Orondo Cider and jams and ...

By Dan Wheat, World staff writer Monday - September 20, 2004

ORONDO — Stop in at Orondo Cider Works and you’ll find more than cider.

There’s apple cider donuts made fresh each morning, espresso made from Pura Vida coffee, jams, jellies, apples, vegetables in season, bird houses, state souvenirs and Washington State University Cougar Gold cheese.

This fall, there will be pumpkin donuts and there’s convenience items, including milk, frozen pizza and Hispanic foods, including Ranchero cheese, tortillas, Jarritos soft drinks, salsa, Mexican vanilla extract, Mexican cookies and tostadas.

But the main thing is the cider.

Now that his daughter, Allison , is back at WSU, Chuck Podlich is cider master again. He will press more than 200 gallons each Saturday this fall. That weekly number sometimes drops to 100 gallons in winter, spring and summer.

“Tree Top goes to great length to make their juices the same every time,” Podlich says with a smile. “I say theirs is never great but always the same, and ours is never the same but always great.”

Podlich figures he can say that since he’s a member of Tree Top Inc., the Selah-based apple and pear processing cooperative known for its juices.

Podlich — it’s a German name pronounced Pod-lick — owns the cider works and accompanying orchard with his wife, Sharon, and mother, Priscilla. It’s a family operation, involving the couple’s four daughters.

The building is a bright-red, barn-like structure 10 miles north of Orondo at the entrance to the residential community of Sun Cove off Highway 97. The Podlichs opened it a year ago in August. They made their first cider at the end of last September.

The business is another example of direct consumer sales that farmers are using to boost their incomes.

Podlich says it’s working — that they grossed $45,000 their first year, just $5,000 below their target. It was enough to pay their loans, operating expenses and have a little left, he said.

Owning his own little cider mill was a dream of Podlich’s ever since his junior year of college in Bath , England , where he watched hard cider production. Later, he was smitten with a cider-donut operation in Michigan .

He grew up in Maryland . His wife grew up in Vermont . They’re both 49. They met at the University of Vermont in Burlington . He graduated with a degree in plant and soil science and she with a degree in psychology.

They moved to Orondo in 1979 and bought their first orchard the next year, an interest driven by his studies in horticultural-related sciences.

They own 88 acres of apple orchard, lease an adjacent 40 acres and manage another 100 acres of orchard down the highway.

Some two years ago, they decided the time was right to plan their cider works. More vacation homes had gone in at Sun Cove and Bauer’s Landing and the Desert Canyon Golf Resort was doing well.

The Podlichs’ “passion” is to be a “top-notch fruit stand and cider producer.” But the key, they say, is targeting more than tourists.

By offering convenience store items, fresh produce and gifts, they try to have a little something for everyone — for the tourists, the locals, seasonal residents and commuters. Their seasonal produce includes sweet corn, lettuce, spinach and carrots from Quincy and places farther south.

But they say they’re the only place they know of for miles where the public can regularly watch cider being made. They hope that makes them a destination.

Apples from cold storage, or fresh in the fall, are chopped and ground into a slurry that’s pressed in a 10-layer rack and cloth press. The cider that comes from 2,000 pounds of pressure in the press is refrigerated and then put through ultraviolet pasteurization.

The cider is a blend of their own apples — Ginger Golds, MacIntosh, Gala, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Braeburn, Fuji, Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Winesap and Staymen, named for Staymen Flats just north of Sun Cove on the Chelan County side of the Columbia River.

In the summer, they enhance the taste of “tired” cold-stored apples with their summer blend, which includes pie cherry, cranberry and lemon juice concentrates.

Their cider is sold at a half dozen other outlets: Smallwood’s Harvest in Peshastin, Summersalts and the Stemilt Retail Store in Wenatchee , Bear Foods and Local Myth Pizza in Chelan and Sun Mountain Lodge in Winthrop .

Only a percent or two of the Podlichs’ apple crop goes to cider. The rest is sold commercially through Chelan Fruit Co.

“I’ve been really pleased at how well we’ve been received,” Sharon says. “It’s exciting to have people come in and taste our cider, especially little kids who think mom is just pushing it on them and they taste it and say it’s really good.”

People come up from Sun Cove in the early morning for coffee and donuts.

“One lady rides her horse and buys him a cider,” she says. “He drinks it, but he keeps his thoughts to himself.”

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At a glance

Name: Orondo Cider Works

Location: Highway 97 and Sun Cove Road , 10 miles north of Orondo

Opened: Aug. 26, 2003

First-year cider production: 7,500 gallons

Orchard and cider works employees: 41 (many seasonal)

Annual payroll: About $500,000

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— Dan Wheat, World staff