Abram launched a successful Kickstarter in 2013 and began operating Cider Riot in his garage. His love for cider goes back much further, however, sparked in part by an early project called White Oak. Orchardist and cidermaker Alan Foster planted English cider apples and started selling cider in the mid-1990s when Abram got his first job off the family farm helping out at White Oak Cider. These are the ciders, which he would later call “proper cider,” he fell in love with. “I’ve wanted to own a cidery since I started making cider in my dorm room when I was was 17,” he said. His appreciation deepened when he traveled to Ireland in college and drank from two-liter plastic jugs while watching soccer. He would go on to write about beer, but never forgot about proper cider. Finally, the world caught up with him, and cideries started succeeding in the late 2000s. By the time Abram launched Cider Riot, the market was humming.

At Cider Riot, he made a broad range of ciders, but was an evangelist for dry, characterful examples. “I was hoping to get people to appreciate dry ciders,” he said. “I wanted them to understand that cider isn’t just this sweet, fizzy thing. I wanted them to know that good cider is made from cider apples just like good wine is made from wine grapes.” He loved making converts, “We had a lot of people say, ‘This is the first cider I’ve enjoyed.’”

His best-selling ciders were made from dessert fruit, but his first love was the ciders made of traditional apples—which he sourced from Foster’s White Oak orchards. Among them were single-varietal ciders and his award-winning 1763, named for the year of the eponymous riots that inspired the name. In 2017, 1763 won a medal at Bath and West, a prestigious English competition (three of his other ciders have also won). “To get those ciders recognized at Bath was meaningful to me,” he said. “To get those judges, who know so much about cider, to recognize ours was a big accomplishment.” Like any cidermaker, Abram wanted to sell his cider, but he also wanted to educate people about its potential.