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Not to steal beer’s thunder or anything, but cider is definitely having a moment. And according to Peter Yi—the visionary behind Brooklyn Cider House (1100 Flushing Ave; brooklynciderhouse.com), debuting next month—this is just the start of the boozy-apple renaissance. With a tasting room, bar and restaurant, the 15,000-square-foot “farmhouse-meets–Brooklyn-country-jungle” will act as Gotham’s personal orchard.
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Aside from offering five varieties of the house-made, unpasteurized beverage on tap and in bottles, the pome spot enables visitors to pair different ciders with food from the on-site restaurant. Yi says that cider, which is lighter than beer and more wallet-friendly than wine, goes exceptionally well with tons of grub, including cider-braised chorizo and dry-aged rib eye.
The brand’s cider is a bit atypical: The all-natural drink uses little other than fermented-and-aged cider apples (tarter and more bitter than your average Golden Delicious) sourced straight from Yi’s upstate farm in New Paltz to create an astringent and drier-than-average tipple. Although the formerly ubiquitous beverage went through a major slump after Prohibition due to lack of resources, Yi, a former wine taster and buyer, thinks modern-day New York could be its phoenix-rising moment. After all, he says, “We’re living in apple land.”