“The apple is such an amazing fruit—it’s unpretentious yet sophisticated,” says Alex Wilson, the cofounder of Wayside Cider in the Catskill Mountains of New York. “In a way, it’s kind of like America: At its best, it can be exquisitely beautiful, but at the same time it doesn’t need to brag about its own beauty.“

It’s funny to hear Wilson, a genial Brit with a crop of russet hair and a faint chin scruff, offering up a toast to a hardy homestead fruit that’s so closely linked with the founding of his adopted country. After all, in America’s early days, the cider made from apples gave colonists a measure of independence from Europe, providing an easy means to quaff booze when beer meant expensive imports of hops and barley.

But for Wilson, the rugged American appeal of the apple goes hand in hand with his own sense of New World adventure and exploration. Wilson is an avid outdoorsman and hiker who first moved to New York City in 2008, and soon fell in love with the wooded charm of Upstate New York. He teamed up with a business partner, Irene Hussey, to found Wayside in 2013, producing a small collection of ciders that incorporate crates of wild apples they forage and collect on their many ambles through the mountains. “Here you have these historical houses and farmsteads that have been abandoned, but the trees are still there and producing fruit,” he says. “It’s so exciting to me to see apples in an environment that’s been left alone by man.”

Wayside’s ciders are dry, peaty, and aromatic, with a brisk bite—nothing like the syrupy, back-carbonated commercial ciders you find in six-packs at most supermarkets that taste more like fizzy Juicy Juice. The company’s three offerings—the Half-Wild, a mixture of dessert and “feral” apples; the Dry Town, a mildly tannic blend made with crabapples; and the Catskill, with its prickly effervescence and oaky notes imparted via aging in salvaged bourbon barrels—have become something of a grail at some New York City bars and restaurants, and have even been featured at boutiques like Colette in Paris.

Cider, you could say, is having a years-long moment. In 2015, New York City saw the opening of the bar and restaurant Wassail, a veritable cider library for the cider nerd, and this fall Brooklyn will get its own cidery and tasting room from Peter Yi. And about three hours northwest of the city, Wayside is opening a tap room, restaurant, and performance space on October 15, serving up simple plates incorporating the best of Catskills produce, meats, and cheeses.

All of this is to say that it’s easier than ever to find complex artisanal ciders—both at your local bar and in wine shops—but this fall, why not try making your own at home? Across the country, apple-picking season is well under way. If you don’t feel like baking a dozen apple pies or strudels or making applesauce, try your hand at fermentation. The process boils down to a few steps: Grind and press your apples into juice, add sulfites (SO2) to kill off the native yeast, add champagne yeast to start primary fermentation, age the cider, bottle it, and enjoy.

EQUIPMENT