste buds had become benumbed by such insipid varieties as Red and Golden Delicious.

Or as Billingsley describes the duo: “Pretty, not brown, apples eaten by people who don’t know how good apples can taste. Heritage apples have flavors that can’t be found in apples from a grocery store. People should buy apples with their taste buds in mind, not what is appealing to the eye.”

After assessing the progress of the Dolgo cider, Billingsley moves outside to Big Fish Cider’s back porch where employees Andrew Clark and Mike Herold have begun the process of turning Hewes Crabapples into cider. The duo pours bins of Hewes, which originated in Virginia during the early 1700s, into a press which grinds them into a liquid that, in turn, drains into a barrel just like the one where the Dolgo cider ferments.

“Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew Hewes,” Billingsley says. “We even know that Jefferson raised this crabapple for cider at Monticello’s north orchard. Dolgo trees are more carefree to raise while Hewes are more difficult. I lost half of my Hewes trees to fire blight one year, for example. But both produce excellent cider, and both have their fans.”

Billingsley explains that Highland’s mountainous setting makes it an ideal location to raise apples. One reason is because even during the summer growing season, nighttime temperatures can plunge into the upper 40s or low 50s which causes stress for the trees, which, in turn, creates more acidity in their fruit.

The resulting tartness is what brings more intense flavor to his company’s cider, emphasizes the craftsman. Other factors also come into play.

“With each batch, I have to test for sugar content, titratable acidity levels [the acid we taste], and pH,” Billingsley says. “Briefly, I let the yeast that is naturally on the apples start the fermentation, which is called wild fermentation, but if the aroma lets me know something is not right, I may pitch [pour] yeast into the cider. All this is based on the taste profile I am hoping to achieve.

“The advantage of wild fermentation is that some of the best cider I’ve ever made has come from that process. You get some really interesting flavors. The disadvantage is some of the worst cider I’ve ever tasted has come from wild fermentation.”

Next, the Highland County native needs to check on the trees at one of his three orchards. Upon arriving, Billingsley touts the virtues of the heritage trees whose fruit he examines. Grimes Goldens sport a slight cinnamon flavor, plus hints of licorice, Cox Orange Pippins flaunt pineapple and orange flavors, making them the perfect eating-out-of-hand apple, Roxbury Russets feature nutty flavors, and Ralls Genets are a “never fail apple.”

“I encourage people to grow these and other traditional varieties for their own eating pleasure and to keep our region’s apple heritage alive,” Billingsley says. “Yeah, these old-fashioned apples often have spots on them unlike supermarket apples. But you won’t notice those spots when you drink their cider or eat their pies.”

The story above first appeared in our September / October 2023 issue.