Virtue Cider Debuts New Lapinette Cider
By Chuck Sudo in Food on Dec 12, 2012 8:00PM
Photo: Chicagoist/Chuck Sudo
Good things, as the saying goes, come to those who wait. Virtue Cider hosted a preview party at Lula Café Tuesday night to celebrate the release of its second cider, Lapinette.
A unfiltered French Norman style cidre brut, Lapinette is fermented with saison yeast, is aged in French Cabernet Franc wine barrels and, like RedStreak before it, will be available only as a draft selection across the Chicago area. Where the English style RedStreak seemed rushed to market (but got better as spring morphed into summer), Lapinette comes across as a fully realized beverage, with an amazing flavor on the palate and a dryness comparable to established bruts like Etienne Dupont Cidre Bouché. Continuing on the path of making beverages that pair well with food, Lapinette perfectly complemented the passed appetizers, cheeses and desserts prepared for the event by Jason Hammel’s and Amalea Tshilds’ crew.
Virtue’s Greg Hall said he’d like to keep it that way for the time being before dropping a holiday surprise: Virtue’s ciders may soon be available in bottles, but only at the company’s cidery and farm in Fennville, Mich. Hall and his partners in Virtue have been working for months to transform the farm into a working cidery and orchard. (Retail sales of Virtue cider in bottles is still at least a year away.)
Hall also offered some details on Virtue’s upcoming winter release, The Mitten. Named after the shape the state of Michigan appears to some, this cider is aged in 12-year-old Heaven Hill bourbon barrels. These and other locally produced ciders are going to go a long way toward breaking area drinkers' penchant to ordering Woodchuck and Woodpecker when they want a cider.