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The long-promised bottles from Virtue Cider, the Michigan-based cidery founded and run by former Goose Island brewmaster Greg Hall, are now available at local bars and restaurants. The company has started with Sidra de Nava, a Spanish-style cider that they released this summer, and the recently released Percheron, a farm cider aged for six months in French oak barrels with brettanomyces, a wild yeast. Other releases will follow in bottles over the next several months; I’m particularly looking forward to the Mitten, a cider aged in bourbon barrels that’ll be available in December, and Lapinette, a Norman-style cider aged in French wine barrels that comes out in April. I’ve read that their Cidre Nouveau is now available, but I haven’t seen it yet. Last month, Virtue sent me samples of their first two bottle releases, and I finally got around to trying them last night.
Julia Thiel writes about booze on Wednesdays.
