Cider Spotlight!
Potter’s Makindu
$14.99 for the 16oz four-pack cans
Coffee Liqueur Barrel-Aged Hard Cider with Mangoes, Rose Hips, and Kenyan Black Tea
Potter’s Craft Cider is no stranger to doing good. Though they focus on local causes, just recently they and some amazing friends took the opportunity to broaden their reach.
One hundred and fifty miles southeast of Nairobi on the Nairobi-Mombasa Highway is the small town of Makindu. Now to give some background, it’s hard to understate the level of death and social and familial disruption caused by AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. UNAIDS reports that of the 22 million AIDS deaths worldwide, 80% of those have been Africans. UNICEF says that AIDS kills more people on the continent than all of the armed conflicts in all of its countries put together. That much death has left a lot of orphans and a lot of children born with the HIV virus. Kenya, specifically, has suffered so much that there’s more than one road nicknamed “the AIDS Highway,” as people have carried the virus up and down them. The Nairobi-Mombasa Highway is one such road.
These horrors are why 25 years ago, a nurse/aid worker in Makindu found some kids living in a railroad car and started bringing them food and supplies. Fast forward to today, and the Makindu Children’s Program (based in Oregon) provides food, education, home placement services, and medical care to over 550 orphaned and at risk Makindu children. Some years ago, MCP board member Michael Farley reached out to longtime friend and local reggae artist Mighty Joshua. As a result, Mighty Joshua (now also an MCP board member) produces Makindu fundraising events here. As part of his efforts, he reached out to Tim Edmond and Dan Potter of Potter’s Craft Cider (also his friends), and thus, this April saw Potter’s Craft Cider co-host (with the Catering Outfit) the first annual Braai for Makindu.
Oh … and Potter’s made a cider for the effort, like ya’ do.
The Makindu is actually a blended cider, ‘cause that’s the kind of do-gooding cider superpowers these guys have. First Potter’s ferments Gala, Golden Delicious, and Honeycrisp apples. They then take that cider and age it in coffee liqueur barrels for a year. Meanwhile comes the wicked left hook of the their one-two cider punch! They make a second cider out of Empire, Pink Lady, Stayman and Golden Delicious apples. To this batch, they throw in mangoes during fermentation. They then combine these two ciders with the power of rose hips and Kenyan black tea for the Makindu!
As strong as Potter’s cider powers are, the Makindu is the Queen of Understatement. It really makes you work to identify all the flavors, so subtly are they applied — a hint of lurking mango here, an edge of coffee there. Still they’re all part of the experience of this well-balanced cider. Of course, a portion of the proceeds go to the Makindu Children’s Program. Cider-Man! Cider-Man! Doing as much good as a cider can!
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