Julien St-Jean
Shawville Sept. 5, 2021
Throughout the weekend, Fair-goers were welcome to attend lessons in apple-crushing from Greg Graham of Coronation Hall Cider Mills.
As part of the demonstration, Graham invited audience members up to help crush apples with a replica 19th century cider press. The volunteers – often youths – washed apples from Graham’s orchard before dropping them into the cider press, crushing them and collecting the resulting juice.
After an “ooh” and an “ah,” the juice was ready to drink. Children poured little cups of juice and passed it out to the adults and among themselves.
“It actually tastes like apple,” said Graham. He added that the juice doesn’t use artificial sweeteners, but instead gets its flavour directly from the apples themselves.
“It’s really good, definitely recommend,” said Ben Judd. “Surprisingly, it was sweet and sour. It was fun and rewarding that you got to try it.”
Graham explained that the act of preparing your own juice used to be commonplace in the Pontiac.
“The Pontiac used to grow a lot of apples back in the day,” said Graham. “About 120-years-ago, almost every farm in the Pontiac had an orchard. It’s a type of farming, just a little different.”
More information can be found at www.coronationhall.com
