Yesterday, we trekked through the wilds of Pomfret to squeeze the juice from a whole bunch of apples. (See what I did with that header? Pressing Issues?!! Get it???)
Though I value my extremities too much to get near a machine designed to pulverize and squish, the menfolk found the whole shebang terribly exciting and quickly developed a new language that sounded like, “Shorten the hydraulic and flatten the apple bladder, layer up the slats, the mash is ready, so open the valve, bashimba!”
You may be a trifle disconcerted to know that when your juice line clogs, the universally approved method for unclogging is simply to suck on the line until the juice flows again. Very sterile stuff, this. Messy too. Here’s one of the intrepid pressers, the good Dr. Mark Knott, pleasantly spattered with mash.
Danger and contamination aside, the results of our (ahem, their) efforts were gorgeous and delicious.
Fresh cider was the perfect ending to a lovely fall day in Vermont.
