Gabe Cook - Ciderology: From History and Heritage to the Craft Cider Revolution

My name is Gabe and I am The Ciderologist. I am passionate about cider and perry and rather magnificently I have become one of those lucky people who has turned a passion into a profession.

M y story starts in a bucolic corner of England, not too far from Wales, in the county of Gloucestershire. This area is unspeakably pretty and is emblematic of classic, soft, intimate English countryside. This is an interwoven fabric of rolling hills, old orchards, grazing meadows, streams, woodlands and copses.

It is this place that I refer to as The Shire. Maybe I call it this because it exudes a Hobbiton-esque beauty and rustic nature? Or maybe its because the people of this area are rather short and have unnaturally hairy feet? The Shire is not a defined area; its not rooted in modern geopolitical boundaries. Its a landscape, a heritage, a culture; where old customs and a slower pace of life can still be found.

I was privileged, therefore, to have grown up in the village of Dymock, a settlement of pre-Roman origin, right in the heart of The Shire. Dymock is most famous for the vivid yellow carpet of wild daffodils that is rolled out by Mother Nature in the woodlands, uncultivated meadows and hedgerows surrounding the village every March. This scene is most memorably captured by the famous American poet Robert Frost who lived in the village for a time in his poem The Road Not Taken.

The village of Dymock has a long-standing heritage of orchards, cider and perry. It is the only village in the UK (or maybe the world? Come on, someone prove me wrong!) to have an eponymous cider apple, perry pear and plum variety.

My love of nature and landscape, combined with some high-level map reading and colouring-in skills, led to a geography degree at the University of Leeds. Returning back to The Shire one summer I went to see what a proper cider farm looked like and so I visited Broome Farm, home of the Ross-on-Wye Cider & Perry Company, and met legendary cider maker (and now dear friend), Mike Johnson. I emerged from the cellar some two hours later with one large grin, two rosy cheeks, three voluptuous cider cakes and nine bottles of perry and cider (as well as an elder brother to drive me home drink responsibly folks!).

The Shire: its a landscape, a heritage, a culture, where old customs and a slower pace of life can still be found.

The idyllic village of Dymock, in Gloucestershire a place of wild daffodils, timeless poets and someone who talks about cider for a living.

Some years later after graduating, working in a dead-end job and undertaking my first lap of the planet, I went back to Broome Farm, where I was promptly offered the opportunity to help Mike make cider. The role even came with accommodation. It was billed as a timbered chalet among myriad fruit trees. In reality it was a shed in the garden. But as a 23-year-old, who had spent the whole of the year living out of a sleeping bag that smelled like the inside of a packet of dry-roasted peanuts, The Shed was bloody perfect.

It was a privilege to work for Mike, learning by his side the skill of the process, the knowledge of the fruit and the subtlety of the blending. Of greatest significance, Mike encouraged me to make a perry from the last tree on Granny Joyces farm in Dymock. I know that my Grandad Bill who died before I was born had picked fruit from this tree, and so had generations before him.

While grubbing around on the floor, picking up these pears, I had an epiphany that would change everything. I could see so very clearly how cider and perry was at the crux of everything I was passionate about: local history, wildlife, culture, traditions and ancestry. An incredible sense of place and connection to my landscape and my forebears flowed over me. I had found my calling. I knew that cider and perry was the path for me.

A year later, Westons Cider, the UKs fifth-biggest producer, and handily located in the nextdoor village of Much Marcle, kindly knocked on the door and offered me the opportunity to be their Assistant Cider Maker. So, I went from making cider in 200-litre (53-gallon) oak barrels to 200,000-litre (53,000-gallon) stainless steel tanks. Gulp.

However, after two years on a steep, but immensely satisfying, learning curve, I had come to realize that I gained more satisfaction from, and was probably better at, talking about cider than making it.

So when H P Bulmer Ltd, the worlds largest cider maker, based in Hereford, England, asked if I would like to be their Cider Communications Manager, I jumped at the chance. Yes, I got paid for talking about cider, and I did so, very happily, for three years.

The highlight of my tenure in this role had to be when I had the opportunity to present a bottle of cider to Queen Elizabeth II as part of her Diamond Jubilee tour in 2012. The moment passed in the blink of an eye, but I do seem to remember Liz being a little bemused/perplexed/frightened by the whole experience.

I then took a slightly different tack. Having travelled there in 2006, New Zealand held a fascination for me (amazing geography), and I had a long-standing ambition to live and work there. So I decided to apply for a visa and, bugger me, they let me in! Two years of subsequent cider making and wine making was not only a fabulous learning experience but also the facilitator to a wonderful way of life and the source of many a rip-roaring anecdote.

But, once again, like an unremitting siren, The Shire sang out to me and I returned back to its cidery bosom. When I was offered the chance to talk about cider for the biggest voice of all the National Association of Cider Makers it was too good an opportunity to turn down.

But in my heart I knew the path to cider nirvana. I needed to strike out on my own, and so The Ciderologist was born. It is my place, my voice, my raison dtre a way to champion and advocate this great drink and great tradition by shouting about it from the rooftops.

People often to say to me, Whats your hobby? Ideally, Id like to respond by saying that Im the bass clarinetist in a particularly funky acid jazz ensemble, or that Im an origami master. But that would be fantasy. The fact is, for me, cider is all-consuming. Its my hobby, my job, my passion. And its great. I wouldnt change a ruddy thing.

The Shire in all its glory.