ASBURY, NJ – In celebration of the holiday season, Ironbound Hard Cider has released a limited-edition dessert cider, Holiday 2019.
Available only at the Tasting Room at Ironbound Farm (360 County Road 579, Asbury, in Hunterdon County), Holiday 2019 is a rich, spicy-sweet dessert cider made with local apples and spicebush that was foraged at Ironbound Farm. Also known as wild allspice, Appalachian spice, and “forsythia of the forest,” spicebush is a deeply aromatic shrub that is native to the forests of eastern North America and was first used by Native Americans as a spice and medicinal tea.
To create Holiday 2019, Cameron Stark, Ironbound’s cider maker, begins by steeping spicebush berries, twigs, and leaves in apple brandy. The resulting infusion is added to a single-varietal hard cider made exclusively from Golden Russet apples, which impart notes of tangerine, lemon zest, and white peach. Stark finishes the cider with a touch of Ironbound Farm honey to add natural sweetness.
Holiday 2019 has an ABV of 18.5% and is sold in an elegant, hand-signed 375ml bottle with a wax seal. The price is $25.
“We are excited to present this limited-edition holiday dessert cider,” said Stark. “The spicebush lends a wonderful pie-spice flavor with a peppery note that evokes the warm feeling of the holidays. Holiday 2019 captures the flavor of local apples and the aroma of native spicebush—making it the perfect way to celebrate family, friends, and the abundance of New Jersey’s woodlands and farms.”
Ironbound Hard Cider is made from 100% fresh-pressed apples grown on family farms in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. It is naturally gluten free with no added sugar and no preservatives or sulfites. Ironbound also creates specialty blends by infusing Ironbound Hard Cider with locally grown and foraged ingredients, including beach plums, gooseberries, dry-harvested wild cranberries, hops, ginger, and black Aronia berries.
Ironbound’s core ciders — Ironbound Original, Pinelands Rosé, and Highlands Farmhouse — are available in cans and on tap at bars, restaurants, and retail stores throughout the state. Specialty ciders, which include Black Tea and Lemon, Gooseberry Ginger, Woods Folly and Cape May Rosé, are available at select locations throughout New Jersey. All are available at Ironbound Farm.
For more information please visit: https://www.ironboundhardcider.com
About Ironbound Hard Cider
Ironbound Hard Cider is located on a 108-acre farm in the New Jersey Highlands (360 County Road 579, Asbury, NJ). Ironbound Hard Cider and its sister company, Ironbound Farm, are committed to revitalizing the NJ economy by creating jobs for the chronically underemployed and building an ever-expanding, interconnected community of rural and urban food producers who are united in the belief that agriculture can be a powerful tool for fostering environmental, economic, and human repair. Ironbound uses regenerative farming practices to manage its extensive heritage cider apple orchard, which includes the eastern United States’ largest planting of the Harrison, the renowned American cider apple that originated in 18th-century Newark. Ironbound Hard Cider aims to restore hard cider to its rightful place as New Jersey’s beverage of choice and to craft ciders that would make our Founding Fathers proud. Distributed by Remarkable Liquids, a craft beer-focused wholesaler based in upstate New York, Ironbound Hard Cider is available at its tasting room, at the Prudential Center in Newark, at the BB&T Pavilion in Camden, and in over 500 bars, restaurants, and retailers throughout New Jersey. Ironbound was named Hunterdon County Business of the Year 2019 by the Hunterdon County Economic Development agency.