Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T L Y M O N T A N A F A L L | 2 0 1 4 2 6 Gal I knew that dusting off a Ball jar of appl• in winter would be a savory memory. I pop off the lid and smell the moment when I picked the fruit in the honeyed sun of autumn. The slow dripping of sum- mer into fall caught in the syrup. I pour the apples into a cobbler pan and recall a warmer season amidst the snow banks and shrill gales of winter. I fancy myself a modern pioneer, you see. In an age when immediate gratification at the lowest price possible drives our food system, waiting six months for a bottle of wine is a bushwhacking both back into time and forward into America's emerging "slow food" culture. So I head east down Frontage Road to Rocky Creek Farm, just outside Bozeman. My friend, Anna, and I spend the afternoon harvesting straw- berries under a hot July sun. That evening, I mash the fruit with the bot- tom of a Ball jar in a large plastic bucket. I add Camden tablets and pectin enzyme and leave the substance to settle for a couple of days. Meanwhile, Anna and I sip cider at the newly established Lockhorn Cider House in downtown Bozeman. Across the street is an old warehouse; next to the outdoor patio a front yard garden grows. The garden belongs to Lockhorn's creators, Glen and Anna Deal. They moved into their yellow stucco home and renovated the cinderblock garage next door into a sunny and sophisticated cider house. Lockhorn is the urban resurrection downtowns across the country crave — a rebuilding of the city's heart, instead of sprawling out across the land. What was once a stale garage is now a living structure, pumping handcrafted cider into glasses for sipping. It is now a place to catch up with an old friend, to have a first date, to come read a book in the lull of an afternoon. It is a place to slow down for an hour or two and enjoy the subtle tastes of hard cider. Those subtle tastes, I learn the next day, take four months to culti- vate. Glen gives me a tour of Lockhorn, first showing me the three giant cylinders one sees when ordering and paying for drinks in the front room. Here, in the three-thousand gallon capacity, primary fermenters, sweet cider is mixed with yeast and yeast nutrient and sits for 10 days to ensure a healthy start to fermentation. crafTing fruiT Wine & cider By kelsey saTher Cider samples at Lockhorn Cider House Anna with bucket of Rocky Creek strawberries The BiTe Learn to make wine from peaches and pears. go to: www.distinctlymontana.com/wine144 DISTINCTLY MONTANA | DIGITAL

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