July 13 - Finger Lake Cider House

Allan H. Treman State Marine Park

“Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true” —Lyman Frank Baum

As we've said many times before...one of the things we like the best about being in Ithaca for the season is exploring all the great little places to sample locally made wine, cider, liquor and food. These small family owned places pride themselves in using fresh locally grown ingredients and the products they produce are wonderful.

Kyle and his family gave Stan a gift card to the Finger Lake Cider House for Father's Day. They're located just up the lake from us and we've seen their sign many times, but didn't think we'd like hard cider...we were wrong. Many of their dry ciders were very good, they were more like wine than we expected.

Finger Lakes Cider House at Good Life Farm is the hub of the hard cider renaissance in New York apple country. They feature their own Kite & String Cider as well as amazing ciders from rotating guest cideries each month. Here's the meaning of their name: 'Kite' means light, playful, balanced, and fun.  'String' means grounded to a place, their small farm. All their ciders are made from farm-based orchards. The tasting room and balcony overlook their crop fields, apple orchards, green houses and horse barn...with a view of Cayuga Lake in the distance.

Our favorite cider was called Funkhouse '17, it has herbal, buttery, earthy notes and is bone dry, with a bright front palate giving way to notes of toasted oak and ending with long chalky tannins.

Their eco-friendly farm has been producing certified organic fruit and fresh vegetables, meat and poultry since 2008. In 2012 they decided to add cider production to their list of endeavors and began planting 300 cider apple trees annually; they now have 38 varieties of American heirloom, English and European cider apples in their orchard. In 2014 they transformed a barn into their impressive Cider House and they now have a spacious tasting room and bar and a lower level equipped with a kitchen and cider-processing facilities. They have a small menu that features ingredients grown on their farm or bought from neighboring farmers in the Finger Lakes region.  

A flight of cider and sandwiches for dinner. Stan had the smoked pulled pork on a sourdough roll and I had toasted cheddar apple sandwich with pesto. Both were served with a salad made with greens from their garden. 

 Here are some of the ciders we tasted

The view from their balcony  

On Friday nights the cider house features local musicians. While we were there we listened to Whistlin’ Dyl. He's an original singer songwriter who cooks up ballads, hillbilly thumpers and alt-rock songs with a smidgin of crooning and a splash of soul.