Applewood Farm Smoken Apple

Brewed by Applewood Farm Winery
Style: Ice Cider
Stouffville, Canada

Bottle... GIABMISGFAB ... This beer rocks!... Clear, dark golden cider. Decent legs. I had the dregs, so there were lots of black peppercorns and other herbals floating and dipping about. The aroma? Wow! Black pepper, chilies, sweet red apples and a plethera of other spicy earthiness. Full-bodied with a syrupy mouthfeel. Sweet and HOT as hell! That’s what I get for waiting for the dregs... apparently, all the hot stuff sinks to the bottom of the bottle. Painful bliss! The finish? Don’t know... my tongue was still on fire! I was able to sweat my way through this one and loved every second of it. Reminds me of my childhood, visiting the M&M Cafe in Albuquerque, NM and ordering the "Red Chile Platter." Kudos to TheCheeseMan for providing this heavenly elixir of death!

Courtesy TheCheeseMan. Viscous pour, dark golden color, no head. Strange aroma, crushed peppercorns, dried apples, chiles, heat, benzene. For the taste, all the sweetness or tartness is dominated initially by the black pepper taste, then by an aggressive heat, which was too much for me. An interesting thing to taste, just not my thing.

Bottle thanks to the CheeseMan at the Merritt Island Throwdown. Brandy color. Cinnamon, clove, sherry, sugar and allspice in the nose. Flavors include hot chili lingering on the tongue. Viscious palate, flat and uncarbonated. As a lover of oddity, art, and heat, I really appreciated this for its uniqueness, its visual appeal, and the fact that I could chomp down on a chili and a peppercorn when it was all over.

First let me say that i love cider. Not quite sure what to make of this beast. The aroma is intoxicating. A cacophony of pepper, chilies, ginger, sweet apples, cinnamon, good grief, this smells both appealing and frightening at the same time. The flavor is wickedly hot, to quote the commercial description, but works on some level. The heat really builds, causing me to believe that this cider is better suited for cooking, as the spices completely overwhelm the palate, pushing away in semblance of elegance and refinement.

Courtesy TheCheeseman. Pours a syrupy copper amber, with no head. Bits of pepper were floating in my glass, although as I look around, other people had whole peppers in theirs. Good grief. Smells of spicy pepper, some unusual mint or clove, and peppercorn. The flavor was hugely hot and spicy. Chili peppers were really all the human tongue can pull out of the taste. You have to like spicy hot stuff to really enjoy this. I was indifferent, as it was quite unusual and interesting, but the hot spicy fluids just really arent my thing. I can, however, appreciate the originality of this cider.

Merritt Island Throwdown ’08: Bottle, courtesy TheCheeseMan. Pours a clear slightly amber pour. Be wary of peppercorns and jalepeno’s pouring in your glass. Aroma is huge black pepper and spicy peppers, inscence, and apples. Taste just blows your head off spicy! Apples and hot peppers that leave a very destroyed tongue. Very interesting.

Merritt Island Throwdown ’08: Bottle, courtesy TheCheeseMan. Pours a straw yellow color. A couple of red peppers and peppercorn dot the bottom of the glass. Insane. Aroma is pure black pepper. Obviously spicy as hell. What is this?? Hot, really spicy. Has a taste of hot sweat. Some slight cider apple that’s overshadowed by the ridiculous hot sauce-like qualities. Burns the throat a bit, but definitely something to try once before you die. Not as insulting to the senses as the Cave Creek Chili.

375 ml bottle. 2005 vintage. pours orange with no carbonation but it did have approx 20 peppercorns and 1 pepper that ploped into the bottom of my snifter. aromas of peppercorn and sweet apple all mixed up together. the aroma is very hot but still doesnt prepare you for the flavour. flavours are wicked hot with sweet apple laying underneath. its drinkable but not thats not really what this was intended for. after a few sips i poured the rest in a ziplock to marinate pork chops. they turned out to be fantastic. smokey sweet apple glazed spicey pork is a very good thing indeed. as a berverage this is a no, as a marinade its a big thumbs up!