Jared Fackrell isn't a cider snob, but he does care a lot about cider.
However, until he took a family vacation to the Finger Lakes in Upstate New York in the summer of 2016, he didn't have much exposure to the world of cider beyond the national brands carried in the grocery store.
“Toward the end of that trip, we happened upon a cider house,” he says. “I ended up being completely floored by how different all of these ciders were, and how they were drinking more like white wine, and had really complex tasting notes. I was completely struck by how different this was than anything I'd ever tasted before that'd been called cider.”
“I was completely struck by how different this was than anything I'd ever tasted before that'd been called cider.”
From there, his interest grew. He began to develop a passion not only for drinking cider and the culture surrounding it, but for making his own as well.
“One thing sort of led to another after that,” says Jared. “I figured out how to make it, built the equipment to process the fruit, broke all that equipment multiple times, rebuilt it, etcetera, etcetera. I just sort of ran with it, and here we are.”
Now, Jared is on the cusp of opening his own cider business: Capitol Cider House. It has been a labor of love, built on an ethos of sustainability, locally‐sourced ingredients, and the desire to create an accessible community gathering place.