Cuyler:
My mother remembered a farm produce stand up on Hector Street before where the big curve started, on the east side of the street (right side on the way up the hill). She didn't remember a cider shack per se (maybe it wasn't the kind of place she would know about).
My grandfather bought an old farm out on Bone Plain Road (out past the West Dryden Community Center) that had a small (maybe 5 acre) pond formed by a man-made dam. There were apple trees all over the property, especially on the downhill side of the dam. The locals were known for making and consuming a type of mead called metheglin from their apple cider. From what I've learned on-line of that brew it sounds like it is a little too sophisticated for Bone Plain Road.
I remember hearing stories about burying a jug of cider in shallow hole in the ground, letting it ferment. The non-alcoholic part would freeze, and the concentrated alcohol part could be drained off. Here's a link that discusses the process, even makes reference to Ithaca, NY: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=8711
Bruce
________________________________
From: The Louis Sullivan Smiley-Face Listserv! on behalf of Cuyler Page
Sent: Sun 3/25/2007 1:56 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [BP] Grandma's alcohol condom
Bruce,
Good question, because the streets are so close there, but I'm pretty sure
it was on Cliff Street (96 North to Trumansburg), about a short quarter mile
up the hill from where they later constructed that awful spider form where
several streets come together. The original layout of streets arriving
willy-nilly and unaligned at the base of the hill worked quite well with a
few STOP signs, lots of cooperation and common sense, and no traffic light
until the traffic engineers went to work to make the area "efficient" and
not only messed up the aesthetics and voluntary social cooperation, but also
made for a stupid ugly use of land.
Those wooden car park spots and garages on rotting stilts were another
childhood amazement, especially when I began to study structures. Along
Taughannock Blvd. here they served lakeside homes and cottages, they seemed
a necessary risk considering the joy of having your house beside the water
way down below. But the car decks off of Cliff Street, I could never
understand, unless it was related to the useless land being so cheap that
even stupid people could afford to live there.
When will heritage restoration also include restoration of ways of life,
like unregulated cooperation at street crossings?! Here in BC, there is a
massive convergence of traffic leading to the north end of a major antique
bridge (Lions Gate Bridge) to downtown Vancouver. Various highway control
strategies were attempted over the years, usually to the consternation of
drivers, and the final result is back to original, a totally uncontrolled
and voluntarily cooperative blending of many lanes into one or two. It is
said to now be North America's largest uncontrolled intersection, and it is
wonderful to watch the careful and continuously harmonious interlacing of
cars from all directions. It also encourages the practice of patience,
surely an important HP quality.
cp in bc
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Marcham" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2007 6:12 AM
Subject: Re: [BP] Grandma's alcohol condom
cp:
Are you talking about Rte. 96 heading up to Trumansburg (Cliff Street), Rte.
79 heading up to Mecklenburg (Hector Street), or one of the side streets
that go up West Hill (like Elm Street)? It sounds like Rte. 96 which is
carved into the rock for the early part of the grade, causing the structures
on that road to have small parking lots or garages perched on the edge of
the hill. I always wonder what faith in structures it takes to park a car in
a wood frame garage with its back half on stilts (like may of the cottages
on Rte. 89 have, many of which look like they are sliding down the hill).
I will be having dinner this evening with some of Ithaca's historians and
will try to ask if they know the building.
Bruce from Washington Park, Markles Flats
________________________________
From: The Louis Sullivan Smiley-Face Listserv! on behalf of Cuyler Page
Sent: Sat 3/24/2007 1:56 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [BP] Grandma's alcohol condom
My brother and I were introduced to the liquid wonders of the apple by
natural cider from the Cornell University Orchard. After a family outing
to collect drops (cheapest price) in the orchard, my mother always wanted to
take home a couple of bottles of fresh cider. Being an "expensive" treat,
it was carefully rationed; but after a few unrefridgerated weeks, we kids
would discover that the second bottle was happily right for a special tingle
on the tongue and an embarrassed laugh from my father who didn't want us to
know anything about the "evil of drink". Generally, if my brother and I
found it first in the new state, our parents would politely say that they
would "take care of it" and it would disappear from sight.
For many years there was a ancient cider mill half way up West Hill on the
way out of Ithaca. A small industrial mill from the old days, its wooden
floor emitted and odour only a cider mill knows. When the shaggy mossed
board building hanging on the edge of the steep bank below the old highway
finally disappeared to development, my childhood self knew something was
wrong in the world. I loved the building, but I could never understand why
anyone would have chosen to build on that impossible spot, especially
because it was such a popular place with the tiny parking space filled and
next to impossible to negotiate. It seemed like a horse and buggy
left-over, but why half way up and half way down that steep hill was a
childhood mystery. It was certainly among the most inexpensive properties
in town and definitely on the "wrong" side of the tracks. Always filled
with large gritty faced older men, the implication seemed to be that there
was something slightly criminal about the place, combined with being in a
"bad" part of town. My lily white family only went there when the Cornell
Orchard shop had run out of cider, and if possible, my dad would make the
trip alone. When we kids were along, we were never allowed to linger in
that picturesque antique place and look at the machinery or ask questions.
Any of you Ithaca "townies" know anything about it?
Here in the West, there is nothing that resembles the "Cider" of the East.
The "Apple Juice" available everywhere is a bland stuff, and I don't mean
just about the lack of alcohol. The fresh pressed cider is just sweet apple
juice with none of the fresh tang of cider. Does it have to do with the
apples or the process?
cp in bc
in orchard land but not cider land
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gabriel Orgrease" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 7:14 AM
Subject: Re: [BP] Grandma's alcohol condom
>
>>The Best Drink I Ever Had
>>
> LOL! Inadvertent fermentation must be nice like found art!
>
> ][<
>
> --
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>
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To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
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