Alpenfire Cider introduces its newest estate bottling, “Smoke,”. All profits from sales will be donated to The Wildland Firefighter Foundation. Smoke is blended from the cidery’s organic, estate grown, bittersweet apples, picked extra ripe, then triple-fermented in mead and whiskey barrels to a smoky, oaky, after-dinner tipple, poured over ice.
Smoke is available at selected bottle shops and brew pubs throughout Puget Sound to help the Wildland Firefighter Foundation raise money for devastated families of firefighters who have lost their lives or were severely injured on the firelines. This year more than 30 young men and women, working for minimum wages and without benefits, have died.
Alpenfire Cider owner Steve (Bear) Bishop, who worked for over 30 years as a hotshot, on Forest Service teams and as a private contractor, remembers well the terror of being burned over as a roaring firestorm explodes overhead.
Extra donations for wildland firefighters can be stuffed into the bright yellow fireshelter bags displayed with bottles of “Smoke,” at the following locations:
Alpenfire Cider Tasting Room, Port Townsend (www.alpenfirecider.com); Chimacum Corner Farm Stand; Port Hadlock Liquor Store; Capital Cider, Beveridge Place Pub, Full Throttle Bottle, Beer Authority, Special Brews, all in Seattle; Bushwacker Cider, Portland and other select stores.
Smoke is the most recent of Alpenfire’s finely crafted organic hard ciders pressed from their orchard of more than 900 French, English and domestic apple tree varietals selected for their bittersweet, bittersharp and tannin flavors. Other Alpenfire’s bottling include Glow Rose, Ember Bittersweet, Flame Extra-Brut and Spark semi-Sweet.