Making Pommeau With Elk Heights Distillery
We’ve given you a teaser introduction to our limited Pommeau beverage, even a taste if you came out to the cidery this summer, but what we haven’t given you yet is the story behind it!
Through friendship and partnership, our Pommeau cider and Elk Heights Distillery’s AppleJack was created. If you have yet to visit Ellensburg’s new establishment, Elk Heights Distillery, we highly recommend that you do! Eric, Owner and Founder of the Distillery has known our own Cider Maker, Nate for years. Over some fun making mead together one day, Eric told Nate about his newly imported copper still– This sparked the genius idea to try it out, collaborate, and create an AppleJack (an old way of saying apple brandy); from that brandy, we created our Pommeau apple wine.
What is Pommeau?
Pommeau is a French-originated endeavor (Pom means “apple” in French–get it?) Pommeau is an apple wine and can be compared to the well known port wine.
The traditional Normandy and Brittany way of making Pommeau starts with a Calvados (the French way of saying apple brandy) that is aged for a minimum of two years. That aged Calvados is then mixed with fresh apple juice, bringing the 70% ABV down to a 16-18% ABV, creating a new kind of hard cider– the Pommeau. To reach their standard for consumption, the Pommeau is then aged in wooden barrels for another two years.
How We Do It
Our Pommeau is made slightly different from France- Nate and Eric worked together to create an Eu da vie (white brandy) at Elk Heights Distillery, by distilling fresh apple juice made up of a combination of our own French varietals, Harrisons, Hewes, and Manchurian Crab apples. Once The Eu da vie was distilled, Elk Heights kept half and we kept half. They finished processing their portion, finalizing it to be their own AppleJack– a strong spirit with a lovely, subtle apple flavor.
Fun fact– the name AppleJack comes from the traditional early 1900s method of producing the drink, freezing the fermented cider in the snowy ground, and then removing the ice, which increased the alcohol content!
While France begins with brandy, our Pommeau starts with fermenting the apples along with the Eu da vie. And just like making a port, the brandy arrests the fermentation–giving our Pommeau a 15.5% ABV, a velvety texture, blossom aromatics, and apple pie, lemon, caramel, and toffee notes, while still staying true to our dry cider taste.
Visit Elk Heights Distillery
Located on West Dolarway Rd. in Ellensburg, Elks Heights purchased the beautiful barn-like building that any regular Dolarway traveler is sure to admire. Upon purchase the building was condemned, so a lot of hard work and love went into making the building what it is today.
The layout and décor is very intentional- most of the wooden details, some outlining, borders, and tables come from Eric's farm near Elk Heights. If you didn’t already guess, the farm also inspired the name of the distillery! Before the building became home to the new distillery, it was previously used as a spot for wine distribution and other happy substances… ;) There were some wine barrels left by the previous owner and Eric decided to use them to age some of the brandy. Other empty wine barrels they used as planters and for the tables. They’ve done an incredible job creating such an appealing space reutilizing on-hand lumber and parts. They are also determined to stay integris to the craft. They use traditional quality equipment and there are no artificial dyes added to their darker liqueurs– all color naturally comes from the barrel aging!
Elk Heights Distillery makes it a point to partner with other Washington local businesses, such as Gordon Brothers Wine out of Kennewick and us! While they technically have the ability to make beer and cider, they know that isn’t their expertise, and therefore they want to utilize the experts. Be sure to head to Elk Heights Distillery this season to taste their AppleJack and other amazing spirits, check out their renovated space, and admire their distilling facility!
If you are ready to purchase our Pommeau cider to enjoy for this coming holiday season, please email us.