Assistant Cidermaker - No Cider Experience Required

Assistant Cidermaker

Haykin Family Cider | Aurora, Colorado | $55,000 - $65,000 | Full time, Monday to Friday

No cider experience required. 

About the Role

We're looking for a thoughtful, hard-working craft professional to join our award-winning cidery. This is a hands-on position that touches every part of the process - from pressing apples to blending, bottling, and delivering finished cider. The right person is self-motivated, mechanically curious, and deeply committed to quality.

You'll work directly with our founders, Daniel and Talia Haykin, learning every stage of small-batch, sparkling-wine-style cidermaking and becoming an essential part of our core production team. For the right candidate, this is a growth position with a clear path toward a long-term leadership role within the company.

We hire the person, not the resume

You do not need to have made cider before. Our strongest people came to us from other fields entirely, and we are happy to teach fermentation to someone with a good palate, steady hands and sound judgment.

What you will do

• Press, ferment, bottle, package, and label. Every stage, hands on.
• Operate and maintain cellar equipment: pumps, filters, bottling line.
• Clean and sanitize to a standard that never slips.
• Keep batch records and compliance paperwork accurate. 
• Drive delivery routes to local accounts. Clean driving record required.

Time on the floor

Everyone who makes our cider also sells it. You will work tasting room shifts, pour at farmers markets and festivals, and talk to the people who drink what you made. 

Job requirements

• Attention to detail and consistency (this is a job where one task done slightly wrong can ruin a year of work)
• Physical stamina. You will lift 50 lbs repeatedly, stand for long stretches, and occasionally move 100 lb loads short distances.
• Curiosity about how things work, and the patience to fix them when they stop.
• Reliability (On a team this size, one person not showing up changes everyone else’s day.)
• Valid driver license and reliable transportation.

Backgrounds that translate well

None of these are required. They are just the places good people tend to come from.

• Restaurant kitchens. If you have run a station somewhere serious, you have the palate, the pace and the standards already.
• Wine cellars. If you have worked a harvest, you know most of this job under different words.
• Brewing, baking, coffee, cheese, or anything else where fermentation or fussy process work rules the day.
• Farming and orchard work.
• Trades and mechanical work. Half of production is keeping equipment running.

Schedule

Monday to Friday, daytime hours, with occasional evenings and weekends during harvest and events. Harvest is a busy stretch and everyone works it. The rest of the year your nights and weekends are your own.

Pay and benefits

• $55,000 to $65,000 a year, depending on experience
• Bonus potential based on performance and company results
• Medical, dental and vision insurance
• HSA contributions
• Life insurance
• Paid flexible time off
• Cider and merchandise credits and discounts

Where this goes

This is a career, not a harvest gig. You will start by learning every stage of production alongside the founders. Over time you take on your own batches, then blending decisions, then whole areas of the cellar. How quickly that happens depends on you rather than on a calendar, and we will be direct with you about where you stand the entire way. We're looking for people who want a long-term career. The first year will be spent learning and growing with us, we want you around for the long haul. 

How to apply

Send a resume to [email protected]. In the body of the email, tell us about one fermented thing you love, alcoholic or not, and what specifically makes it good. Two or three sentences is plenty - and tell us why this posting caught your eye. We read every one of these, and sometimes it tells us more than the resume does.