Corvallis’ 2 Towns Ciderhouse just released the 2019 vintage of its Serious Scrump, its imperial English cider, and the company sent two bottles to me for review. This is an 11% ABV cider made with “ice juice” — here’s what the cidery says in the press release:

In quintessential 2 Towns fashion, Serious Scrump takes the traditional English ‘scrumpy’ style and gives it a Northwest twist.

Historically, scrumpy ciders are made with a blend of random apples leftover from the harvest (or stolen from orchards in some cases). The resulting cider is usually a strong, dry cider adored for it’s utilization of otherwise wasted apples.

2 Town’s modern twist takes a similarly eclectic blend of high acid Northwest apples, pressed before freezing the juice. Then, slowly over the course of several days, the intensified ‘ice juice’ is drained out, leaving a frozen slushy of water crystals behind. The resulting high sugar, deliciously rich ice juice provides a boost of apple character and the fuel needed for the English yeast to reach that “Serious” ABV!

It’s essentially an ice distilling process but also reminds me a bit of the ice/dessert wine making process, though in that case grapes are left on the vine to freeze and concentrate the sugars.

At any rate, it’s a big cider and I’ll post a review soon.